Inherent greed is, much like
inherent value, an abstract, insupportable idea. In order for greed
to be inherent it must be able to remain the same object in everyday
life as well as in a complete vacuum. This is not a viable position
for the following reasons: it is ever affected by human ideas and
ideals, it is a contextual concept, and it is a creation of emotion
put into words by human minds. For these reasons greed has, for the
vast majority always been a word with a dark connotation, describing
someone or some action that seems to be divergent from their beliefs.
In this sense environmentalists have a long history of decrying the
business world, among others, for their selfish and self serving ends
in essentially raping the environment. While this may be true is
some sense and from some perspectives it is not, by far, a universal
Truth. Greed as defined by Miriam-Webster Dictionary: a selfish and
excessive desire for more of something (as money)
than is needed. This need has indeed led into a serious conflict
between humans and the environment. Surprisingly enough however is
that it might also be the beginning of a recovery leading to a better
situation both for the inhabitants of the Earth and the Earth itself.
Greed, therefore is contextual in its meaning and, among the more
compelling human actions, has the capability of being one of mans
lowest driving forces, that of self betterment.
One
of the most ideal situations for a relationship between The Earth and
Humanity is the principle of Stewardship in which humans see
themselves as custodians of the earth instead of the earth being
subjected to the wanton Wants of our desire. This stewardship is
easily justifiable as a good business model. The past trend of simply
taking from the earth what we need and not caring about its long term
survival was less than solid in an economic sense. We were living for
immediate gratification that in the end would have left both us and
the earth worse off. While the businessmen of that time, as they
always are and probably always will be, were motivated by turning a
quite buck, perhaps in addition to slightly more altruistic motives,
it soon became apparent that continuing the path of earthly
destruction would no longer be accepted by the vast majority of
people. This idea is particularly supported by 'Deep Ecologists'.
This greed that drove business then however is still prevalent now.
Businesses still strive to earn the most money while spending the
least. To this end however stewardship is the best investment that
can be made. Instead of creating machines and technology to deplete
the earth to its breaking point business are now seeing the immense
profit that can be made by investing in the welfare of the earth.
Investment in renewable resources has been on the rise for the last
decade. This trend shows not only a move towards helping the earth
but also a move into an economically stable mind set for businesses.
When an investment into solar energy is completed the investment
would pay for itself over time and after the initial cost has been
recouped become a fiscal money maker. In this way stewardship ethics
is not only become morally responsible but also fiscally responsible
by preserving the resource that is used to create profit and this
urge to create profits is driven not by the selfless cause of
conscience but by greed for that extra dollar, by greed.
This
simplest way for the environmental crisis we find ourselves currently
mired in is entirely mental in its formulation. With only a slight
change of thinking on the part of many, the terrible costs that the
earth has been made to bare on account of overzealous businesses and
unconcerned humans could be entirely reversed with dramatic benefits
not just for the earth but also for those attempting to gain a better
social position in life through money. With the implementation of
this change the world itself would, at the risk of sounding naive,
become a better place. If people began to think of their actions in
relation not just to themselves but to other people and other things
around them then the human race would find themselves quietly sliding
into roles of stewardship instead of remaining greed-driven. The
immediate rewards in the short term would in fact perfectly coincide
with the current attitude of 'me first' thinking. With realizing that
people can be made happier by helping the planet by feeling proud of
their accomplishments, the move from selfishness to stewardship is
not a long road.
Along
these sames lines, Emmanuel Kant, seen by some as an ardent advocate
for animals to not have the same rights as humans, in essence creates
a list of traits that reserve human rights for those that have
rational thought, mobility, and inherent value. As with many other
philosophers, the very idea of something having inherent value is
plagued with a myriad of problems. In order for something to be
valuable in and of itself it must be able to maintain this
characteristic in a vacuum uninfluenced by any other object. In
Kant's essay Rational
Beings Alone Have Moral Worth, he
advocates a system in which Humans, and Humans alone have wroth
because they are intrinsically valuable. He says that we are “an
end in itself” not merely a means for others to use or exploit to
their own ends. He supports this idea by labeling everything that
does not think rationally as things
and
everything that does think rationally as persons.
