Considering the Origin of Ethics

Does an organism living their life entirely separate from other sentient beings require an ethic?

Are ethics only needed for interpersonal, inter-being, or inter-group interactions?

Is the development of ethics dependent on a being’s ability to communicate - either linguistically or non-linguistically?

Are nonhuman animals capable of developing and maintaining ethical standards as an evolutionary tool?

In considering the origin of ethics, I began to wonder if it is one of the natural stages in a being’s or specie's evolution. Ethics or morality could have developed in response to a particular set of environmental circumstances, or out of a being’s evolutionary need, or choice to exist within some form of society, community, or ecosystem.
Obviously, the group, as well as any new, incoming individuals would have to benefit from their inclusion and the creation and maintenance of shared ethical standards.

Our readings and class discussions caused me to think of our multiple species home environment- in relation to ethics and how they might evolve. Since 1999, our home environment has consisted of at least 2, but not more than 3 neutered male dogs, plus at least 12, but not more than 23 felines. Our family group contained human beings, canines and felines. The group dynamic influenced individual members so much that they acted outside of the boundaries of what is considered normal breed, or species behaviour. The malamute swims across rivers and ponds- his breed is known for their extreme dislike of water. His breed atypical behaviour is probably the result of his lifelong association with our chocolate lab - a breed that loves water.

Between 1999-2007 I bred siamese cats. During that period, I had 4 different veterinarians repeatedly tell me they had never encountered a group dynamic similar to ours. I had 3 active adult studs and 3-5 active queens. Whenever they were not paired up to mate, the cats had free reign of the house and their 25' long, 10' wide, 8' high cat pen. My studs never fought with each other, never sprayed in the house - and they would babysit and assume protective duties over kittens they had not fathered. Normal male behaviour is to fight any other males, spray urine everywhere to define territory and kill any kittens they had not fathered - and sometimes even those they had sired.

Also beyond the norm is how the dogs helped out with the kittens. They helped clean off (by licking) newborn kittens. They were very tolerant of kittens use of their bodies and turf. If a 5 week old kitten went to the dog's food dish, the lab would keep eating along with the kitten, the 115 pound malamute backed up, and stood by watching the kittens eat his food. He would not approach his bowl until the kittens left. Malamutes, like huskies, are well known as hunters/killers of cats.

I've watched my 2 dogs and 5 cats hunt together as one pack. The dogs defend the cats from cats outside of our group.

Murray Bookchin describes nonhuman beings as generally living in ecological niches, and their communities as noted as for their fixity in general terms or by clearly preset, often genetically imprinted , rhythms. He says, "Human communities are guided in part by ideological factors and are subject to changes conditioned by those factors. Human beings emerging from an organic evolutionary process, initiate, by the sheer force of their biology and survival needs, a social evolutionary development that profoundly involves their organic evolutionary process. Owing to their naturally endowed intelligence, powers of communication, capacity for institutional organization, and relative freedom from instinctive behaviour, they refashion their environment-as do nonhuman beings-to the full extent of their biological equipment."

Has our multi-species family come together to form a "society" of sorts - and established its own ethics? Is this how morals and ethics developed, as a natural evolution of dynamic biological relationships? Clearly communication is occurring between family members. Clearly there is a level of intelligence and cooperative intent.

Are morals necessary for healthy (non-combative) societal functioning? If providing nonhumans with an environment free from their species' normal, taxing, limiting, biological structures and instinctual imperatives allows them to evolve beyond normal species constraints; then perhaps some capable nonhumans can establish healthy, societal, moral structures.

Ethical Elitism

Individuals choose to act ethically or not.
Unethical behaviour is unacceptable and it has its victims.
Ethical theories are normative theories and propose how we ought to, or should, behave.
Such theories, known as moral philosophies, are intended to assist in explaining why a person believes one action is right but another action is wrong.
In developing an understanding of how individuals make ethical decisions, it is useful to have an understanding of ethical theories.

Normative ethical theories do not explain how we actually act or behave.
Rather, they seek to establish principles that guide peoples’ behaviour.
Ethical elitism is one of the classes of the teleological theories of ethical behaviour.
Ethical elitism - under this class of theories, society is viewed as being stratified and ethical behaviour should maximise the interests of only the top stratum, or the so-called elite
The dismissal of the accounts clerk in order to protect the reputation of the CEO would be seen as ethical behaviour by a society which subscribed to ethical elitism

Professor Garry Carnegie - FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

Social Ecology's Niche

Social ecology sees society’s problems as the root cause of our current ecological problems. Industrial societies’ hierarchical view of nature - with humankind at the pinnacle is a reflection of social relations. If we remove the latter, the former will also disappear.

