Spinoza, Ecology and International Law

Radical Naturalism in the Face of the Anthropocene

Moa De Lucia Dahlbeck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351709859
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

This book addresses the use of Benedict Spinoza's philosophy in current attempts to elaborate an ecological basis for international environmental law. Because the question of environmental protection has not been satisfactory resolved, the legal debate concerning our responsibility for the environment has – as evidenced in the recent UN report series Harmony with Nature – come to invite calls for a new eco-centric, rather than anthropocentric, legal paradigm. In this respect, Spinoza appears as a key figure. He is one of the few philosophers in the history of western philosophy who cares, and writes extensively, about the roots of anthropocentrism; the core issue of contemporary normative debates in ecology. And in response to the rapidly developing ecological crisis, his work has become central to a re-thinking of the human relationship with nature. Addressing the contention that Spinoza's ethics might provide a useful source for developing a new, eco-centred framework for environmental law, this book elaborates a more nuanced understanding of Spinoza's philosophy. Spinoza cannot, it is argued here, simply be reduced to an eco-ethicist. That is: his metaphysics cannot be used as basis of an essentially naturalised or extended human morality. At the same time, however, this book argues that the radicality of Spinoza's naturalism nevertheless offers the possibility of developing a more adequate ecological basis for environmental law.

1 The Harmony with Nature Reports and the call for non-anthropocentrism as a response to the environmental problem

The review of the Reports that I will undertake in this chapter will be structured thematically. In a first part I will discuss the literal expressions pointing towards Spinoza within the Reports. After having roughly presented their background, political context and chronology, I will discuss the Reports’ main arguments for a new metaphysics and ethics in accordance with four categories, or kinds of argument: arguments about the need for change at the most fundamental level of thought; arguments describing the metaphysics that arguably is responsible for our current wanton destruction of nature; arguments describing what the old metaphysics must be replaced with; and finally, arguments about the ethical and normative consequences that the author(s) of the Report hope for if their call for change is being respected and adhered to. Then, in a second part, I will emphasize that one of the Reports’ theoretical references is worthy of special attention in so far as their conceptual dependence on Spinoza’s metaphysics is concerned. To this end, the Reports’ references to and affirmation of Arne Naess’ justification of the so-called deep ecology movement establishes a direct link between the Reports’ call for a new paradigm of thought and Spinoza’s metaphysics. I will describe this justification and how it is framed in Spinozistic terms.

Part I: the Reports

To date, the United Nation’s initiative concerned with ‘life in harmony with nature’ has resulted in seven reports with the title Harmony with Nature: Report of the Secretary-General (see Harmony with Nature/Chronology; UNGA Res. A/64/196).¹ They were published between 2010 and 2015. The first report was instigated by a General Assembly resolution in 2009 which is also entitled Harmony with Nature. This resolution was adopted unanimously (A/64/196). Each Report has been included in the General Assembly’s yearly session agenda as a sub-item called Harmony with Nature under the permanent main item of Sustainable Development. The 2009 resolution calls upon the Secretary-General to express his view on the subject of ‘life in harmony with nature’ as well as to provide a summary of the inputs received from states and selected regional and major groups on the same matter (Rep. I para.2). He responds by writing the Reports and hosting live interactive dialogues on the same theme to which he invites not only state representatives but also scientists, scholars and interest groups. In addition to the six reports authored by the Secretary-General, a seventh Experts’ Summary Report on Harmony with Nature (A/71/266) was published 1 August 2016. This report draws on the outcomes of the first Virtual Dialogue of the General Assembly on Harmony with Nature, which was hosted at the Harmony with Nature website, and specifically dedicated to the discussion of so-called ‘Earth jurisprudence’.

The Reports, as well as their accompanying interactive dialogues, were initiated to form parts of the UN lead preparation for the second environment and development summit held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Rio+20). The summit was organized to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development. On the website giving information about a second interactive dialogue on the theme of harmony with nature, the dialogue’s host Ban Ki-moon describes his position as follows:

Designing and implementing sustainable development policies that are truly in harmony with nature implies profound changes in consumption and production patterns, energy and material use and lifestyle aspirations. Such deep changes would require promoting major shifts in attitudes, behaviour and education, as well as changes in public policy and consensus-building at all levels, through inclusive processes that respect national sovereignty and the rights of individuals.

