Environmental Ethics -- fair share for the non-human?

[MikeNovack]

You're asserting that capitalism and socialism have no effect, relationship, or connection upon governmental environmental policies and ethics?
You're asserting that capitalism and socialism have no relevance to ... fair sharing?
I think you could be wrong about that.

They have a great deal to do with "fair sharing" between humans. But that is not what THIS TOPIC is about.

Also true that for both capitalism and socialism the IMMEDIATE causes of environmental problems will have capitalist or socialist causes respectively. But that is true of everything that is going on in a capitalist or socialist system. Immediate causes are not root causes.

And although a matter for elsewhere, "free markets" are separate form the capitalist vs socialist debate. Both can have "unfree" markets and both can have free markets << think about the non-state forms of socialism >> (yes I understand IC, you don't want to use the term "socialist" for these which is perfectly OK as lonmg as you relaize we are using the term differently)

[Walker]

Immediate causes are not root causes.

You must mean root causes such as inherent morality such as fairness, and its relationship to intellectually derived ethics, which is central to what you don't want to hear.

Do you have the capacity to orchestrate a fair share of diverse and relevant participation for this enviroment, maestro?

[Impenitent]

acorns are root causes

acorns grow roots which turn into trees

trees cause happy squirrels

hoarding acorns leads to disgruntled squirrels

and the acorn stashing squirrels do it to themselves

consequentialism at its finest

-Imp

[MikeNovack]

Look, I tried to start the "environmental" section with precisely the question "why is "environmental justice" considered by SOME supposedly in the environmental movement an "environmental" question rather than a "social justice"issue.
<< by environmental justice" issues we mean things like the costs or damages form environmental problems shared fairy BETWEEN PEOPLE >>

So please take it there ((IT WAS UNDER ETHICAL THEORY, not applied) It is a matter of "politics" within the environmental movements.

[Immanuel Can]

Look, I tried to start the "environmental" section with precisely the question "why is "environmental justice" considered by SOME supposedly in the environmental movement an "environmental" question rather than a "social justice"issue.
<< by environmental justice" issues we mean things like the costs or damages form environmental problems shared fairy BETWEEN PEOPLE >>

So please take it there ((IT WAS UNDER ETHICAL THEORY, not applied) It is a matter of "politics" within the environmental movements.

We haven't even established that "environmental justice" is a real thing. How do you know we owe the "environment" anything at all, let alone some particular "justice"? You've said it's an attenuated personal application from tikkun olam. Maybe that works for some Jewish people, provided they aren't asking you too many questions about how you got that. But it doesn't work for the rest of us, so you have to give us some grounds to think the question is even reasonable.

[MikeNovack]

We haven't even established that "environmental justice" is a real thing. How do you know we owe the "environment" anything at all, let alone some particular "justice"?

Stop being an ass. The term "environmental justice" has nothing to do with justice for the environment. It is about unfair sharing BETWEEN PEOPLE the damage, burdens, and costs of environmental damage or the costs of repairs.

Now go to the topic (under Ethical Theory)

It is a POLITICAL matter within environmental organizations and red-green (supposed) alliances. "See, I'm working for the environment because I'm working for environmental justice" THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. You just ASSumed "environmental justice" was about justice (or anything) for the environment because it sounds like it should.

[Immanuel Can]

We haven't even established that "environmental justice" is a real thing. How do you know we owe the "environment" anything at all, let alone some particular "justice"?

The term "environmental justice" has nothing to do with justice for the environment. It is about unfair sharing BETWEEN PEOPLE the damage, burdens, and costs of environmental damage or the costs of repairs.

How do you know we owe that? Why should I, if I'm some industrialist, "share" the damage, burdens and costs of environmental damage? I can get rich, and others can bear those things. Why shouldn't I? Who will say no to me? What is their authority to do so? What proof can they give me that I owe anybody anything?

[Walker]

Look, I tried to start the "environmental" section with precisely the question "why is "environmental justice" considered by SOME supposedly in the environmental movement an "environmental" question rather than a "social justice"issue.
<< by environmental justice" issues we mean things like the costs or damages form environmental problems shared fairy BETWEEN PEOPLE >>

So please take it there ((IT WAS UNDER ETHICAL THEORY, not applied) It is a matter of "politics" within the environmental movements.

What is the non-human in the thread title?

Are you saying that to be ethical, perhaps take half of a resource and leave the rest for the next guy to take?
Leave half the gold?
Isn't the next guy, human?