Societies driven by competition, conflicts, consumption, market-driven production and technologies, industrial capitalism, and the widely accepted notion of progress identified by economic growth, preclude any meaningful ecological orientation in the marketplace, in society, or in the shared environment. The by-product of these systems of social development are ecological problems.

What I like about social ecology is that it focuses on the etiology of ecological problems. It provides concrete historic references to the root of our environmental crises. Murray Bookchin says, "human beings not only belong in nature, they are products of a long natural evolutionary process." He refers to the development of technology and science - our "seemingly 'unnatural' activities" as the natural evolution of human traits expanding on our first nature or nonhuman traits.

I really liked the way Bookchin views "the human and nonhuman as aspects of an evolutionary continuum, with the emergence of the human located in the evolution of the nonhuman - without advancing naive claims that one is either 'superior to' or 'made for' the other."

Natural, non-hierarchical, acceptable view of evolution.

Deciding What is Worthy of Consideration

For me, the philosophy of environmental ethics is the most challenging of all branches of philosophy. First, we have to decide what is worthy of consideration. How do we determine what makes something worthy. Is it because it is alive? Is it because it is sentient? Does it have to be human, alive, and sentient?

How do we define alive? Sentience? Is it the thing’s value? Is it it’s intrinsic value or inherent value? What do we use for criteria to determine value?

Who gets to make these determinations? How do we make determinations in the face of beings with competing claims? Is there a hierarchy of assigned value? And again, who gets to make these determinations?

Are individual members of a species more or less valuable than the whole species? Is a species more or less valuable than a habitat or ecosystem whose balance is a necessary condition for the survival of multiple members of multiple species with competing interests?

Are individual beings or species existing in their “natural wild state” more or less valuable than beings of economic or personal pleasure relevance?

Rolston said species are intrinsically valuable and usually more valuable than individual specimens.

The loss of a species is a loss of genetic possibilities and the deliberate destruction of a species shows disrespect for the very biological processes which make possible the emergence of individual living things.
According to Rolston, natural processes deserve respect because they constitute a nature, or God, which is itself intrinsically valuable or sacred.

Peter Singer and utilitarians in general attribute intrinsic value to the experience of pleasure or interest satisfaction as such, not to the beings who have the experience. They argue that the interests of all the sentient beings, including nonhuman ones, affected by an action should be taken equally into consideration in assessing the action.

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. Like all philosophical debates, theories of environmental ethics are numerous, varied, and often diametrically opposed.

Most of these theories seek to assign a system of value to all things existing in Nature in a relevant manner. Herein lies the problem. Relevance to whom? By whom? For whom? Relevant when? Relevant why? Relevant how? Relevant where? Relevant in part? Relevant in sum? In situations of competing relevance, who makes the determination? Using what criteria? Is the hierarchal value of criteria stable or flexible? Does the ends justify the means? Or is existence justification in and of itself?

Are human beings the jewel of creation with complete dominion over nature and the right to exploit its resources unreservedly? As we have discussed in class, human beings are, by definition, a part of Nature. Their tools are natural. They interact with, and modify other elements of Nature like all other species. Bacteria and insects exert on Nature far more influence with farther reaching consequences than Man has ever done. What is so distinctive about humankind that human beings are considered to have moral status but non-humans and nature do not?

Is anthropocentrism imbedded in the “dominant western view”, or “the western superethic”, or “human chauvinism” as Routley claims? Is it blind class “loyalty” or prejudice which unjustifiably discriminates against those outside the privileged class? Do nonhuman objects in the environment have intrinsic value, a value which is independent of their usefulness for humans?

If we grant moral status to animals as holders of interests do we also consider trees, forests, rivers, fungi, or fleas as having interests of a morally relevant kind?

Is there intrinsic and extrinsic value in intangibles like the beauty of a sunset, fall foliage, snow on pristine mountains, or in an ecstatic event which a humanbeing may experience in natural, wild areas of nature.

Should humankind consider the "rights" of other beings and of nature as a whole in determining a least harmful course of action?

Origins of Morality

Bookchin said, “What mores existed were based on an unreflected body of customs that seemed to be inherited from time immemorial.”

In philosophy, ethics is defined as the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. Moral principles may be viewed either as the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed for themselves or as the body of obligations and duties that a particular society requires of its members.

Could morality be a natural, biological development of the first or biotic nature of a being – created by evolutionary shifts from smaller family groups in to larger social groups?