Download Balancing Economic Interests with Environmental Obligations: Land & Global Bioethics and more Study notes Forestry in PDF only on Docsity! From Leopold to Potter: Or How a Global Bioethic Grew From a Land Ethic Jason Johnstone-Yellin September 22, 2008 Today’s Plan • Aldo Leopold • Leopold’s Land Ethic • Van Rensselaer Potter • Potter’s Global Bioethic • The importance of Leopold • Example: Pinedale Mesa Leopold on Environmental Education The usual answer to [the environmental] dilemma is ‘more conservation education.’ No one will debate this, but is it certain that only the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well? Leopold, p207, A Sand County Almanac The Economic Problem • Land use ethics are still governed wholly by economic self-interest, just as social ethics were a century ago. (ASCA, p209) • It of course goes without saying that economic feasibility limits the tether of what can or cannot be done for land. It always has and it always will. The fallacy the economic determinists have tied around our collective neck, and which we now need to cast off, is the belief that economics determines all land use. This is simply not true. (ASCA, p225) The Economic Problem • Land use ethics are still governed wholly by economic self-interest, just as social ethics were a century ago. (ASCA, p209) • It of course goes without saying that economic feasibility limits the tether of what can or cannot be done for land. It always has and it always will. The fallacy the economic determinists have tied around our collective neck, and which we now need to cast off, is the belief that economics determines all land use. This is simply not true. (ASCA, p225) Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001) Bioethics - (n.) Biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge forging a science that sets a system of medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival. Three points of Inspiration 1 - No biological law can be relied on to ensure that our species will continue to prosper, or indeed that it will continue to exist. 2 - The human species is the sole product of evolution that knows it has evolved and continues to evolve. 3 - It is up to our collective wisdom to supply the program for “evolutionary developments that nature has failed to provide.” Theodosius Dobzhansky (1958) The Ongoing Economic Problem With laissez-faire and price atomic, Ecology’s Uneconomic, But with another kind of logic Economy’s Unecologic Kenneth E. Boulding, 1966
MEDICAL BIOETHICS ECOLOGICAL BIOETHICS
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INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS
Zo \
SOCIETAL PROBLEMS ~—» POPULATION PROBLEMS
GLOBAL BIOETHICS
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SHORT-TERM VIEW LONG-TERM VIEW
HEALTHFUL INDIVIDUAL SPECIES HEALTHY
ENVIRONMENT HEALTH SURVIVAL ECOSYSTEM
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CONTROLLED HUMAN FERTILITY
——— STABILIZED WORLD POPULATION ————>
ACCEPTABLE SURVIVAL
The importance of Leopold As the first person to couple and define the words “land” and “ethic” in ecological terms, Leopold was unquestionably the first bioethicist; he was first to envision a new ethical basis for human conduct, first to develop an ecological ethic… and first to explain clearly why it is needed. Potter, pxiii, Global Bioethics The Pinedale Mesa: To Drill or not To Drill
