Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and philosophical contributions

Environmental Ethics

There are few issues today more widely discussed and more controversial than the environment. The specter of global warming has taken the spotlight from other environmental issues, but these issues as a whole have been slowly gaining prominence since they were first raised several centuries ago. The duty, if any, that human beings bear to their environment -- that is, to this planet and the multitude of ecosystems on it that our actions directly and indirectly affect -- has been a major topic for debate, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. There are many different viewpoints on the subject, each backed by often incredibly passionate proponents. Many people at this point in time, if not most, agree that we as a species do have a huge effect on our environment and that we must take some responsibility to preserve nature. The preservation of untamed wilderness, especially, is a hot-button issue. There are a variety of opinions on whether this should be a priority, and on why, an almost all of these opinions come down to some form of human selfishness.

This might seem unfair, but in reality most human acts are done for the betterment of the individual or the species, and sometimes both. Acting in any other way would be nonsensical -- though some profess this belief, few individuals act in a way that suggests they would provide nature with a benefit to their own sever detriment (i.e., not many have died to save a tree). Still, there are some good selfish reasons for developing a system of environmental ethics. One such good selfish reason for preserving nature is the cathedral argument. Many cultures and individuals have found something sacred and/or holy about nature. Nature in its rawest forms can allow one -- or seem to allow one -- some glimpse of the act of creation, which is a profound religious experience. Others claim to feel a sense of rebirth, or of a return to some ultra-moral or even amoral state. In short, the cathedral argument maintains that nature provides a sort of religious sanctuary that cannot be duplicated, and as such it should remain as unsullied as any church or other religious edifice. Though the utility of nature in this view is entirely ethereal and in no way scientifically verifiable, it is this very unverifiable nature of nature that proponents of the cathedral argument wish to protect.

An almost entirely opposite argument for the preservation of wilderness is called the laboratory argument. As its name implies, this view sees nature as a laboratory, capable of giving humans insight into many branches of knowledge, including biology, medicine, genetics, and more. It is by definition impossible to reproduce any natural environment; there is now ay to create the raw and unplanned synchronicity that nature appears to have. Thus, each unique patch of nature that is destroyed is irrevocably lost, and any future knowledge or insights yet to be obtained along with it. The laboratory argument maintains that nature should be preserved for the wealth of information and knowledge it contains that cannot be found elsewhere once (and if) nature is destroyed.

The silo argument is similar to the laboratory argument, but it focuses on the tangible things nature has to offer -- not just the knowledge of medicine that certain plants can provide, but the plants themselves that are used to make the medicine. This argument acknowledges that though nature can provide many material resources, these resources are limited, and if they are harvested and/or utilized in such a way that prevents their steady regeneration -- that is, in a way that disrupts or destroys the natural processes surrounding the given material, be it plant, mineral, or animal -- they will be lost. Much like the knowledge that would be lost in the laboratory argument, the adherents to the silo argument fear the loss of vital and potentially life-changing resources that are known and posited to exist in various wildernesses. Such a loss would be irreversible, because the commodities available in natural wilderness are very often impossible to produce artificially.

Another good selfish argument is the gymnasium argument. Nature provides sources for physical recreation unlike anything available artificially; to achieve the same sights, sounds, and smells of a wilderness hike, one must go on a wilderness hike. Climbing a rock wall at Yosemite simply cannot be compared to climbing one at an indoor gym somewhere, and the unique recreational activities available in wilderness areas will be lost if the wilderness itself is lost. For some, this would be the weakest argument for nature preservation as it leads to no good outside of itself; for others this might make it the strongest argument. For still others, such as the great American thinker often credited with starting the Transcendentalist school, Ralph Waldo Emerson, all of these arguments are only partially correct, and they miss the major point completely.