The theory of eco-centric morality is central to many recent discussions of environmental ethics. The theory states that the environment and its many eco-systems are entitled to a direct moral standing, and not simply a standing derived from human interests. For example, on this view a rain forest should be protected for its own sake, and not merely because of the many benefits it has for human existence. J. Baird Callicott has given perhaps the strongest defense of eco-centrism. His arguments address both metaphysical and normative issues. The metaphysical issue concerns whether inherent goodness is the kind of thing which applies to environmental collections, and the normative issue is whether the extension of direct duties to environmental collections is an acceptable rule of conduct. I will examine Callicott's metaphysical arguments and conclude that his attempts to attach inherent value to environmental collections fail. However, I suggest that Callicott overrates the need for a metaphysical grounding of inherent value, and that the metaphysical question has little bearing on the normative issue of eco-centrism.

Callicott argues that the key metaphysical issue in environmental ethics is whether the environment and its subsystems are inherently valuable. "Inherent value," for him entails that something "is valued for itself, and not only and merely because it serves as a means to satisfy the desires, further the interests, or occasion the preferred experiences of the valuers."⁽¹⁾ Philosophers have traditionally denied that inherent value can apply to collections of things. For Kant, only a rationally good will has inherent value, hence, only particular creatures who are both rational and volitionally free can be inherently valuable.⁽²⁾ This rules out the possibility of inherent value for both nonrational entities and collective entities which lack free wills.

Contemporary discussions of moral personhood also do not recognizing the inherent value of collections. Philosophers such as Mary Ann Warren and Joel Feinberg argue that a thing has a direct moral standing if and only if it fulfills criteria which designate moral personhood. Such criteria include sentience, consciousness, reasoning, self-motivation, the capacity to communicate, and self-awareness.⁽³⁾ Again, collective entities lack the above criteria and therefore cannot be candidates for moral personhood. In this tradition, Tom Regan argues that direct moral rights cannot "be meaningfully attributed to the collection of trees or the ecosystem."⁽⁴⁾ But, according to Callicott, this line of reasoning assumes that moral value is an objective metaphysical quality which resides in moral agents or actions. And Callicott rejects this assumption. Opting for a more subjective grounding of inherent value, Callicott has given two distinct theories showing that, from a metaphysical standpoint, inherent value may meaningfully apply to environmental collections.
 
 

Callicott's first theory begins with the Humean concept of moral sentiment.⁽⁵⁾ According to Hume, value does not reside in a morally significant action (or any other "matter of fact"). Instead, actions are deemed good or bad according to the feelings of pleasure or pain which a spectator experiences when viewing such actions. Interpreting Hume's theory in light of Darwinian natural selection, Callicott argues that the spectator's moral sentiments "were naturally selected in a social environment which permitted and facilitated growth in the size and complexity of society."⁽⁶⁾ Callicott stresses that these naturally selected moral sentiments can be triggered by things other than human moral agents, given the right education. According to Callicott, Aldo Leopold had taken advantage of this open-endedness by maintaining that the environment itself could trigger moral sentiment for those who are ecologically well informed. On this account of morality, then, it makes metaphysical sense to speak of the inherent value of environmental collections since (a) all inherent value is imputed to objects by moral spectators, and (b) with the proper education, environmental collections may trigger a moral spectator's sentiments.

From a strictly Humean perspective, Callicott's theory has problems. For, Callicott's claim that moral sentiments can be triggered by things other than valuing subjects is not supported by Hume. Instead, Hume stresses that a spectator's moral sentiments arise only in response to an agent's mental qualities and intentions, which inanimate objects clearly lack. Although an inanimate object may trigger some kind of pleasure for the spectator, it is only an agent's mental quality which can trigger a distinctly moral sentiment of pleasure:
 

...an inanimate object, and the [mental] character or sentiments of any person may, both of them, give satisfaction; but as the satisfaction is different, this keeps our sentiments concerning them from being confounded, and makes us ascribe virtue to the one, and not to the other.⁽⁷⁾

At best, environmental collections can directly arouse aesthetic feelings, but not moral feelings. Hence, environmental collections cannot have inherent value.⁽⁸⁾

