The Human Relationship to Nature by Foster Matthew R.;

Author:Foster, Matthew R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

THE META-ETHIC OF THE CONNECTION ETHIC

In historical and cultural terms, the relatively recent coalescing of the Connection Ethic carries great significance. The apparent failure of human invention (embodied in the Progress Ethic) and of religious belief (embodied in the Stewardship Ethic) to offer an environmental ethic that was intellectually plausible and spiritually inspiring has for some time engendered the hope that a new Ethic, emphasizing reason, science and the idea of ‘the whole’ in which everything is interconnected, would succeed. The attractiveness of that hope to a great many people justifies a particularly close examination of the meta-ethic on which it is based.

That foundation is to be found in the redefinition of the value of each entity comprising the whole as something that is as objective, as intrinsic, and as equal as the value of every other entity. This value framework sets the terms for developing the rest of the Ethic, and can be capitulated in four questions and answers. First, what should we value? According to the Connection Ethic, we should value the whole, whereas the Stewardship Ethic replies that it is God’s creation that we should value. The idea of God’s creation is different from the idea of the whole in key respects, but also shares much with it, and the two can easily be confused. Second, why should we value this whole? Because it, and every constituent of it, has intrinsic value, whereas the Stewardship Ethic replies that we should value creation because God values God’s creatures. And third, how should we act to bring our valuing into agreement with the intrinsic value of everything? By subordinating what we perceive to be our good to the good of the whole, by choosing and acting in ways which bring our valuing into conformity with the objective value of the whole, instead of neglecting, contradicting, harming, or compromising that value, a goal that seems to share much with the Stewardship Ethic.

And finally, what is the purpose or goal of caring for the whole? By borrowing from this chapter’s earlier discussion of the Stewardship Ethic, we can condense and briefly ascertain part of the answer. Does protecting the whole mean to benefit the whole, to nurture or improve it? Or does it mean protect the whole from harm—and who else could that mean but from ourselves? Or does it mean to maintain the status quo, to keep things as they are, and not let them get any worse? Or does it mean restore things to what they were before humans intervened in a big way? Or does it mean to merely slow down the process of change by suppressing human opportunities to harm nature at the frightening pace we currently exhibit?

The answers here are remarkably similar to those discussed with regard to the Stewardship Ethic. And they can all be reduced to the following observation: All the actions we might associate with protecting the whole represent human preferences, and none of them can be tied to any purpose or meaning of nature as a whole, and apart from human purposes or values.

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