Aristotle takes up environmental virtue

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

[In his previous appearance, "Aristotle takes a closer look at natural capital" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/11/aristotle-returns-to-take-closer-look.html), Aristotle promised to suggest an alternative to natural capitalism for valuing nature. He returns to begin to make good on that promise.]

H: Good day, Mr. A. We understand that you've been reflecting about environmental values for quite a few days.

A: With great intensity.

H: That's easy to believe. You've certainly shown us how vexingly difficult this subject is.

A: I don't think that I've ever given my armchair a tougher workout.

H: None of that new new experimental philosophy stuff (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09wwln-idealab-t.html) for you, huh?

A: Indeed not. It's not until one's posterior has found its proper resting place that one's mind can, too.

H: "Posterior Analytics", so to speak?

An Old Man in an Armchair (Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn, late 17th c.)

A: Hah! One of my better efforts, wouldn't you say? But that work is all about demonstration and syllogism — the kind of thing that the chunking, counting, and computing econo-consequentialists like to do. As we've seen, "demonstrating" moral value by a theory that calculates it from first principles is not the right tool for the job of weighing the many complex and conflicting interests and demands on our moral attention. The econo-consequentialists produce moral non-sense with those tools. At least, that may give us the sense that that kind of neatly packaged theoretical guide to ethics is a chimera.

H: But surely, we can't ignore science. All the earth sciences, the biology of all of earth's creatures, and particularly ecology tell us so much about the natural world. How can our values float free from all this theoretical knowledge?

A: Hey, man, everyone focuses so much on my physics, astronomy, and cosmology that they forget how much sweat I put into my biological studies. I was pretty much the first one to do biology systematically and empirically. And I didn't just look at humans like those Hippocratic medical dudes. I looked at all kinds of creatures — animals and even plants: anatomy, physiology, reproductive behavior, embryology, systematics. Check out my piece on hectocotylization in cuttlefish in "The History of Animals" (IV.2 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.4.iv.html and V.6 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.5.v.html). That wasn't just damn good for its day. It took until 1959 for modern biology to catch up to it!

H: Yeah, you really are the guy with the theory of everything.

A: You bet. That's because science informs philosophy and vice versa. There's no separating the two. And science is particularly critical in understanding environmental values — perhaps more so than in any other realm of moral valuation. But it must be used properly.

H: How, if not by measuring value, or by calculating it — like those econo-consequentialists who sum and subtract utilities...

A: ... or the ones who find marginal utility at the intersection of cost and benefit curves? No, not that way. To understand the proper role of science in informing our understanding of environmental values, one must understand two dimensions of ethical evaluation.

H: Which are?

A: As I've written,

the work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics", Bk. VI.12, tr. W.D. Ross
(http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.6.vi.html)

H: Virtue and practical reasoning?

A: Exactly. In practice, neither is prior to the other, though our explanation must consider them in sequence. Let's do that for environmental values.

H: Ok, shoot.

A: First we determine what kinds of environmental virtues or excellences are essential for, indeed constitute human well-being. We ask ourselves, "What kind of person do I want to be — should I be — insofar as I am that kind of animal that I am, a human animal with a rational soul, operating in a natural world? What kinds of attitudes and habitual ways of acting should I develop — to the point that I adopt and practice them with an ease devoid of any felt resistance, reluctance, or burden — that conduce to my flourishing in the environments in which I find myself?"

H: And the other, "practical reasoning" part?

A: That's what I call "phronesis".

H: Phronesis?

A: Yes. The wisdom that guides us in finding the specific actions for our specific circumstances in a way that improves our well being. As a result of this kind of practical deliberation, we develop attitudes and habits that are a starting point for further deliberative action. But attitudes and habitual behavior alone never suffice or ensure continued well being. We are never anointed "excellent" in this way or that, whereupon we flourish forever after.

H: I suppose you might say that such a person would have succumbed to the vice of sloth, or at least, laziness. I guess that it's no different for environmental virtues.

