Interspecific Ethics

What makes deep ecology deep? This is perhaps the most perplexing question about the much-discussed but little-understood deep ecology movement. Its spokespersons, who are mostly West Coast and Australian academics, all cite, with some degree of affirmation, Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess’s 1974 article, “The Shallow and the Deep Ecology Movement.” But nobody, not even Naess himself, still accepts the seven principles of deep ecology that were outlined in the original paper. There seems to be agreement, however, that the movement gains its unity and identity from a shared belief that nature has value independent of its uses for human purposes. To put their point critically, movement proponents all believe that our current environmental policies are in a profound sense “unjust” to other species. Most simply, the deep ecology movement has clearly defined itself in opposition to “shallow ecologists,” or as some of them put it less pejoratively, “reform environmentalists,” who are taken to include all of the mainline environmental groups. Deep ecology, given its self-proclaimed opposition to all “shallow” approaches, represents a modern version of the idea that environmentalists sort themselves into two broad classifications based on opposed motives. More precisely, we can understand deep ecologists’ characterization of two opposition groups as a theory intended to explain the behavior of contemporary environmentalists: Environmentalists pursue two opposed approaches to environmental problems because some believe, while others do not, that elements of nature have independent value. Some environmentalists, according to this theory, are interested only in conserving natural resources for future human use; others, deep ecologists, act to protect nature for its own sake. If indeed deep ecologists are offering such an explanatory theory, it is important to ask exactly what behavioral phenomena are to be explained: Do reform environmentalists pursue policies that differ significantly from those pursued by deep ecologists? Or do they pursue the same policies, but employ importantly different strategies and tactics in these pursuits? These two questions will be the subject of the next two sections, respectively. Along the way, we can also assess the strengths and weaknesses of the deep ecologists’ contribution to environmental goals.