At least part of the role of Humean moral sentiment in Callicott's theory involves the history of ideas: "if my historical reading is correct, the seminal paradigm for contemporary environmental ethics, the Leopold land ethic, rests upon Humean axiological foundations."⁽⁹⁾ Callicott is uncertain about whether Leopold read Hume directly, but he is certain that Darwin was directly influenced by Hume, and Leopold by Darwin. This historical connection falls apart, though, since Humean moral sentiment does not do what Callicott hopes. Not only does Humean moral sentiment fail in this respect, but neither Francis Hutcheson's nor Adam Smith's account of moral sentiment can apply to inanimate objects.⁽¹⁰⁾ Insofar as the history of ideas is concerned, this failure is important since Callicott would like to ground eco-centrism in a sound philosophical tradition.

On a theoretical level, though, Callicott's misconstrual of Hume is not as significant. We may take him as simply reviving the theory of moral sentiment in a revised form. Specifically, the revision includes the observation that eco-systems may trigger genuine moral sentiments (as opposed to merely aesthetic sentiments). But this revision, too, has problems. The decline of moral sentimentalism after Adam Smith came about for good reasons, as most forcefully argued by Bentham and Mill. For Bentham, the key problem with moral sentimentalism involves justifying the veracity of one's moral sentiments. He concludes that such a justification is possible only by appeal to the consequences of an action. For, the presence of a moral sentiment alone can be no justification for preventing, say, an agent's malevolent action. Such a justification arises only in view of the harm that would result from the action.⁽¹¹⁾

A second and more important problem with moral sentimentalism, pointed out by Mill, involves the very contention that a natural sentiment could discern right from wrong "in the particular case in hand." The facts suggest otherwise since moral sentiments are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions of each token moral judgment. If anything, argues Mill, our natural faculties could provide us only with more general moral principles which we then would apply to token cases.⁽¹²⁾ Callicott might easily amend his theory by arguing that our moral intuitions (when developed) entail the inherent value of environmental collections. But this produces an all new set of questions about the nature of moral intuitions.⁽¹³⁾

It seems that reintroducing a theory of moral sentiment raises more problems than it solves. However, Callicott is not locked into this approach since, given his rejection of objective moral value, he needs only to provide some plausible account of how environmental collections may have inherent value. To this end, he has recently offered an alternative metaphysical foundation for the inherent value of environmental collections which is an interesting revision of his earlier Humean view presented above.
 
 

Callicott argues that the Humean distinction between an agent's action (fact) and a moral spectator's sentiments (value) is dependent upon Descartes's distinction between res extensa (object) and res cogitans (subject). According to Callicott, Copenhagen quantum theory undermines the Cartesian object-subject dichotomy. For, at the sub-atomic level,
 

...to make an observation energy must be exchanged between the object of observation and the observer. That energy is, among other things, information and information energy physicalizes knowledge and consciousness. The res cogitans collapses, thus, into the res extensa.⁽¹⁴⁾

Biophysicist Harold Morowitz makes the same point in his essay "Rediscovering the Mind:"
 

With the development of quantum mechanics, the role of the observer became an even more central part of physical theory, an essential component in defining an event. The mind of the observer emerges as a necessary element in the structure of the theory.⁽¹⁵⁾

Thus, Callicott, like Morowitz, believes that the object-subject dichotomy collapses, and that the fact-value dichotomy collapses along with it.

Intuitively, Callicott's point is that morality is actualized upon the interaction of an event with consciousness. The difference between this quantum-type account and Humean sentimentalism is subtle. For Hume, morality is projected onto value-free nature. With this quantum-type interpretation, though, morality emerges symbiotically upon the encounter of an event with consciousness.⁽¹⁶⁾ Environmental collections, then, will have inherent value when an observer finds these collections valuable in themselves, and not for the sake of something else.

But, even if morality is actualized upon interaction with consciousness, quantum theory provides no proof of this. Granting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, the object-subject model of the world functions well until we reach the sub-atomic level. Philosophical theories such as determinism are indeed affected by quantum theory since sub-atomic matter is relevant to determinism. Morality, however, does not operate at the sub-atomic level. At the level it does operate, the object-subject (and fact-value) model of the world is adequate. Given the disparity between sub-atomic and common life levels of reality, Copenhagen quantum theory offers only an analogy for how one might approach the metaphysics of inherent value, were we to reject the fact-value dichotomy.