Here
he begins to exhibit the very anthropocentric view he has of the
world. He goes further to use this view as a reason for humans to use
anything not capable of rational thought for their own ends and he
supposes that anything not able to rationally think for itself has
value only as a conditional property that is contingent on a humans
need for it. With this view he has given the world a view in which
human needs, human greed, has become the central tenant by which we
assign value to non-human entities.
Pushing
the boundaries even further than Kant, Utilitarianism is a prime
example of human greed especially as it interacts with nature. Many
utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, contest that the best way in
which to serve the environment is to simply act rationally without
the interference of emotion. While on the surface this would appear
to be an acceptable way of thinking it is, in fact, not. By creating
a “weight-watchers” theory for human interaction Singer simply
creates a system in which the person committing the action is able to
step back easily and justify their actions with a simplified
mathematical equation. For instance, one could easily justify
cheating on ones spouse through utilitarian thinking. After the act
of cheating the person justifying it might say that they became more
relaxed afterward resulting in a (+1) effect for them. The same can
be said of the person with which they had relations with resulting in
an additional (+1). However the significant other of the cheater is
devastated when they find out resulting in (-1). However, according
to utilitarianism the overall outcome of the episode is a net effect
of (+1) therefore making it a “good” practice. One can easily see
how the same reasoning can be used in an environmental sense with
Humans and nature interacting with business as the cheater. In this
scenario, anyone sufficiently fluent in both utilitarianism and
business could endlessly justify their actions on paper through a
mathematical equation similar to the one above.
Among
one of the more contentious ideas submitted by environmental
philosophers is the idea of an Experiencing Subject of a Life (ESL)
and their place in the world. Tom Regan is a major advocate of this
idea. The problem with Regan's proposal is the fact that as a
rational Human he has the ability to guarantee animals rights as ESLs
but can reject other forms of life. This difficulty still retains
that humans are at the top of the spectrum of life that can give or
take away rights as easily as one might blink. This in turns leads to
the thought that if humans are still at the head of the table of
life, why do we remain there. The most obvious reason is because we,
as humans, still retain rights for ourselves that create a better
living. In other terminology we are basically greedy. We subject the
other life forms of this earth to our own “rational”
interpretation of what constitutes an ESL. In this way we are able to
continue taking advantage of other life forms, plants for instance,
that sustain us. The problem with this theory is that it has exactly
the same problems as Contractarianism. Regan says that
Contractarianism is arbitrary as it requires the metaphorical ability
to sign a contract in order to be elevated to having rights. If an
animal can't “sign the contract” then they are just out of luck
and will continue to be viewed as resources for human consumption.
This resource oriented view by humans in regard to nature is the
central problem with humanity in respect to the environment.
However, while he puts this problem forward as being backward in
thought he actually advocates a system in which he is willing to
accord rights to animals but not to any other life form. In this
aspect he is both contradicting himself in theory as well as
practice. While this may be so one must ask the paramount Socratic
question: Why? Why would Regan want to include only some living
things and not others while at the same time subjecting humans to the
same rights as animals but still allowing humans to delegate who or
what receives those rights. Once again we must welcome or trusty old
friend greed to the stage. It is for greed and self image for which
these mistakes are committed.
While
advocating rights for all animals Regan still reserves the ability to
award rights just for humans. In this way humans are still seated in
that Zeus like chair at the pinnacle of the Pantheon. This image of
humans as originators of rights still propels Regan to entitle us to
more lucrative rights in order to maintain his ingrained ideas about
life with humans centrally located. In addition to these problems the
Idea of an ESL having inherent value poses a problem for many of the
societal institutions of the world. For instance, when would it be
appropriate to deprive a human of their rights? If it is whenever
they harm another ESL then the animal world run into a huge problem
for the same rules would have to apply to them as well. Any
carnivorous animal would be deprived of right simply for engaging in
actions that it considers required. A lion would be right-less for
hunting, an instinct that has evolved over hundreds of thousands of
years. Also part of this dilemma is figuring out who is responsible
for taking these rights away. Would it be humans? It seems like Regan
would attempt to make it so simply by the fact that we are the ones
dispensing rights in the first place.
