Aristotle shows up in Ecology 101

(The second in a series of exclusive interviews with the great philosopher)

Following up our first, history-making interview with Aristotle ("An Interview with Aristotle", http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-with-aristotle.html), we've brought The Man back to get his reactions to some startling and revelatory recent developments in practical reasoning. They are so fundamentally important and now so well understood and widely accepted by our best thinkers, that they are ensconced in the basic texts of our finest academies. We are talking about nothing less than bringing mathematical precision to practical reasoning — particularly when it comes to reasoning about our environment. Because now, we can put a precise value on places and decide which to keep and which to, well, trash.

H: Welcome back to helioskiagrablog, Aristotle.

A: Whoa, man, did I hear you right?

H: Well, yes. Take a look at this: Robert Constanza's study on "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital" (http://www.uvm.edu/giee/publications/Nature_Paper.pdf) is the centerpiece of the first section ("What is Ecology?") of the first chapter ("Why and How to Study Ecology") of P. Stiling, "Ecology: Theory and Applications", 4th ed. — the text for Ecology 101 at Stanford University. This is nothing less than the list of what we should and should not value in the world's ecosystems -- and even more incredibly, exactly how much value we should place in pretty much every single hectare on the planet.

A: Let me take a look at that.

H: Sure, here's the scorecard: Swamps 19,580/Deserts 0.

A: Wow, swamps kick ass.

H: Yeah, who would have known?

A: Hey, the ones with crocs might even eat ass. Hah! Ok, Alexander the Great would have laughed at that. And that's 19,580 what?

H: That's $19,580/hectare/year.

A: In other words, more drachmas than I ever earned teaching at the Lyceum. You know that was pretty much the Stanford of my day?

H: Yeah, well, Stanford professors don't do much better. But those swamps might do even better on the scorecard if it weren't for all those bloody mosquitoes.

A: I would imagine so. Even so, they're doing way better than the deserts in the ecosystem value sweepstakes.

H: So what do you think, Aristotle?

A: Let me see if I get this straight. Swamps of just a few hectares are worth a whole lot more than any Stanford professor. So you might suppose that you should treat them (the swamps, I mean) with a lot of respect. On the other hand, deserts are places full of nasty flora (have you hugged your teddy bear cholla lately?), and even nastier animals that wouldn't hesitate to sink their fangs into your toes. Of course the snakes are the ones with fangs; a gila monster does just fine with its lower teeth. But in any case, a desert isn't worth even a buckaroo; zilch; nada; zero. So, you may think, there's just no need to consider these places when we decide what to do. We might as well pave it over (and I hear that greater Phoenix, AZ is doing a pretty good job of that), have fun plowing it up with our ATV's (and I hear that there are a lot of folks doing that in Arizona and Utah, for example), or for goodness sake, at least dump our radioactive and other toxic wastes there (how about Nevada?) It would be worth at least something, then. Right?

H: Mr. A, you sure catch on fast. Maybe we could get you a job at Stanford. It might pay better than the Lyceum.

A: But there's more, right? Remember that so far as I could tell, practical reasoning is fundamentally inexact compared to, say mathematical reckoning, so...

that the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of navigation.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics", Bk. II.2, tr. W.D. Ross (http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/aristotle/nicomachean_ethics/book02.html)

That would mean that we moral agents would have to develop and use forms of practical reasoning that admit no formula to weigh the multiple and complexly interrelating and conflicting interests, duties, and implications for our own character. That's a pretty scary prospect for us moral agents to face. But Constanza and his buddies say, "not to worry" -- least of all when the environment's at stake. Deserts are worth exactly nothing. They're never "appropriate to the occasion" — any occasion, when considering how to act. And all other landscapes and seascapes demand a degree of consideration proportional to the value of the goods and services they provide. There's nothing more precise than that — a precise calculus for computing decisions of policy and individual action. Conflicts? None. Just add up the values and you have THE answer — a complete ordering of all the alternatives that you can imagine, with just one sitting at the top. Pretty satisfying, huh?

H: Really?

A: Sure, deserts ... and let's see, tundra, too. Constanza says tundra has zero value. Thumbs downville for the tundra, man. Might as well turn all that useless, treeless, mosquito-infested bog into oil fields. A few oil derricks would at least give some eye relief. And glaciers — zero goods; zero service value; so might as well chop them up into ice cubes and throw into the ocean to cool it down. Good fix for that pesky global warming, I would think. Think of the anxiety relief. No more worries about cooking the planet with fossil fuels. Now surely that's a good.

H: Are you sure?

A: Of course -- at least until someone commissions a brilliant Stanford ecologist to figure out how to do a study that convinces us that deserts and tundra and remote ice fields perform some other valuable services for us. Of course, those kinds of places would have a long way to go to beat out those nifty swamps. Those swamps are something else, aren't they? Let's see, according to Constanza, they regulate gases, disturbances, and water; they treat all the waste that our consumptive habits produce so, thank Zeus, we don't have to curtail our consumption; they are habitat refuges, albeit for some creatures of dubious reputation; and they produce food, are a source of raw materials, a fun place to spend a mosquito-filled day dodging alligators, and are part of our culture. Hmm, that last one is kind of interesting. Constanza says it comprises "aesthetic, artistic, educational, spiritual, and/or scientific values." Too bad neither deserts nor tundra nor ice fields have any of those values. Or maybe there aren't enough Stanford ecologists around to help us figure it out.

H: I don't know, Mr. A...

A: But even swamps ... think about it. $19,580/hectare/year. That's peanuts. Why, speaking of peanuts, RompInASwamp DevCo could fill it in with those packing peanuts — felicitously using some part of the enormous mountain of garbage that our consumptive habits create. They could easily fit at least 10 condos/hectare. With the nice landscaping for which it's famous, RompInASwamp would have folks lining up to pay $1,958/year in association dues in "Mangrove Manors" — completely covering the cost of the undeveloped swamp's goods and services. That irrefutably shows that the destruction of the swamp for Mangrove Manors is good. In fact, wouldn't that show that we're obligated to encourage it? Of course, part of the appeal would be RompInASwamp DevCo's environmental sensibility. That they would demonstrate by setting aside one plot for a community nature center complete with film footage and sound tracks of the birds for whom the swamp had been home or a stopover on a migratory journey. Air conditioned and mosquito-free (not to mention alligator-free), it would be far more appealing to just about everyone than the dismal swamp it was built on.

H: But Aristotle, we thought that you might have a different take on this.

A: Yes, well, back at the Lyceum, the reasoning that I've just sketched would have stood as an unassailable reductio ad absurdum — no further elaboration needed. But I see that times have changed. So I'll gladly stick around to explore what I would consider to be some critical questions: What kind of a person, what kind of people would destroy a natural place on the basis of this kind of reasoning? What kind of society would condone it? What kind of assumptions and accepted norms have we embedded in our social institutions that makes it "natural", even inevitable that people should appropriate swamps or any other remaining unclaimed place? Why is our society fundamentally stuck on the question of how we should use and manage the environment as a resource for any and all human preferences — rather than examining how we should manage our own behavior to best live our life and flourish as the sole ratiocinating species among 20-30 million others with whom we share our earth-home and its resources?

H: We'd greatly appreciate your helping us with that!

A: No prob. But first I think that I may need to quaff a pint at a local pub. O, "Immanual Kant was a real pissant..."

H: Ok, I think that Aristotle is off to bolster his spirits. But we promise he'll be back to tackle some of those tough questions. Hey, Mr. A, wait up...