Environmental philosophyrights of individual babies be upheld against the good of the larger biotic
community? Some system for reconciling the competing claims of wholes
and individual parts would be essential. The absence of any satisfactory
method for resolving these trade-offs is a major obstacle to the development
of any code of conduct based on holistic assumptions.
Thirdly, perhaps the most controversial feature of all these ethical claims
concerns the distribution of value among morally considerable entities. In
short, do holders of intrinsic value possess equal amounts of it? Naess’s rad-
ical concept of ‘biospherical egalitarianism – in principle’ rejects the ‘dif-
ferential imperative’ (Rodman 1980 ), whereby human attributes are valued
as higher than, rather than simply different from, those of other species.
The inference is that humans possess no greater moral significance than
koalas, rats or mosquitoes. To avoid one obvious objection, Naess ( 1989 )
appended the clause ‘in principle’ because ‘any realistic praxis necessitates
some killing, exploitation and suppression’ (p. 28). Nevertheless, the doc-
trine has still, not surprisingly, provoked enormous controversy. How much
killing, exploitation and suppression is acceptable? Of whom? By whom?
On what grounds?^6 In response to an array of withering attacks on the
unworkability of the principle, Naess tried to clarify his position:
The principle of biospherical egalitarianism defined in terms of equal right,
has sometimes been misunderstood as meaning that human needs should
never have priority over non-human needs. But this is never intended. In
practice, we have for instance greater obligation to that which is nearer
tous. This implies duties which sometimes involve killing or injuring non-
humans. (Naess 1989 :170)However, this qualification denudes the principle of its radicalism; it now
merely provides a guideline to help adjudicate when the needs of different
species conflict. For example, ‘You shall not inflict unnecessary suffer-
ing upon other living beings’ (ibid.: 171); but what is unnecessary? In
his defence, Fox ( 1990 : 223–4) makes clear that Naess is not in the busi-
ness of producing moral ‘oughts’; rather, he is simply making ‘a state-
ment of non-anthropocentrism’. Yet there are further problems with Naess’s
reformulation.
It seems that Naess believes we owe a greater duty to those closest to us
(family? friends? pets?) than to someone (a starving Ethiopian?) or some-
thing (aBrazilian rainforest?) far away. If so, it seems rather strange that
a holistic thinker should focus on one ‘local’ ecosphere, as opposed to the
entire planet. There is also a broader issue here concerning the way that
the‘community’ is privileged by those holistic theories influenced by the
‘land ethic’. The claim seems to be that the community possesses intrinsic
value because we are all parts of the same ‘whole’ (the biosphere or eco-
sphere). It was argued above that, even if we recognise our interdependence
with the natural world, it does not also imply acceptance of a moral rela-
tionship. Conversely, we often recognise obligations to those with whom