modern industrial society, but without the costs; if that were Sale’s point, then it
would amount to a much more generous compliment to an industrial society than
most ecologists are prepared to pay.Are ecologists hostile to individualism (or individual
human rights)?One way to overcome the binary distinctions between humans and nature, and
between nature and culture which we have already discussed is to redefine the
human ‘self’. An ecologist could argue that it is meaningless to talk about your
emotions or subjectivity, as distinct from that which is ‘outside’ you. If we collapse
the difference between ‘self’ and ‘other’, where the other includes, for example, the
mountain range, or the river, that you are looking at, then it is unnecessary to talk
about intrinsic value. However, it is difficult to understand what this extended self
would be like, and, more significantly, the politicaleffect of accepting that such a
self exists would be to internalise all the conflicts which presently exist between
selves, understood in the narrow, everyday sense of individual self-conscious beings.
When a person feels a conflict between their interests and the interests of the
‘community’ (in Leopold’s very wide sense of that term), then it could be argued
that an ecologist could claim that the individual’s ‘true self’ is in tune with nature,
and that their ‘individualised’ self is only a part of nature. Consequently, the
‘community’ is justified in ‘helping’ that person to overcome their ‘internal’ conflicts.
Ecologists maintain that the language of rights – of individual entitlements held
against other people – is part of a false, anthropocentric view of the world. Not
only are rights – and especially rights to private property – destructive of nature,
but they present a flawed model of human relations. People would be happier in
more communal relations. It is interesting that many ecologists are sceptical about
animal rights. Certainly among those most hostile to the notion that animals have
rights are the anthropocentric theorists of the traditional ideologies, such as socialism
or liberalism, but the extension of rights from human beings to non-human animals
derives from an individualist world view: the theory of animal rights does not
challenge anthropocentrism. Ecologists, on the other hand, tend to have a robust
attitude to animal life, accepting that all animals are locked into a cycle of life and
death, and the whole – Gaia – is more important than the parts.
Ecologists must have an account of human motivation, for presumably something
has to change in terms of the relationship between human beings and nature.
There are three possibilities: (a) changes in technology that conserve resources, slow
down depletion or allow for economic growth without serious environmental
consequences; (b) changes in the way we organise society, providing incentives or
sanctions so as to alter behaviour; (c) changes in human motivation, which alter
behaviour without requiring external incentives or sanctions. Ecologists are sceptical
about (a), and prefer that (b), social and political changes, follow from (c), changes
in motivation. It is significant that Hardin rejects (a) and (c) but endorses (b), arguing
that only coercive measures will avert a global disaster.
A thread that runs through ecologism is that human behaviour in an industrialised
society is bad for the environment, but also bad for human beings. This suggests
that there is a ‘real’ human nature, which is fundamentally good, but is distorted372 Part 3 Contemporary ideologies