A: Not different at all. In matters environmental, we never stop needing phronesis to find how best to continue to develop and express our various environmental excellences in balance with themselves, as well as in balance with other excellences that are characteristic of those who live well. Don't forget friendship, for example (remember what we said in our first session (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-with-aristotle.html)?; and there are many other virtues, as I discuss in my "Nichomachean Ethics".

H: But you make it sound as though phronesis is just another virtue.

A: A virtue is precisely what it is! But not "just another" one. Phronesis is, in fact, the intellectual virtue that enables us to deliberate and find those acts that express, in a balanced way, the many excellences or virtues that are part of living well.

H: So let's get back to the role of science in this.

A: Well, if there are two dimensions to moral evaluation, then one might think that there are two possible ways to apply scientific or theoretical knowledge to it.

H: Are there?

A: Perhaps there is some role for science in phronesis. But I believe that the overwhelmingly dominant role of science in environmental morals is to help us understand various kinds of environmental virtue and their characteristics — not in precisely defining an algorithm for the deliberative processes that we use to arrive at decisions about how best to act in a particular case.

H: Don't the econo-consequentialists have it backwards?

A: I think so. They maintain that we have a phronetic algorithm. We arrive at the right act by deducing it from first principles of economic science — perhaps the principle of maximizing welfare, or perhaps the principle of efficiency, or perhaps some other, similar principle. For them, that is the sum total of deliberation— a stick figure version of phronesis, at best. One can view the econo-consequentialist's mistaken supposition about how science informs moral values to be the root cause of their distorted and contorted results.

H: That's a really helpful insight. But then, how does science help us define environmental virtues?

A: That, my friend, is an ideal place from which to launch a general enquiry into the nature of environmental virtues.

H: Why is that, Mr. A?

A: We don't really need science to understand how our flourishing is interlocked with the flourishing of our friendships and the people that we befriend.

H: I suppose not.

A: And so it is with the other virtues that I discuss in my "Nichomachean Ethics". It's even true that many environmental virtues are variations on virtue themes that I explored in my "Nichomachean Ethics".

H: I guess that shouldn't be surprising.

A: Still, some of the most important environmental virtues and their salient characteristics cannot be well understood — their huge moral significance cannot be appreciated — without the help of the sciences that show how our flourishing is interlocked with the flourishing of the natural world. The twin sciences of ecology and evolution are particularly important. In fact, for some environmental virtues, the tie to ecology is so strong that we might call these "ecological virtues" — with the caveat that we understand this as a reference to how we come to realize the nature of this category of environmental virtues, not a reference to how one should be an excellent ecologist.

H: Ok, so let's start with some of those ecological virtues.

A: Consider first our place in the history of the planet earth, only home we have — our connection as a species to the past extending back before H. sapiens existed, and extending out to the future beyond the time when H. sapiens goes extinct.

H: Science certainly shows us that no species is a permanent fixture on our planet.

A: I have it from good sources (Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), pp. 137-167) that the average lifetime of a species is between 5 - 10 million years. Mammals stick around for up to 13 million years. So let's be outlandishly generous to ourselves and give H. sapiens an unprecedented 20 million years. Even if we acknowledge archaic varieties of H. sapiens that might have emerged 300,000 or more years ago, or take the starting point to be that of the genus Homo (of which we are are the sole surviving species) as much as 2.4 million years ago, let's suppose that we have a good long run ahead.

H: But not forever.

A: Not forever. Our species came upon the scene sometime in the very recent geological past. There is no scientific reason not to expect that it will exit the scene sometime later, if not sooner, in the very near geological future. We are extraordinarily adaptable, but not infinitely so.

H: I suppose that we would have had a tough time dealing with the methane-rich atmosphere of geological times past...

A: ... as one example.

H: So what does that mean for environmental value?

A: With this relatively new knowledge of our species' place in earth history comes our understanding of our connection to our ancestors — the creatures from which we evolved and from whom we inherited the kind of place, or really, places (for it changes constantly), that the earth was for them at various times through prehistory. It gives us a sense that we, too, may be ancestor for some one or more species that descend from us. And, even if we are to be the last species of the genus Homo, then it still gives us a sense of ourselves as ancestral keeper of the the place that will be home for whatever species survive our departure.