Don’t take it all, boys.
Be environmentally ethical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcZP0qYNDQc

[Walker]

Yes, that has worth. Teach it young and it sticks.
Row row row your boat has many applications to whatever's happening now.
Offshoots wither when leaves don’t fit the plan.

*

This link is also relevant to the Philosophy of Making Good From Bad, environmentally, which could easily be the bumper sticker for World Peace in general for humanity, but such relevance is mostly in a broad sense, although I wouldn't say very broad.

Everyone wants peace in their world, whatever defines one's world's boundaries.

This has been described as a theoretical, ethical, topographical map for moving forward when external elements stymie intent, before it was written.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_vkKoz ... rt_radio=1

[MikeNovack]

We haven't even established that "environmental justice" is a real thing. How do you know we owe the "environment" anything at all, let alone some particular "justice"?

The term "environmental justice" has nothing to do with justice for the environment. It is about unfair sharing BETWEEN PEOPLE the damage, burdens, and costs of environmental damage or the costs of repairs.

How do you know we owe that? Why should I, if I'm some industrialist, "share" the damage, burdens and costs of environmental damage? I can get rich, and others can bear those things. Why shouldn't I? Who will say no to me? What is their authority to do so? What proof can they give me that I owe anybody anything?

Oh, you want now to discuss whether we humans owe justice to each other? I am prepared to argue that, but again should not be HERE. Your continual dispruption of threads is annoying to say the least.

But as to "who will say no" --- perhaps me with a gun (originally with a club, fire hardened spear, hand ax, etc.) . My authority depends on whether I can defeat you in battle. WE ARE OBLIGATORY SOCIAL ANIMALS. Remember elsewhere I am arguing that we have "morality" because we have to know how the others in the group will respond to our chocie of action. We need that knowledge in order to decide. I need to know (if I take more than my "fair share") how the others will respond and then judge if I have sufficient power to withstand that likely response.

[Immanuel Can]

The term "environmental justice" has nothing to do with justice for the environment. It is about unfair sharing BETWEEN PEOPLE the damage, burdens, and costs of environmental damage or the costs of repairs.

How do you know we owe that? Why should I, if I'm some industrialist, "share" the damage, burdens and costs of environmental damage? I can get rich, and others can bear those things. Why shouldn't I? Who will say no to me? What is their authority to do so? What proof can they give me that I owe anybody anything?

Oh, you want now to discuss whether we humans owe justice to each other?

In regard to the environment. I'm on topic. So don't dodge, just answer.

WE ARE OBLIGATORY SOCIAL ANIMALS.

Whence this word "obligatory"? We're not "obligated" by anything obvious to owe anything to anybody. That's not at all a given. It's "survival of the fittest," remember? We evolved to the present state by being the most developed, and letting all the less fit die behind us. It's how evolution is supposed to work, throughout the environment and among all animals, including man; and it's supposed to produce progress.

So that attitude, that disposition, that dynamic is said to have brought us this far: why shouldn't we continue to "dance with the one that brought us"?

Meanwhile, I hesitate to point it out, but a weak argument can't be strengthened with the caps lock key. It doesn't become self evident merely because one types more fiercely. You have to have reasons to say it, if you insist we have obligations to each other and/or through the environment. So what are the reasons?

[MikeNovack]

WE ARE OBLIGATORY SOCIAL ANIMALS.

Whence this word "obligatory"? We're not "obligated" by anything obvious to owe anything to anybody.

STOP IT! You know damned well that I was using "obligatory" in its realistic dense, not its moral sense.

Orangutans are not social animals , let alone obligatory social animals. Female orangutans are able to raise their children usually without help*

Humans are social animals. In fact all members of the genera Homo and Pan are social animals, so presumably the last common ancestor was also. Not only social animals but obligatory social animals. Unable to survive living alone, not for long.

Some social animals are obligatory social for reproduction, but can survive on their own, in spite of imitations. Wolves would be an example of this. A lone wolf can survive, though limited to smaller prey. But it takes a pack to successfully rear wolf cubs (or bring down large prey animals). THAT is the big "fitness challenge" for the wolf couple attempting to establish their own pack. Can they get a cub or two to survive to be able to join them ? << wolf packs are actually multi-generational families >> Once they have some grown children to help, raising a litter of cubs becomes easier.


* It is believed the evening "calls" by the males is to let females know where he is going to bed down for the night. Then if they are being harassed by a large predator, she can go there to get some rest/relief from having to guard her child constantly.

