Environmental philosophyRather than issue moral injunctions, Fox prefers an ‘experiential invita-
tion’ to individuals to experience our oneness with the world, to engage
in wider identification and move towards a more expansive sense of self
(pp. 244–5).^9 He believes that the exercise of providing moral ‘oughts’ simply
reinforces the traditional idea of an atomistic volitional self (and reinforces
thebelief that ‘man’ is the controller of nature, rather than a part of it).
Yetthis dismissal of ethical codes may be a little disingenuous; in reality,
as Fox concedes, it partly reflects the failure of deep ecologists to make a
robust case for intrinsic value, without which moral injunctions may lack
normative force. Consequently, Fox (and other exponents of the ‘state of
being’ school) choose to avoid the issue: ‘Rather than convince us through
logic and morals, they try to convert us through their example and experi-
ence’ (Lucardie 1993 :31). In practice, humans may need a code of conduct to
help them make choices between different courses of action. Human actions
unavoidably involve intervention in the natural world, but a greater capacity
toidentify with that world will not itself resolve tricky conflicts of interest.
On the contrary, a higher ecological consciousness would be more likely to
sharpen and intensify the range and complexity of conflicts, which would
increase the need for some form of ethical code of conduct.
There may also be a paradox at the heart of transpersonal ecology because
it allocates a central role to the ‘individual’, who can only reach complete
self-fulfilment by choosing to live a life at one with nature; yet the essence of
holism is the importance of whole systems and species, which surely implies
adowngrading, or even a denial, of the autonomous individual. There seems
tobe a strong anthropocentric flavour to this quest for ‘self-realisation’.
Although Fox is genuinely searching for a different ecological conception of
theself–ameansofraisingecologicalconsciousness–thepsychological
language and the emphasis on the experiential convey the impression that
personal (human) transformation is the ultimate goal (Taylor 1991 ;Sylvan
and Bennett 1994 :110). Put differently, transpersonal ecology looks more
like a form of enlightened self-interest – a criticism Fox himself directs at
theethical holists – driven by the belief that individuals have an interest in
and a duty to protect nature because they are at one with it.
Asympathetic interpretation of the two themes running through holistic
approaches, although perhaps not one that Fox would accept, is that they
separate justificatory questions about why it is right to do something from
motivational questions about how to persuade people to do what is right.
Thus it might be argued that holists are claiming that: (1) it is right to respect
nature because it has intrinsic value; and (2) what will motivate us to respect
nature is a recognition of our own relational status, or interdependence,
with nature. So the appeal to self-interest comes in only at the level of
motivation, not at the level of justification.
Although this approach might be philosophically legitimate, it still
encounters some of the difficulties outlined above. For example, this syn-
thesis still has to convince us of the intuitive stipulation that nature has