Should animals have specific legal rights? Should trees have
standing? Just how far do our responsibilities go toward nature,
asks Ferry (Philosophy/Sorbonne) in this erudite and entertaining
critique of environmentalism. Ferry (Political Philosophy, not
reviewed, etc.) starts this study of environmental ethics back in
the 16th century, when troublesome beetles and leeches were put on
trial, when the rats of Autun were issued summonses - well, at
least they had their day in court. Such evenhandedness was dealt a
death blow by Cartesianism, that perfect model of anthropocentrism
in which all rights went to man and none to nature. Then
Utilitarianism became ideologically ascendant and the notion that
animals should not suffer - as in the Utilitarian "least suffering
by the least number" - became common currency. These two schools
continue to shape our relationships with nature (though Ferry
details other influences: Rousseau and Kant, Aristotle and
Heidegger, even the National Socialists). Now environmental
activists are demanding a new ecological mindset, one in which
nature writ large has the same rights as humans. At the far end of
this movement are the deep ecologists, who question whether humans
will ever be able to live in harmony with nature. Ferry finds them
appalling: antihuman, with tendencies toward authoritarianism,
dogmatism, and a strong anticulture streak. And just who are they,
Ferry would like to know, to decide exactly what Nature wants,
anyway? Ferry's advice is to mingle cosmopolitanism with
rootedness, a "synthesis of raw material and cultivated ideas," to
avoid any degradation in the quality of life. Humans may have
trashed the Earth, says Ferry, but it is also humans who have the
capacity to set things right. Though his wit can fail him ("No one
really expects Brigitte Bardot to develop a coherent doctrine as to
the rights [and responsibilities?] of animals," he smirks), for the
most part this is a closely argued, well-documented, sensitive
critique. (Kirkus Reviews)
This text offers a critique of the ideological roots of the "deep
ecology" movement spreading throughout Germany, France and the
United States. Traditional ecological movements, or "democratic
ecology," seek to protect the environment of human societies. But
another movement has become the refuge both of nostalgic
counterrevolutionaries and of leftist illusions, namely "deep
ecology." The human species is no longer at the centre of the
world, but subject to a new god called Nature. For these purists,
man can only soil the harmony of the universe. In order to secure
natural equilibrium, the only solution is to grant rights to
animals, to trees and to rocks. Ferry examines early European legal
cases concerning the status and rights of animals and then
demonstrates that German Romanticism embraced certain key ideas of
the deep ecology movement concerning the protection of animals and
the environment. Ferry deciphers the philosophical and political
assumptions of a movement that threatens to infantalize human
society by preying on the fear of the authority of a new
theological-political order. Far from denying our "duty in relation
to nature," this text cautions against the dangers of environmental
claims and against the threat to democracy contained in the deep
ecology doctrine when pushed to its extreme.
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