The land ethic
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community of life; wrong when it tends otherwise.
Supports
Leopold, Næss · A Sand County Almanac, 'The Land Ethic' · 1949
- No living thing exists alone: each is what it is only through the whole, soils, waters, plants, animals, on which it depends and which it in turn helps hold together, a biotic community.
- An ethics centered on individuals alone misses this level: it can judge an act toward this animal, not toward a species, a river, an ecosystem, which can flourish or collapse without being sentient individuals.
- Now it is these wholes that carry all individual life: their integrity is the condition of every particular good, and on that ground holds a worth that the sum of individuals does not capture.
Therefore So the human is not the master of nature but a : the ultimate good is the health of that whole, of which every being, humans included, is but a part.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
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