H: So, if I may paraphrase: Science teaches us that we have a biological and geophysical heritage; and that we shall leave a similar legacy — even if there is eventually no species to propagate the human genome or whatever genome that evolution transforms it into.

A: A quick study you are. And this understanding of geological and species history suggests our first environmental virtue — a certain, scientifically informed sense of honor — for the creatures and places that engendered us, for our human ancestors who, whether consciously or unwittingly, left enough intact for us moderns to connect to more ancient times, for the fellow creatures that made it with us to this point of geological time, for human descendants who deserve to make the same connections and whose ability to do so depends on our behavior, and finally, to our descendants and the kind of place they will inherit and inhabit.

H: What kinds of places do you have in mind?

A: Think of places like the canyonlands of the Colorado Plateau. They are a storehouse of the history of creative forces pre-dating the Cambrian explosion of fauna around 530 million years ago, at the very start of the Proterozoic Eon. A place like that connects us to the forces that resulted in who we are, where we are.

H: I didn't know that you've had a chance to make it out there.

A: There's only so much wear and tear that my armchair can take over 2300 years, you know.

H: You sure don't hear economists talk about anything like that.

A: The value of our natural heritage is horribly distorted when viewed as a neatly chunked and counted stockpile of goods in a warehouse right now. Rather, it is, in part, the value of something — a planet and the creatures that inhabit it — with a history that is responsible for our genesis, and with a history that, if we demonstrate this kind of environmental excellence, will engender creatures beyond the end of human history.

H: You said something about our fellow creatures. Would you say something more about them?

A: Yes. In fact, I would propose a second environmental virtue that focuses on them.

H: What would that be?

A: A sense of honor, but also sympathy for fellow organisms that coevolved with us and that now share our home. Once again, our science is indispensable in understanding the degree to which they share with us a common genetic heritage, and with that, similar needs, drives, desires, and limitations. The conservation of genes among creatures that appear wildly different to human sensibility makes this impossible to ignore. Perhaps it's not too surprising that only 1.6% of human and chimp genes differ, though almost all genes in each species has a counterpart in the other. It may be more surprising that, despite 75 million years of separate evolution, only about 300 genes — less than 1% of the 30,000 possessed by mouse — have no obvious counterpart in the human genome (The Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium, "Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome", Nature, 420 (5 December 2002), p. 521, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6915/full/nature01262.html).

H: Holy mole.

A: No, mouse. But it's probably not much different for moles. And that shouldn't surprise. Mouse and human both must have what it takes to be a terrestrial mammalian vertebrate on this particular planet. Or, as a computational biologist would put it, the conservation of genes reflects functional constraints on the existence of a terrestrial mammal (Thomas, J.W., et. al., "Comparative analyses of multi-species sequences from targeted genomic regions", Nature, 424 (14 August 2003), pp. 788-793, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v424/n6950/full/nature01858.html) If we go to D. malanogaster, the common fruit fly, we still find only 40% of its genes differ from human's. But that much similarity is part of what it is to be a terrestrial animal of any kind on this planet. To focus on the differences in our fellow creatures and to view as limitations differences from humans, is to ignorantly overlook our own.

H: Wow, Mr. A. You've really must have been boning up on science in the last 2.3 millennia.

A: Remember, I was already doing some damn good work in my day.

H: Yeah, I remember that cuttlefish work. it's a shame you couldn't have gotten that published in "Nature".

A: Now that would be something — seeing my work right alongside the stuff by Constanza, Pimm, and those natural capitalists. Hey, speaking of the devil, did you hear Constanza honking his natural capital panpipes on NPR's "Marketplace" last Wednesday (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/02/natural_resources_value/)? Why don't those NPR troglodytes put me on with him?

H: Maybe they don't find many people in their target audience who speak ancient Greek. But we'd be happy to lend them our babelfish translator.

A: No matter — especially since recent science is generally changing our perspective on our place in the natural world. And the changes in perspective demand changes in how we view our moral character as actors in it.

H: So you're saying that, in a certain sense, our understanding of our moral character keeps pace with our scientific understanding?

