One-in-a-Millian – Moral Duty to the Environment
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016
Provocative, non-controversial question: do we have a moral duty to the environment? (Yes.) I think there’s a definite literature on the nature of moral development and the ability of individuals to meet those ethical standards. I feel as though there’s a certain sense in which the generalized moral development of an individual reflects groups, societies, and onward.
Do you agree? That is, is there a reflection of the individual to the society? It seems intuitively either right or on the correct path, doesn’t it? And that in turn likely reflects a certain perspective on sustainability and the environment.
There was a psychologist, or maybe a moral/ethical psychologist, by the name of Lawrence Kohlberg once upon a time. No individual tends to deserve grand claim to fame or some cult of personality around them, so please bear that in mind, it’s the ideas that matter much, much more to me – though an important person to the discipline of psychology.
I came across him whilst doing research for various academic paper and poster presentations. And I liked the thought. I like the idea of justice. That means just people, just societies, and so on. Why do I think this? I think I feel, and think, this because of the inclusion of compassion within this idea of justice. Why compassion? Well, that’s a bit tough, and we can get to it in gentle time. ‘Cause its super-duper important as a thought experiment (blegh!), or imaginative playful thing-a-majig (hooray!), on the environment.
He developed six stages in three levels of potential moral development for human beings. Of course, any model of a person will tend to be quite limited, but it’s a neat concept. It included the general levels of pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional morality. Straightforward enough.
As the chart shows above, the pre-conventional morality derives from obedience and punishment and then individual interest. So stage 1 is about avoiding harm and gaining pleasure. Stage 2 is pretty much about whatever’s good for me is good for me, and that’s all that, right? It’s the absolute consumer, maybe. What do you think? I bring these for reflection, not as someone standing at the pulpit or podium to make some grand statement.
Conventional morality is about person-to-person and the larger societal morality.
That means stage 3 deals with the approval of one’s peers, one’s groups, one’s larger social network. Stage 4 deals with the general authority and is really, deeply around the concepts of not being that proverbial squeaky wheel. Who wants to be that, right? So that’s’ all o’ that one.
And the post-conventional, a pretty darn cool one for the neat kids, it’s about equal consideration and treatment of individuals and then actions and thoughts in accordance with universal principles – like compassion and love, fairness, equality, and justice, and so on, I think. I’m sure you can think of others, and more.
And that brings about stage 5 with the social contract and that contract about, “Okay, I made a deal with you. You made a deal with me. We respect one another as equal parties in this endeavour with respect to consent. You have given me your consent. I have given you my consent. Now, we can get down to business in these social endeavours.”
Stage 6 is pretty much the moral geniuses. Those around us with absolute moral autonomy and authority derived an internalized, highly developed moral center. That brings us back to the original point about children and adolescents and adults. There are definite, fluid stages of moral thinking, changes for them.
And as kids grow up, there’s a definite advance in their awareness and treatment of others. And when I think about it, there’s a definite trend towards concern for oneself, one’s family, one’s kin, one’s principles, and so on. This, I think, can quite easily be thought of as a general expansion of some moral consideration – an expanding compass, as if becoming more precise, moving more northward. Not perfection, not ungrounded idealism, but a sense of development.
Think about the gruesome lives of ancient major civilizations in treatment of those thought of as non-persons. Who? You know who and how many and in what ways. It’s an old, ancient, continuous struggle for justice. And I’m pretty certain you can think about exemplars, really great examples of the people that show these principles in action and deed and thought.
For me, I think of John Stuart Mill, who, in an extraordinarily important essay, said quite frankly, directly, and with a definite moral force. He co-wrote this with his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, and I think his daughter Helen, too. Their closing paragraph from On The Subjection of Women:
When we consider the positive evil caused to the disqualified half of the human race by their disqualification — first in the loss of the most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and next in the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction with life, which are so often the substitute for it; one feels that among all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle against the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils which nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow-creatures (otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actually caused by it), dries up pro tanto the principal fountain of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human being.
Whether international women’s rights, or the individual person’s development morally, there’s the continuous progression forward, with occasional regression.
And the sustainability of the environment, too. The animals’ suffering and general wellbeing and the ability of every person to fulfill some general capacity and natural talent if they have it, and then to cultivate it and use it as they see fit. For millions of people, that’s the basic ability to weave thread, or harvest plants, or shear animals.
But this is a common thing, I feel. It’s simply matter of making those small steps for us, and our descendants, or others’. And the modern face is increasingly becoming other animals’ wellbeing and the generalized health of ecosystems. On of the ways Trusted Clothes is interested in pursuit of this is in the fact of the mistreatment of people, even kids. There’s a better quality of life in certain ways with modern technology. But there’s still the fundamental right and choice. People can choose how to govern their own affairs, lives, communities.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 