[Immanuel Can]

Whence this word "obligatory"? We're not "obligated" by anything obvious to owe anything to anybody.

STOP IT! You know damned well that I was using "obligatory" in its realistic dense, not its moral sense.

Then you're confused. What you need is to prove moral obligation. You need to show that there's some reason for your exhortation that people "owe" or "are obliged for" something from the environment to each other, or obligated to the environment itself. So far, I'm not seeing you've got anything on that.

Humans are social animals.

Utterly irrelevant. Chimps are "social animals," and they cannibalize each other. Their females are indiscriminately promiscuous, mating with anything they can get. Male chimps kill unwatched babies, so as to force the females back into estrus. Periodically, they form cabals, defeat their leader and tear him limb from limb. Where are their ethics?

The fact that you find gorillas in whoops, wolves in packs, ducks in rafts, minnows in schools, or bacteria in colonies does not go even one step toward implying they have moral obligations to each other, far less that they owe each other something from the environment.

But you know that. You're trying to distract from the question you can't answer. Show us that we have an "ethical" duty to provide some kind of "fair share" to/"for" "non-humans." We're philosophers here: we don't believe you, unless you give reasons we should believe.

[MikeNovack]

a)Then you're confused. What you need is to prove moral obligation. You need to show that there's some reason for your exhortation that people "owe" or "are obliged for" something from the environment to each other, or obligated to the environment itself. So far, I'm not seeing you've got anything on that.

Humans are social animals.

b)Utterly irrelevant. Chimps are "social animals," and they cannibalize each other. Their females are indiscriminately promiscuous, mating with anything they can get. Male chimps kill unwatched babies, so as to force the females back into estrus. Periodically, they form cabals, defeat their leader and tear him limb from limb. Where are their ethics?

c)The fact that you find gorillas in whoops, wolves in packs, ducks in rafts, minnows in schools, or bacteria in colonies does not go even one step toward implying they have moral obligations to each other, far less that they owe each other something from the environment.

d)But you know that. You're trying to distract from the question you can't answer. Show us that we have an "ethical" duty to provide some kind of "fair share" to/"for" "non-humans." We're philosophers here: we don't believe you, unless you give reasons we should believe.

a) You are insisting (out of place) to discuss what you consider morality --- an "obligation" once knowing the right or wrong choice of action to DO "the right thing". I am not I am using the term "morality" for the KNOWING which is which. We are not constrained to do so, buT being a social animal requires knowing (and so being able to predict the actions of the others in the group in response to our choices, if they know them)

b) Are you suggesting that the other chimps don't know? Are you suggesting that P. troglodytes morality would be anything like ours? Are you in fact seeing something completely unrelated to how WE behave?

c) By "social animals more is meant than found in groups. Some of those are, and some not, example of social animals. But please refer back to "a". You will see am not using n"morality" that way. I don't "owe" to my fellow human that I know "morality". However were I a person they perceived to act randomly (random choices) in disregard of how they were going to respond they probably would consider me severely defective.In theory even our laws distinguish between a person knowingly choosing to do the "wrong thing" and one who does not know.

d) No, you are. Take the discussion you seem to want to have about "what is morality" to an appropriate thread. If you persist in trying to repurpose threads I will start responding IGNORE.

[Immanuel Can]

We are not constrained to do so, buT being a social animal requires knowing (and so being able to predict the actions of the others in the group in response to our choices, if they know them)

So? One can predict, and then use that prediction to kill and destroy. Prediction does not settle the question of what is "fair" or what one owes to anybody else.

b) Are you suggesting that the other chimps don't know? Are you suggesting that P. troglodytes morality would be anything like ours? Are you in fact seeing something completely unrelated to how WE behave?

I'm merely pointing out that the mere fact of animals gathering in groups does not imply anything at all about their duty to behave morally. They don't. And if we do, why do we? And if we don't, why don't we have to?

You know what the question is. You also know you have no answer. That's why you're rushing so desperately to barge past the question and get onto details, having already taken for granted (you hope) so that nobody notices you have nothing to stand on.

But you can't tell people they owe anybody or anything else any "fairness" or a "share" if you don't say why you think they have that moral responsibility. So far, you haven't said.

So why should anybody agree to talk about "fair shares"? Maybe things are fair as they are, for all you know. Or maybe there's no such thing as "fair," so far as you know. Unless you can say how you know there is, of course.