A: Yes! For example, think of the pre-human state of New Zealand where, in the complete absence of terrestrial mammals (except for two herbivorous fruit bats), flightless, ground-nesting birds flourished. When the Maori's colonized the islands, they introduced mammalian predators, such as dogs and Polynesian rats (which are known to enjoy scrambled eggs and a hatchling or two for breakfast); they appropriated the habitats of these animals; and they themselves hunted them intensively. According to Rodolfo Dirzo and Peter Raven,

The colonization by humans of the Pacific Islands eastward and northeastward from southern Asia resulted in the elimination of some 1000 species of birds over a period of about 1000 years in this area alone—about a tenth of the world total that existed before the Polynesian colonizing voyages took place. Studies of these islands suggest that about half the species present when humans arrived have been preserved as fossils and that they and about an equal number of unknown species were lost as a result of human activities.

Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), p. 153

H: They were incredibly destructive! What does that say about their moral character?

A: They could not have understood the moral significance of their behavior in the way that science now enables us to do. Given their innocence, we cannot assess their character in the same way that we do ours.

H: So there's a kind of co-evolution of scientific understanding with our understanding of human excellence...

A: ... and a co-evolution of how we assess a person's moral character. But I think it undeniable that science now demonstrates our close connection with other living things. And this allows us to see the lack of excellence in the character of a person who nowadays would casually and even ignorantly behave in ways that help sustain the 6th and possibly most devastating of the great mass extinctions in the 545 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon. Surely, honor and sympathy for other creatures is an environmental excellence that requires of a person that she find ways of living that avoid helping to destroy the legacy of creative forces that tie our existence to theirs.

H: What does that imply for our behavior?

A: At this point, there's are no major mysteries about how we impinge on the well being of other creatures. We appropriate all the land for our own, species-narrow purposes. We change the climate beyond the adaptive capacities of other creatures. We introduce alien animals and plants into biomes in which they did not evolve, and which are subsequently simplified and degraded. We introduce unprecedented amounts of nitrogen into habitats as airborne industrial pollutants and as agricultural runoff that change completely how many ecosystems work — to the detriment of many organisms who thrive on their efficient use of nitrogen. And we spew unprecedented amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere. Aside from the effect on climate, this wreaks havoc in habitats in which plants use different metabolic pathways with differing efficiencies, to assimilate that gas. (Sala, O.E., et. al., "Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100", Science, 287 (10 March 2000), pp. 1770-1774, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5459/1770)

H: Ok, I get it. So there we have a second environmental virtue rooted in science.

A: Yes, "rooted" is a good way to put it. Our recognition of these kinds of environmental virtues is not dictated by, or deduced from science. Rather, the science provides a deeper, richer, more interconnected picture of the world that's tied to its past as well as to its future. How we act, on a stage so transformed, is not surprisingly transformed in moral significance. On this stage, previously hidden parts of our moral character are revealed.

H: You've identified two ecological virtues, so far, Mr. A. Are there any more environmental virtues that you'd call "ecological virtues"?

A: There are. Consider how recent science has given us a newfound appreciation of natural systems as comprising an impenetrably complex sustainer of all life, including human life. It runs according to an inextricably entangled and complexly interacting web of rules that play out over time spans that range from the near-instantaneous to geological. This is not some kind of pre-scientific obeisance, but a knowing acknowledgment. That acknowledgment helps us recognize some more environmental virtues, including perhaps some of the most critical ones.

H: What would they be?

A: I would liken the rules by which earth's natural systems operate to a kind of constitution for all that exists on earth. Like a constitution, it is a foundational framework with subtly counteracting forces. But this one is prior to all other frameworks — including political constitutions — because only it is only within it that everything constitutive of any life, let alone a flourishing human life, is possible.

H: So what should we make out of that?

A: Let's consider how we regard our political constitutions.

H: Ok.

A: Pop quiz.

H: Oh no! I thought I was doing ethics, not political science.

A: A completely arbitrary distinction, in my judgment.

H: You didn't pop quizzes on your students at the Lyceum, did you?