Callicott would accept this criticism but argue that an analogy is all we need: "In the history of ideas analogy is everything. Classical social theory is built upon an analogy to Newton's classical physical theory."⁽¹⁷⁾ Nevertheless, two problems emerge. First, it is questionable that quantum theory could become the accepted model for ordinary experience. If Hume and Kant are right that our mental propensities or categories force us to posit a world of objective facts, then we may be condemned to holding the fact-value dichotomy whether it is true or false. Second, even if quantum theory would become the accepted model of ordinary experience in the future, it helps little now in establishing the inherent value of environmental collections.

At the close of his article, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," Callicott offers a final suggestion for how the break down of the object-subject dichotomy in quantum theory affects environmental ethics:
 

Nature is a unity, a whole, and the self, the "I" (mentally as well as physically construed), is not only continuous with it, but constituted by it. Nature and I are conceptually as well as metaphysically integrated.⁽¹⁸⁾

Callicott's point is that quantum theory eliminates the distinction between (1) the perceiving self, and (2) the natural world as the object of our perception. This supports a kind of pantheism or religious non-dualism which sees the true self as an extended self incorporating the world. The injury which is then produced by environmental damage is a direct injury to my extended self. Accordingly, it makes perfect sense for me to directly value environmental collections, since, metaphysically speaking, I am those collections.⁽¹⁹⁾

Callicott argues that theories of Eastern religious non-dualism can help illuminate the identity of ourselves with nature and that eco-centrism can be found in Eastern ideas such as the Taoist wu wei, the Hindu Atman-Brahman, and the Zen Buddhist notion of the unreality of the individual.⁽²⁰⁾ However, as revealing as these traditions may be about the union of the self with the natural world, they also carry highly skeptical consequences about the possibility of any ethic, much less a coherent environmental ethic. All ethical judgments in non-dualistic traditions are products of our empirical self -- that part of us concerned with making discriminations. The tendency of the empirical self to make discriminations is seen as a hindrance to an enlightened understanding of our true, total self. Thus, the cognitive act itself of making an ethical judgment becomes a barrier to an understanding of our true self.

In Samkhya Hinduism, for example, ethical judgments would be products of prakriti, the world of appearance involving the intellect, ego, mind, senses, and actions. These are seen as illusory and not to be identified with the true self (purusa). Similarly, in Buddhism, true wisdom (prajna) involves experiencing things as they really are, which is an undifferentiated experience. Ethical judgments by their nature involve discriminations and hence cannot be part of prajna. Finally, in Taoism, the state of non-mind (wu-hsin) excludes cognitive distinctions and thus ethical judgments.

Further, when ethical values appear within these Eastern systems, they are seen only as preliminary steps on the path to liberation -- preliminary steps which serve an expedient means (upaya) in a nondoctrinal capacity. For example the Yoga Sutra recommends several ethical abstentions and practices as preliminaries for meditation and the attainment of samadhi. The purpose of these ethical practices, however, is only to clear the mind from appetitive and social distractions. Indeed, in asamprajnata-samadhi all judgment, including ethical judgment has ceased. Similarly, the five moral precepts in Buddhism are part of the eightfold path which, again, is only intended as a preliminary for reaching nirvana.
 
 

In summary, Callicott has failed to show that moral sentiment may be triggered by environmental collections, according to several traditional account of moral sentiment. He has also failed to prove that morality is actualized upon the interaction of environmental collections with consciousness in a way analogous to quantum theory. Finally, he has failed to show how religious non-dualism can lend itself to environmental ethical discriminations while remaining true to the meditational state of liberation from discriminations.

The problem, though, is not the lack of a theoretical framework for attributing inherent value to environmental collections. A revised Humean theory, or even the quantum model provide some theoretical framework. Instead, the problem is that Callicott has not reasonably proven that either of these accounts is the metaphysics of inherent value. Even granting a broadly subjectivist foundation of value, he still must show that either of his untraditional accounts are metaphysically (and not just normatively) preferable to subjectivist theories which do not attribute morality to environmental collections (such as Hume's actual position). Considering that moral subjectivists and objectivists alike have not traditionally ascribed inherent value to collections of inanimate objects, the burden of proof still remains on Callicott.

