Nature in an Episode of the Popular

Nature

In an episode of the popular television show The Simpsons, Lisa tries to talk Mr. Burns into developing environmental awareness. The unlikely duo picks up discarded cans, bottles, and other recyclable materials. On the beach one day, Lisa finds a plastic six-pack holder with a live fish caught in one of the rings. After telling Mr. Burns that six-pack holders are potential death-traps for small animals, she frees the fish and tosses him back in the water. No sooner than the fish hits the surface of the water does a large shark sails up, grabs the fish and ends its life by eating it. This story illustrates part of John Stuart Mill's philosophy of nature: nature cannot teach us how to live. On the one hand, Mill states that following nature is unavoidable because natural law dictates all human action. On the other hand, nature, with all its beauty and splendor, is essentially cruel. Weather phenomenon and natural disasters wreak havoc on living creatures; animals fight bloody fights and kill each other with wanton cruelty. This Simpsons episode proves that "nature cannot be a proper model for us to imitate," (180). Throwing the fish into the sea only resulted in its demise, the opposite of what Lisa intended. While following nature remains a romantic notion, Mill is correct in stating that nature is not a proper role model. Following nature is a lofty ideal but one that would result in amorality.

Moreover, to follow nature would also negate free will. According to Mill's first definition, nature is "what takes place without the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man," (178). This would imply that nature governs and dictates all human actions and creations. We have no free will, no choice but to follow nature. However, Lisa acted with total free will, and contrary to natural law.

No other animal would have rescued the fish from the six-pack holder; there is no natural force that could or would have helped the fish except human intervention. Therefore, Lisa Simpson understood that nature must be respected but not imitated. She acted with moral conscience; nature in the form of the shark acted with self-serving and amoral instinct.

Ironically, Lisa consciously attempted to follow nature through environmental activism. Environmentalists often appeal to a back-to-nature philosophy to encourage people to respect the earth's natural resources. However noble environmentalism is, nature still remains a poor role model. Environmentalism must include working against, rather than with nature. On several occasions in his essay, Mill refers to bridge-building as an ultimate example of how humans often and inevitably need to work against nature. Were humans to completely follow nature, we would have no books, no advanced tools, and no jewelry, let alone television, radio, or computers.

Similarly, people who are interested in protecting endangered species or eliminating greenhouse gases must work against nature in some way. Introducing wolves into national forests to control deer populations in a prime example of how humans work against nature in order to help improve nature. This is the same irony expressed in The Simpsons episode. Respecting and honoring the beauty in the natural world does not require that we follow nature.