A: Heraclitus in Hades, yes. It's a long-standing academic tradition that I see is alive and well at Stanford. But don't worry. I'll give you a big hint for answering my question.

H: Ok, shoot.

A: In what salient respect do constitutions of state mimic some important basic properties of natural systems that we've just mentioned?

H: Hint please?

A: History! Connections! Continuity (not sameness) with the past and future! We've shown how static inventories don't properly capture environmental value. What is a preeminent historical significance of a constitution?

H: Well, at least a successful and long-lived one would embody a kind of political or cultural wisdom that binds us to persons in our society that preceded us, and to those who will come after.

A: Excellent! A constitution is the time-spanning connective tissue of a society. In part, a state's constitution defines the rules of change for a society in a way that permits it to adapt and change itself without damaging or necessarily changing the very rules that make it possible. Speaking of Heraclitus, I have my differences with that crazy dude. But he'd be pretty sympathetic with this notion of a political order. He saw human society as a cosmos like the natural cosmos, with its underlying order reflected in its laws.

H: Ok, I think that I can buy that.

A: In fact, I would say the the very identity of a state is bound up in its constitution:

since the state is a partnership, and is a partnership of citizens in a constitution, when the form of government changes, and becomes different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer the same, just as a tragic differs from a comic chorus, although the members of both may be identical. And in this manner we speak of every union or composition of elements as different when the form of their composition alters; for example, a scale containing the same sounds is said to be different, accordingly as the Dorian or the Phrygian mode is employed. And if this is true it is evident that the sameness of the state consists chiefly in the sameness of the constitution, and it may be called or not called by the same name, whether the inhabitants are the same or entirely different. It is quite another question, whether a state ought or ought not to fulfill engagements when the form of government changes.

Aristotle, "Politics", III.3, tr. Benjamin Jowett
(http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html)

H: So really, you can't change a state's constitution without changing, or really destroying that particular state.

A: Of course, for a state, there's the possibility of creating and adopting a new constitution after abandoning or significantly altering the current one.

H: But that sounds pretty risky, doesn't it?

A: Emphatically agreed. Suppose that a constitution promotes the flourishing of its citizens through its articles. Suppose that those articles effect a delicate balance of positive and negative feedback for its citizens that guides them to behave in ways that conduce to their individual and mutual well being. Then it would be risky, indeed, to alter that balance. It is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate how a change in one article or another will change the point of balance.

H: And a lot is at stake.

A: The entire state and all its citizens. But not just now; and not just the well being of a single citizen.

H: I suppose that's why successful constitutions contain provisions that make it very difficult to change them.

A: That is so. And much the same is true of the "constitution" of the natural world. One cannot cherry pick the "articles" that presently seem convenient to keep in place while ignoring ones that may lately appear somewhat inconvenient.

H: Aren't there differences between the constitution of a state and the "constitution" of the natural world?

A: Of course: The framework and fabric of the natural world is not a contract in the social sense, not a human construct of any kind. It is there before our very eyes, though sometimes only immediately evident to our best scientific experts — as embodied in the various creatures and their habitats, as they have come through the last 4.5 billion years. And of course, violations are subject to the rule of natural, not human law. But insofar as it is a vital framework for our well-being, insofar as it is a framework that unites us with all that came before us and all that will follow, insofar as it is a framework that has created the only kind of home that we humans have ever known, insofar as it is evidently an arrangement of delicate balance that is easily upset — we owe it the care and respect that we owe to socially constitutive frameworks. That ecological wisdom and the respect it should engender is, I would say, a third ecological virtue.

H: Boy, that's a lot different from thinking of the natural world as a resource for getting all the stuff that we want at the lowest possible cost.

A: I would say, a world apart. In fact, our third environmental virtue has several corollary virtues that may further distinguish our approach.

H: What do you have in mind?

A: I would suggest that the kind of wisdom and respect we've just discussed has also a certain elements of courage, restraint, and humility.

H: How do you mean?

A: The natural creativity that we've been discussing is something mostly outside of human control. In our environmental wisdom, we know that it is inimitable. It is far to complex and impenetrable to imitate, let alone to duplicate or to substitute for. As we have observed, while it created the human species, it almost certainly will also destroy it.