But how important is it for eco-centrism to have a metaphysical grounding? It is usually assumed that the normative and metaphysical elements of moral theories bear a direct relation to each other. If metaphysically there is no objective moral value, it is assumed that this determines the kinds of normative principles we accept. However, J.L. Mackie argues otherwise:
 

A man could hold strong moral views, and indeed ones whose content was thoroughly conventional, while believing that they were simply attitudes and policies with regard to conduct that he and other people held. Conversely, a man could reject all established morality while believing it to be an objective truth that it was evil or corrupt.⁽²¹⁾

Mackie's claim is too strong that normative issues are completely independent from metaphysical issues. For, if we determine metaphysically that X has inherent value, this may have a psychological bearing on our normative responsibility toward X. Thus Mackie is best understood as maintaining that there is no necessary logical connection between metaphysical and normative issues. Robert Elliot echoes this intuition when arguing that even an objectivist metaethic "does not provide normative support for the ethic over and above providing the logical space for it."⁽²²⁾ This logical space would be limited to the recognition that a normative view is not self-contradictory.

Accordingly, the metaphysical issue of the inherent value of environmental collections is far less important than Callicott believes. Even without a metaphysical ground for attributing inherent value to environmental collections, the normative project of eco-centrism is still legitimate.⁽²³⁾

Setting the logical question aside, the psychological question emerges: how can we introduce a new normative eco-centric principle into our present anthropocentric value system? If intrinsic goodness were objective, a theoretical procedure could be followed which might validate eco-centrism. First, it would have to be shown that environmental collections are intrinsically good. From this, a normative principle requiring direct duties to environmental collections would follow with some psychological persuasion. However, the idea of objective morality is highly implausible, as argued most recently by Mackie. The key problem with objective morality is that it requires a commitment to a metaphysical realm, such as the realm of Platonic forms, which is either counterintuitive or unsupportable. Given the absence of objective value, what remains is for us to make morality by formulating normative principles which we would universally prescribe.⁽²⁴⁾ For ordinary moral concerns, "making morality" does not mean creating from scratch: we may draw from our 3,000 year old ethical tradition.

For eco-centrism, though, "making morality" within our Western tradition does mean creating from scratch. And here there is no clear theoretical procedure. One may attempt a series of rational arguments granting direct duties to environmental collections. Following Plato, we may defend eco-centrism from the analogy that we owe direct duties to our parents, and the biosphere is like our parents insofar as it has nurtured us.⁽²⁵⁾ Alternatively, we could defend eco-centrism with an argument from common consent, such as Callicott himself presents when noting how native American religions are eco-centric.⁽²⁶⁾

But given the human resistance to change, these kinds of arguments would probably not be psychologically convincing, even when formulated with precision. The real issue involves breaking through traditional anthropocentric mind-sets and here philosophical argument would take a back seat to more effective techniques such as education, indoctrination, and even coercion.⁽²⁷⁾ Using these techniques dramatic alterations in belief can take place, although with key moral issues it may take a few generations. At the close of his moral Enquiry, Hume laments the fact that his version of utilitarianism seemed so true to him, yet it did not enjoy "the unanimous suffrage and consent of mankind." Within a hundred years, however, utilitarianism attained its popularity. Perhaps advocates of eco-centrism may also have a long wait.

1. J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," Environmental Ethics, 7 (1985): 262. In this article, Callicott distinguishes between "inherent value" and "intrinsic value" where the former refers to the value something has for itself, and the latter to the value something has independent of a spectator. Given Callicott's emphasis on subjective based value, in this article he opts for the term "inherent value" which does not require a commitment to objective value (which would be independent of the act of valuing by a spectator). It should be noted, however, that Callicott's definition if these two terms is not traditional. Frankena, for example defines "inherent values" as things that are good because the experience of contemplating them is good or rewarding in itself. "Intrinsic values," by contrast, is defined as "things that are good in themselves or good because of their own intrinsic properties," William K. Frankena, Ethics, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), p. 82.

2. Kant argues that "It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will." Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H.J. Paton, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 61.

3. Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," The Monist, 57 (1973): 43-61; Joel Feinberg, "Abortion," in Matters of Life and Death, pp. 256-293.

4. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 362

5. Callicott presents this theory in several essays including, "The Case Against Moral Pluralism," Environmental Ethics, 12 (1990): 99-124; "Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic," in Companion to "A Sand County Almanac" ed. J. Baird Callicott, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. 190-191; "The Search for Environmental Ethics," in Matters of Life and Death, ed. Tom Regan (New York: Random House, 1986), pp. 381-424; "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory," Environmental Ethics, 7 (1985): 257-275; "Non-anthropocentric Value Theory and Environmental Ethics," American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 299-309; "Hume's Is/Ought Dichotomy and the Relation of Ecology to Leopold's Land Ethic," Environmental Ethics, 4 (1982): 163-174.

6. J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," 236.

7. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 472, cf. 471, 477-479, 574-575.

8. A second problem with Callicott's interpretation of Hume is that moral sentiments are not as open-ended as Callicott supposes. Instead, actions are deemed virtuous by a spectator's moral sense only when these actions produce consequences which are useful and agreeable to oneself and to others (Ibid, 591). On Hume's account, the environment would have only instrumental value, depending on the utility or agreeableness environmental responsibility produces for the agent or the public.

9. J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," 262. See also J. Baird Callicott, "Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic," 190-191.

10. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry Concerning the Original of our Ideas of Virtue or Moral Good, in British Moralists, ed. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897), p. 73; Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), p. 19.

11. Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, in The Utilitarians, (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1961), pp. 302-303. Hume may have come to the same conclusion since his moral Enquiry may be seen as one extended argument showing that only an agent's qualities which have private and public utility and agreeableness can trigger a spectator's moral sentiments; (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), cf. bottom 173, top 268.

12. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Samuel Gorovitz, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), p. 4.

13. Another problem commonly found with theories of moral sentiment is that one cannot explain why we have favorable sentiments toward benevolence but not toward malevolence (see, for example, Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, New York: MacMillan, 1966, p. 163). However, Callicott's account of the evolution of morality easily addresses this problem.

14. J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," 269. Callicott's quantum-type argument also appears in "Just the Facts, Ma'am," The Environmental Professional, 8 (1987): 279-288.

15. Harold Morowitz, "Rediscovering the Mind," in The Mind's I, ed. Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), pp. 34-42.

16. Interestingly, David Fate Norton has interpreted Hume's account of moral value in a manner similar to Callicott's quantum-type account. According to Norton, Humean moral value depends upon a complication of circumstances involving relations between the agent and spectator. Value, then, is a kind of "emergent property;" "Hume's Moral Ontology," Hume Studies, 10th Anniversary Issue (1985): 189-214. Callicott's interpretation of Humean moral value is best developed by J.L. Mackie in Hume's Moral Theory, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), p. 74.

17. J. Baird Callicott, private correspondence.

18. J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," 273-274.

19. Callicott's argument for eco-centrism based on the extended self is sympathetically explored by Michael E. Zimmerman in "Quantum Theory, Intrinsic Value, and Panentheism," Environmental Ethics, 10 (1988) 3-30.

20. J. Baird Callicott, "Conceptual Resources for Environmental Ethics in Asian Traditions of Thought: A Propaedeutic," Philosophy East and West, 37 (1987): 115-130.

21. J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 16. Mackie distinguishes between two main metaethical issues: (1) a factual issue, which concerns the objectivity and metaphysical nature of morality, and (2) a conceptual issue which involves the linguistic meaning of key moral terms. The problem of applying inherent value to environmental groups concerns the first of these.

22. Robert Elliot, "Meta-Ethics and Environmental Ethics," Metaphilosophy, 16 (1985): 104.

23. Callicott candidly notes Mackie's influence on his concept of morality; J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics," 260, note. It is, therefore, appropriate that we recognize the autonomy of normative and metaphysical issues along the lines that Mackie draws.

24. For Mackie, "[normative] morality is not to be discovered but to be made." Ethics, p. 106.

25. Plato's argument from the Crito is that we are duty bound to the state just as we are to our parents since it has raised us.

26.See Callicott's discussion of native American traditions and myths in "Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward Nature: An Overview," Environmental Ethics, 4 (1982): 293-318.

27. Callicott's preferred method of transforming anthropocentric mind sets is to educate people about the facts of the environment such as the effects of fluorocarbons and acid rain; J. Baird Callicott, "Just the Facts, Ma'am," 279-288.