The Attitude of Respect for Nature

Why should moral agents regard wild living things in the natural world as possessing inherent worth? To answer this question we must first take into account the fact that when rational autonomous agents subscribe to the principles of moral consideration and intrinsic value and so concieve of wild living things as having that kind of worth, such agents are adopting a certain ultimate moral attitude toward the natural world. This is the attitude called “respect for nature”. It parallels the atitude of respect for persons in human ethics. When we adopt the attitude of respect for person as the proper attitude to take toward all persons, as persons; we consider the fulfillment of the basic interest of each individual to have intrinsic value. We thereby make a moral commitment to live a certain kind of life in relation to other persons. We place ourselves under the direction of a system of standards and rules that we consider validly binding on all moral agents as such. Similarly when we adopt the attitiude of respect for nature as an ultimate oral attitude we make a commitment to live by certain normative principles. These principles constitute the rules of conduct and standards of character that are to govern our treatment of the natural world. This is first an ultimate commitment because it is not derived from any higher norm. the attitude of respect for nature is not grounded on some other, more general, or more fundamental attitutde. It sets the total framework for our responsibilities toward the natural world. It can be justified, but its justification cannot consist in referring to a more general attitude or a more basic normative principle. Second the commitment is a moral one because it is understood to be a disinterested matter of principle. It is this feature that distinguishes the attitude of respect for nature from the set of feelings and dispositions that compromise the love of nature. The latter stems from one’s personal interest in and response to the natural world. Like the affectionate feelings we have toward certain individual human beings, that is when one’s love of nature is that particular way one feels about the natural environment and its wild inhabitants. Just as our love for an individual person differes from our respect for all persons, as such, so love of nature differes from respect for nature. Respect for nature is an attitude we believe all moral agents ought to have simply as moral agents, regardless of whether or not they also love nature. Indeed, we have not truly taken the attitude of respect for nature ourselves unless we believe this. To put it in a Kantian way, to adopt the attitude of respect for nature is to take a stance that one wills it to be a universal law for all rational beings. It is to hold that stance categorically, as being validly applicable to every moral agent without exception, irrespective of whatever personal feelings toward nature such an agent might have or might lack. Although the attitude of respect for nature is in this sense a dis-interested and universalizable attitude, anyone who does adopt it has certain steady, more or less permanent dispositions. The logical connection between the attitude of respect for natue and the duties of a life centered system of environmental ethics can be made clear. Insofar as one sincerely takes that attitude and so has a few sets of dispositions, one will at the same time be disposed to comply with certain rules of duty such as non maleficence and non interference and with standards of character such as fairness and benevolence that determine the obligations and vitures of moral agents with regard to the "Earth’s Wild Living Things".

Extracted from:

Sterba, J. P. , 2003: Justice, Alternative Political Perspectives, Thomson Publishers
Wollstonecraft, M., A Vindication of the Rights of Women; New York: Norton, 1967

Barry, B., 1995; Justice as Impartiality, Oxford: Oxford University Press