H: That's pretty scary.

A: It's extremely scary. I would say that it takes tremendous courage to understand this, and yet strive to keep these natural creative forces alive and healthy in the earth's ecosystems.

H: Even though we also know that, in fact, we flourish in this advocacy.

A: Even so. I would identify this kind of courage as a fourth environmental virtue.

H: I would have thought of that as a kind of restraint.

A: I think that's involved, too. We can intervene at will and pretend to substitute our creative abilities for those of natural systems, and we have often done so. There is perhaps a temptation to exercise our power just because we have it. But we should know that our creative abilities cannot really substitute for natural creativity which, since it does not originate with a single (human) creature, reflects far more complexity and diversity. And so a fifth virtue is that of restraint from this kind of careless exercise.

H: But I would think that understanding of our limits also implies a kind of humility.

A: Exactly where I was heading. As we've observed, our scientific understanding of natural systems has sufficient power to make us realize that some aspects of our behavior, as it affects the natural world, have moral significance. At the same time, we should have the humility to acknowledge that science does not thereby become a measure of value.

H: That's kind of similar to the mistake that the econo-consequentialists make.

A: Very much so. But also — and this is really a separate point — we need to admit how puny — in fact, and perhaps even in principle — our scientific knowledge is when it comes understanding causes and effects in complex ecosystems in a way that permits us to reliably predict the outcomes of our intrusions. Ironically, it seems that our finest scientists are often the worst offenders in advocating interventions with a gross absence of this kind of humility.

H: I guess a lot of our blog has been devoted to pointing that out. Remember our account of introducing the cactus moth to control unwanted prickly pear cactus in the the prickly pear's native Caribbean habitats (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/10/managing-baseball-managing-nature.html)?

A: Ah yes. It seems that the Mexican poor are about to pay a heavy price for that bit of arrogance. Unfortunately, it's not an isolated case. Think of the half-century long policy to eliminate predators — "bad" animals — wolves, bears, mountain lions — that prey on "good" ones — deer, for example. (A.S. Leopold, et. al., "Wildlife Management in the National Parks", in U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Administrative Policies for Natural Areas of the National Park System (Washington, D.C., 1968); also National Parks Magazine, 37 (1963)). We now see through that analysis — even laugh at the fact that we were expressing an "arbitrary", though really, anthropocentrically self-serving preference to remove the natural predators — so that we humans, qua hunters, could replace them. But in truth, we know of few interventions that are better justified.

H: I'm afraid that there's a pretty long list.

A: Evidence the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. We selectively embrace what feels good to us. Small non-furry creatures such as frogs and spiders don't feel so good; they have little support. Big furry creatures fare better. Plants? The primary producers of our planet? If they produce pretty flowers, they might get noticed. Otherwise, they're nearly forgotten.

H: Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. I guess that for critters, we act to keep something only if it looks good in the zoo, as a stuffed animal, or on our plates.

A: You might think that ecologists do better when they discuss this sort of thing in their scientific journals.

H: Don't they?

A: Think of the discussion of how to target our efforts to save the organisms that inhabit the earth. We read that biodiversity is the key.

H: Gee, isn't it?

A: Why should we think so? There isn't even any single definition of "biodiversity". Depending on her purpose an ecologist may have in mind any one or more of multiple characterizations — genetic, intraspecies diversity; or the diversity of species; or the diversity of functional groups; or concentrations of endemisms. (Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), pp. 138-139)

H: I hadn't thought of that.

A: Should we save the hotspots of endemism on the grounds that those contain the most kinds of endangered species in the least amount of area — 1.4% of the earth's land surface? What about the "coldspots" in the other 98.4% of the land that may provide global and local ecosystem processes that natural capitalists would consider important; or that contain unique evolutionary lineages and rare species; or that encompass the last major wilderness landscapes; or that provide habitat for wide-ranging animal species? (Kareiva, P. and Marview, M., "Conserving Biodiversity Coldspots", American Scientist, 91 (July-August 2003), pp. 344-351, http://www.scu.edu/cas/biology/staffandfaculty/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=32625). Are some species just plain dispensable? Many conservation biologists say that. "We wouldn't even notice when this little caddisfly vanishes in Glacier Nation Park..."

