The Morality of Sustainability
The Morality of Sustainability
I have to admit I have had this one in the hopper for some time now. I have been preparing and wanting to write this post for a long time, but it was a commenter on Sustaining Sustainability that finally prompting me to flush it out. We all hear people talk about what they can do to live sustainably almost every single day. There are no shortages of arguments and evidence for how it can save us all money, and there are plenty of people learning how to make money at it. Finding empirical evidence as to the benefits of living sustainably is as easy as finding options in the cereal aisle at the local grocery. I constantly hear people profess all the ways we can benefit personally from helping the Earth. What I do not hear are cogent moral arguments for why this is the right thing to do, and why as inhabitants of this earth we have a moral obligation to protect and respect everything that is a part of it.
Unfortunately the only moral arguments I hear about sustainability are actually against it. Time and again I hear that as part of this planet we (humans) are nature too, and that our consumption of any resource on it is a natural act. I recently even heard a Senator say that he would not support any climate change legislation until we have used every ounce of coal and drop of oil that “God has given us to use”. I am not going to make this a discussion about the theology of predetermination vs. systematic theology (living in Christ’s image), but I do find it hard to believe that if God created us in his image he would want us to plunder and destroy the earth. After all he doesn’t. Beyond being part of nature as a species we have things inherit in our nature that make environmental responsibility a moral obligation. Consider what I am about to layout to be “An Ontological Argument for a Morality of Sustainability”
An Ontological Argument For a Morality of Sustainability
Everything on this planet has an inner essence. Even physical “non living” being, such as coal, has an inner essence that allows us to identify it even if it changes form. I can look at five pieces of coal and know that they are coal. I can crush that coal to the point that those five pieces are no longer identifiable, but still look at that pile and know that it is coal. The inner presence of a being is that allows others to identify it for what it is through many phases and forms of its life is the essence.
Every living being on this planet has a soul. Living beings have an essence just like physical ones, but they also have a presence beyond that which exudes their liveliness on other beings even though the physiological actions that carryout this life cannot be seen. When I see an Oak I know that it is alive. When I see an Oak that is alive, I can sense its life even though I cannot see the photosynthesis occurring or the transpiration from the leaves. It exudes something beyond that essence which is its soul. The soul also projects its presence in various forms of instincts or consciousness that beings carry out in living to ensure their survival. The final evidence of the soul is the continued presence of essence after the soul has left and life has ceased. Once that Oak is dead, I still know it as an Oak, and even as a specific Oak, but I can also sense that the life (or soul) is gone, and the evidence of its absence and remaining essence is further proof of the soul’s previous existence.
Everything with a soul has varying levels of consciousness and self-consciousness. Every living being has an awareness of what it has to do to survive and reacts to its surroundings. This may be instinctual, but also may progress to various levels of will. In any form it implies a sense of self being. I do not believe my grass can feel it when I mow, but it does have natural instincts to guide its reaction to my mowing, and has natural instincts to seek out water for its survival. I believe full well my dogs are capable of feeling remorse, loneliness, fear, pain and love. I also believe they can sense it in others, particularly myself. I do not however believe they can empathize it. However, though my dog can sense my remorse and feel pain itself, it cannot feel my pain.
When a being’s soul progresses from being conscious of itself and surroundings to empathizing with another it develops conscience. We as a species empirically know that we can extend our consciousness to the point of feeling what other people feel, and actively seek to do so. When the ones that we love hurt, we hurt. When ones that we do not even know hurt and we see the cause as unjust, we hurt. This is the ability to empathize. There has been speculation that other primates may have this ability, but as far as we can know for sure, we are the only species whose soul progresses from the point of consciousness to conscience.
With conscience comes responsibility. As human beings our ability to empathize combined with our free will gives us a moral awareness that requires us to take responsibility for our actions. We have an inherit sense of right and wrong. We can rationalize our way around it, but in the end right and wrong and our ability to discern it remains. This is the foundation of morality, and with this ability comes the responsibility act within those parameters.
The morality of sustainability is rooted in our ability to empathize with other beings. Morality is not possible unless you can make that leap into another’s heart. This ability to empathize gives us a unique ability and responsibility to act in ways that protect and respect the essence and souls of other beings. Sustainability is rooted not in how to get the most from our resources, but our moral responsibility to protect and respect the essences of every being, their role in our ecosystem, and the ecosystem itself as a living being. If we can empathize we have responsibility inherit in our ability to sense morality.
As beings of conscience not only do we have the ability to sense and empathize with the essence and souls of other beings, but it also gives us the ability to make decisions that knowingly destroy and harm them and in turn the environment as a whole. No matter how much we try to rationalize it, this wrong. Being moral beings we need to be able to own that awareness and take responsibility for it. As moral beings we have a responsibility to recognize and protect the essence of the earth and its beings in everything that we do.
To make the claim that it part of nature to exploit the Earth and its resources without protecting its essence is morally wrong. We may have the right in the legal sense within the laws of man. But it is not right in the moral order of our being. Our nature as moral beings requires us to make morally responsible decisions not just ones that we can rationalize. The ability to rationalize allows us to make moral decisions, but it also allows for immoral ones as well for you can not know one without the other.
In the end living sustainably is not about how protecting the earth benefits us as a species, but that it is in our nature as moral beings, and a failure to live this way is not only immoral, but unnatural.
