Ecological Ethics

[Philosophy Now]

Tim Madigan asks, what is the right attitude to take to all life?

http://philosophynow.org/issues/88/Ecological_Ethics

[Lynn]

Sometimes taking actions for the benefit of the whole of life can bring unexpected and drastic results:

Taken to its extreme, the Gaia principle could be used to justify the extinction of those species that cause untold suffering for other species. The whole of the living world – Gaia itself – might benefit by the removal of certain of its constituent parts. This outlook is best expressed in a chilling poem by the occultist Aleister Crowley (which he ironically entitled ‘The Optimist’):

Kill off mankind
And give the Earth a chance.
Nature may find
In her inheritance
Some seedlings of a race
Less infinitely base.

Perhaps worth a read in conjunction with the PN article as a precursor to Crowley's poem - From Civilization to Big Brother: how a game recreated Orwell's 1984 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksbl ... NTCMP=SRCH