H: Gee, I don't know about that.

A: Neither do I. For one thing, we may not notice the absence of an organism — at least, not right away — only because of the limitations in our science, or in the time span in which we can make observations, or in the conditions that happen to obtain in that limited time span. We may never get to observe the conditions in which a creature's now vacated role becomes obvious, even paramount. But more fundamentally, what possible justification do we have for adopting any one or more of those biodiversity criteria for intervening on behalf of some species, or for casually declaring the death sentence for others? On what grounds can we claim that our choice in any of these cases is any less arbitrary, or self-serving, or based on less narrowly construed human preferences than the now-abandoned dictum to eliminate predators?

H: But surely it would be better to choose one than none, better to save some rather than to lose all.

A: Because the species we choose to save has a "scientific" justification for its continued existence?

H: Ah, yes. That's something that The Nature Conservancy scientist, Sanjayan, would say, as helioskiagrablog discussed last month (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/12/environmental-values-science-and-nature.html).

A: As you intimated in that piece, that's surely an ethically empty criterion — no different from the one that justified the predator elimination program that we now disavow. But even more profoundly, I would also suggest that the kind of choices you feel compelled to make — grasping for this species here, that other one there — are choices of a desperate triage whose ultimate failure is almost certainly guaranteed. The conditions that make the triage compelling now will make it ever more desperate. No matter how careful our choices are, we really never completely understand their full effects. And in any event, we will at some point be reduced to choices that plainly consummate the evisceration of what little we have left of natural ecosystems. Unless we begin to question the assumptions that seem to necessitate this losing struggle. I think that worthy of its own separate discussion on another occasion.

H: We may take you up on that. But in any case, I think that you've convinced us that humility, perhaps a kind of scientific humility is an environmental virtue.

A: Well put. I would say that our sixth environmental virtue is the humility to admit first, that it is a category mistake to think that science is a measuring stick for natural value. And second, we should have the humility to acknowledge that it is, as a matter of fact, too puny for measuring the "importance" of parts even if that importance is narrowly defined in terms of what we humans desire or prefer to keep with us. Certainly, our track record in satisfying those preferences, however justified (or not), is abominable. We simply do not have any kind of reliable handle on either the resilience or vulnerabilities of the natural systems that we seem unable to resist meddling with.

H: Wow, Mr. A. We've covered a whole lot of territory today.

A: I'd say so. Six virtues in one day. That's kind of like a virtue marathon — maybe even an all-time record.

H: Could be.

A: And yet, there's much more to do.

H: I kind of thought so. More environmental virtues?

A: More of those. But also, I'd like to share some thoughts on what virtue ethics is, and what it's not; and to defend it against some common, but misguided criticisms.

H: That would certainly be helpful, Mr. A.

A: Also, I'd like to get back to why your triage conundrum is a false one.

H: Excellent. Anything else?

A: How about a look at the last man example?

H: You mean Richard Sylvan's thought experiment? And the last people example, too?

A: I think that would be illuminating.

H: Hey, Mr. A, there's no greater luminary than you to discuss stuff like this.

A: I do my best. But I think that it's time to dive back into my armchair. There's a lot to contemplate for next time.

H: Thank you, Mr. A. And we'll see what we can do about getting you a spot on NPR.

A: Hey, d'ya think you could get a theme song for me played on a barbitos? Alcaeus and Sappho had some hot tunes for that instrument, ya know. Still popular around Lesbos when I was tramping around there doing my field work with Theophrastus.

H: Your biologist buddy?

A: Yeah, I loved that guy — even though he believed that eating meat is unjust on the grounds that it robs non-human animals of life. Seemed strange at the time; but after 2.3 millennia, maybe that's worth another look. My armchair awaits...

H: Ok, helioskiagrablog readers. There you have some of Aristotle's first thoughts ever on environmental virtues. And there's more to come.

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