Good point. “Deep ecology” gets media coverage because it’s extreme. (Although personally I think deep ecology and being vegetarian for moral reasons are practically identical. I don’t know why the latter seems so much more popular.)
I am a vegetarian for moral reasons, but I don’t identify myself as an advocate of Deep Ecology. (Incidentally, the Wikipedia page on Deep Ecology doesn’t mention opposition to technology as such.) I identify Deep Ecology with the view that the ecology as a whole is a moral agent that has a right not to be forced out of its preferred state. In my view, the ecology is not an agent in any significant sense. It doesn’t desire things in such a way that the ecology attaining its desires is a moral good, in the way that people getting what they want is good (all else being equal). There is nothing that it is like to be an ecology.
Individual animals, on the other hand, do, in some cases. seem to me to be agents with desires. It is therefore (to some extent, and all else being equal) good when they get what they want. Since I know of little cost to me from being vegetarian, I choose not to do something to them that I think that they wouldn’t want.
I thought of deep ecology as being the view (as expressed by Dave Foreman, IIRC) that humans aren’t the only species who should get a seat at the table when deciding how to use the Earth. That you don’t need to come up with an economic or health justification for ecology; you can just say it’s right to set aside part of the world for other species, even if humans are worse-off for it.
I wasn’t aware some people thought of an ecosystem as a moral agent. That sounds like deep ecology + Gaia theory.
Good point. “Deep ecology” gets media coverage because it’s extreme. (Although personally I think deep ecology and being vegetarian for moral reasons are practically identical. I don’t know why the latter seems so much more popular.)
I am a vegetarian for moral reasons, but I don’t identify myself as an advocate of Deep Ecology. (Incidentally, the Wikipedia page on Deep Ecology doesn’t mention opposition to technology as such.) I identify Deep Ecology with the view that the ecology as a whole is a moral agent that has a right not to be forced out of its preferred state. In my view, the ecology is not an agent in any significant sense. It doesn’t desire things in such a way that the ecology attaining its desires is a moral good, in the way that people getting what they want is good (all else being equal). There is nothing that it is like to be an ecology.
Individual animals, on the other hand, do, in some cases. seem to me to be agents with desires. It is therefore (to some extent, and all else being equal) good when they get what they want. Since I know of little cost to me from being vegetarian, I choose not to do something to them that I think that they wouldn’t want.
I thought of deep ecology as being the view (as expressed by Dave Foreman, IIRC) that humans aren’t the only species who should get a seat at the table when deciding how to use the Earth. That you don’t need to come up with an economic or health justification for ecology; you can just say it’s right to set aside part of the world for other species, even if humans are worse-off for it.
I wasn’t aware some people thought of an ecosystem as a moral agent. That sounds like deep ecology + Gaia theory.
“Moral agent” might not be their term. It more reflects my attempt to make some sense of their view.
Um … what?