Perhaps
one of the best explanations about humans and their desire to amass
as much of anything they can is the late German born Philosopher,
Erich Fromm. His headline work in relation to human greed is To
Have Or To Be? In
which he describes his two modes of humanity, having, a materialistic
oriented thought process, and being, the emotional, productive mode
of life. He states the the overwhelming majority of humanity is stuck
in a having mode of life. This leads in turn to greed in which one
try to achieve happiness through material wealth instead of
intellectual thought. The being mode is something that he advocates
as the ideal form of thought in which one does not have possession of
things in a permanent manner but instead attempts to share with the
world with others in our pursuit of happiness. This idea though is,
in my opinion just as greed-driven as the having mode of being. That
is not to say it would not better humanity to embrace his idea of
being instead of having for it would drastically cut the amount of
material possessions which we have. Instead it would substitute our
desire for material possessions for those of ideological possessions.
Instead of coveting the most up to date technology we would strive to
acquire the latest thoughts and ideas. We would begin to envy people
of higher intellect instead of people with more wealth. While this
would certainly improve the lost of the earth in a very practical
manner, i.e. trash, it would not help remove the idea of greed from
the human psyche. It simply replaces it with something else.
Al
Gore's treatise on environmental concerns proposes the idea that
humans are simply addicted to abusing the environment. He explains
that in order to leave our bad habit behind we must enter into a
therapy course to change our mindset away from destroying the earth
and instead preserving it. While his thesis is intriguing it is
simplistic of its view of human nature and proposes and at its heart
lies greed. In order for the world to continue and for our lives to
continue we must take drastic action in the way that we think about
the earth. Changing our philosophical outlook is indeed a
requirement. However changing our view of the world is of immense
benefit to ourselves. Our self-preservation is the driving force
behind this required change. That is not to say that severing our
addiction to abusing the earth by this means is a terrible thing. On
the contrary it is a requirement. However when doing so it is
necessary to be honest with ourselves. We must admit that the reason
we are doing so and embrace greed as a power that will do “good”.
The
core tenant of greed as exhibited by humans is closely tied to an
overwhelming feeling of anthropocentrism. These two concepts
correlate directly with each other with greed becoming the central
offshoot of an anthropocentric mind. When a person sees the world as
revolving around themselves and think that they have a a larger
impact on the earth than anything else, that person comes to see the
world in a largely anthropocentric way. As they continue to view the
world in this way they are better suited to view the earth as merely
a resource waiting to be plundered for their own personal benefit.
This leads to serious problems when this person comes into a position
to reap what the earth has, as in a business position or government
position where they would have the direct ability to affect the earth
over a large area. When found in this type of position these
individuals would be more prepared to use the earth as a way to
better themselves without considering the impact of their actions
over a wider area. This greed driven decision stemmed from the way
that they view the world, through anthropocentric eyes.
In
all the majority of philosophers currently speculating on the idea of
an environmentally sound relationship between humans and nature have
largely failed to deal with the anthropocentric, selfish, greedy
motives of humans. Instead they have focused on other more narrowly
defined traits rather than deal with the ultimate issue at hand. If
they had instead dealt with the problem at its base, greed, they
would have come to much the same conclusion, that greed and nature
are not inherently opposed but rather opposed because of the human
use of greed for things that damage nature. This realization should
come as no surprise to those who study human interactions. The simple
step to stewardship is not far and would have a resounding impact on
the world. Business would continue to make money, people would remain
happy, if not become happier, and nature would become revitalized all
through a simple attitude adjustment. And this is, I think, exactly
what is needed.