The Land Ethic

In Ecology of a Cracker Childhood Janisse Ray’s outlines an important aspect of the land ethic, that being the need to connect with one’s environment, regardless of what it may be. She reveals how place is an essential part of her identity, which suggests that her idea about the Self extends beyond an abstract pile of character traits and moves identity into something more concrete (place), but still equally complex. By doing this, Ray implies that we should have an instinctual desire to avoid damaging or destroying those places that connect so intimately to ourselves. In the text, she points to how early Southern settlers ignored what should have been an reciprocal relationship between themselves and the land (using as a resource, but avoiding apocalyptic damage), but instead used the land without thinking of it as a part of themselves, of their own lives and histories. By including sections (set off by the pinecones) that outline the extensive damages caused by people, she indicates how dangerous that disconnect between the land and the human identity can be for, most obviously, the land, but also for the people themselves. Ray reflects on the absence of this connection in father’s childhood and the possible ethical and personal limitations that caused within her father, writing, “Suppose someone had found my father the boy and said, If you look closely, you will find palmetto bugs hardly bigger than apple seeds, and their iridescent black shells are walking onyx…Suppose. What then?” (216).

With that in mind, exposure to this connection seems to be the most important, if not the simplest, way to instill a commitment to preserving and ensuring the health of the land/environment. I can relate to Ray’s grounding of environmental ethics in the childhood memories that reveal the role of place in identity, but in more of a typical way. Growing up on a small farm allowed me to explore and appreciate nature in more of a subconscious way. I realize now how this naturalized connection to the land and to animals greatly influenced how I understand environmental issues. I also can see how even the simple interactions with nature (like Ray’s fascination with the pitcher plant) can naturally, if not dramatically, shape the environmental ethic to be less human-centered.

Ethical Perspectives: holism and utilitarian

I find the holistic ethics perspective most appealing, as it uses a systems approach to gauge what is morally acceptable. Although my understanding of ecology is fairly basic, I see how an ecosystem orientated ethics can grant moral standing to the land in more scientific terms, which might be appealing to people hesitant to accept that nature has that inherent value. This perspective also neatly integrates the human into the systems framework, allowing for added commitment to ensuring that we do not destroy any piece of the system that has proven vital to our own survival. Holism seems like a more functional perspective that allows for human use of natural resources so as long as those removals do not interfere with the system’s function. Some human practices already seem to use the basic framework for this perspective. For example, biological or organic styles of farming appear to be holistic ethics in practice, as each farming method works to maintain the health of the soil, water and land while still acknowledging that those resources can and should be used.

But to me this perspective does not provide any certainty on what are the best possible ecosystem conditions. The perspective might rely too heavily on simplifying the complexities within ecosystems and the additional complexities of the interrelationships between each of them. Determining moral action or where to grant moral standing might be difficult without fully considering all these factors, yet even that might not lead to a correct understanding given that quantifying “good” is difficult in this model. That lack of measurement might be a barrier to determining how the system functions best for the greatest number of organisms, which begins to sound like eco-utilitarianism. In some ways, I think the non-anthropocentric perspective is more clear in definition and application than the holistic approach, as plants and animals are simply granted moral standing similar to a humans status and thereby must be treated according to the same ethical standards. Using a more structured framework that has some clear principles could be best in developing an ethical perspective that appeals to a greater number of people. 

The perspective that I find most frustrating is the utilitarian. That simple measurement, “the greatest good for the greatest number of people,” seems to dilute the importance of developing an ethical perspective that acknowledges the complexities in making moral decisions. Not only is this perspective completely human-centered, but in contemporary application it also avoids granting any sort of “value” beyond what is quantifiable, even if that component (e.g. air and water pollution) clearly relates to human beings. The perspective adopts a cost-benefit analysis that undercuts the relevance of other, not easily measured factors such as the future costs of pollution or the externalities of burning fossil fuels. In this way, determining the “good” has largely been a process reliant on data or “facts” that might not be comparable to other ways of measurement, like pleasure, which immediately causes an action’s supposed consequences to lack an important dimension.