(UNSG, 2011, my emphasis)

This excerpt nicely demonstrates, I think, the common thread which runs throughout all of the seven Reports produced so far. Ban Ki-moon’s statement indicates that the change needed is one that will have a broad impact and affect economic, scientific, as well as ethical knowledge. This is so at least in so far as consumption and production patterns could be said to qualify as economic knowledge; energy and material issues as concerning scientific knowledge; and the notion of lifestyle aspirations as ethical knowledge. As we see in the second sentence of the above-cited excerpt, the enforcement of this wide wave of changes is thought to be linked to ‘major shifts in attitudes, behaviour and education’.

As mentioned in the Introduction, there are a few things about the Reports that make them stand out in relation to similar calls for action. First, it is noteworthy that they are explicitly presented as being developed from the collected impressions of listening to various traditions of thought and voices speaking from very different positions within a long, widespread and diverse debate (see e.g. Rep. I, paras1 and 2; Rep. II, para.2; Rep. III, para.1; Rep. IV, para.1). The seventh report is in itself a product of such cooperation. Second, and of even more importance for the purposes of this book, it is noteworthy that the Reports appear unique in the sense that they actually ground their arguments about a new ethical and moral attitude in a metaphysical outline. In this chapter, I will explore both of these aspects in a condensed manner. In the end, my argument is that the Reports represent and bring together a wide variety of views in order to encircle an ethical position which can be understood in light of the eco-ethical reading of Spinoza’s philosophy that was presented in the Introduction.

Scope and sources

The report series is based on a multitude of sources, originating from very different areas of the very wide-ranging discourse related to the concept of sustainable development. The Reports draw on the views of state representatives, civil interests groups and specialists within scholarly disciplines as diverse as biology and philosophy when sketching an outline of a new eco-ethical paradigm of thought.² For instance, the series opens with an overview of existing global legislation on environmental protection. This overview ends by emphasizing the global consensus on supporting sustainable development which was reached in Rio in 1992. In connection with the conclusion that sustainable development constitutes the tool par excellence for global environmental protection, the first Report argues that the inability to achieve an effective and global protection of the natural environment is the main problem of the international community today (Rep. I, para.15). The answer to this problem spells, according to the same Report, a new metaphysics, and normative ethics guiding our decisions about nature (ibid. para.16).

In sketching the basis for a new normativity, the Reports refer to ground-breaking environmental essays like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and to Nobel laureate Eric Chivian’s view on biodiversity and human health issues. They also draw from the views of Mohammad Yunus (yet another Nobel laureate) and Josef Stieglitz on social and economic issues. The Reports furthermore find support for their position with respect to the issue of the need for a new normative ethics in standard legal agreements concerned, at least partially, with sustainable development (Rep. I, paras3, 12–14 and 48). They refer to the ideas of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), as expressed in the Our Common Future document (ibid., para.11). Two major fields of historical study are described as presenting arguments for the need of a shift in ethics. The first is the history of traditional medicine and theology, and the second is the history of political philosophy. In their description of the second field, the Reports focus on how nature has been conceptualized within, on the one hand, the dominant philosophical tradition (represented by Cartesian dualism) in the western hemisphere, and, on the other, one of its opposing traditions represented by Spinoza’s broadening of the notion of mind and Aldo Leopold’s development of an environmental ethics proper in A Sand County Almanac (Rep. II, paras18–19 and 38). The seventh Report is, in its entirety, a product of inputs of different ‘experts on Earth jurisprudence’ with the vision ‘to inspire citizens and societies to reconsider how they interact with the natural world in order to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in harmony with nature’ (Rep. VII, para.1). The group of international experts (120 in total, of 33 nationalities) who communicate their common opinion in the seventh Report do so from eight different disciplinary perspectives: Rights of nature, ecological economics, education, ethics, philosophy, holistic science, media, and Earth jurisprudence (Rep. VII, para.8).

Among the more contemporary events reviewed in the Reports, educational research is highlighted, as is progressive national legislation that recognizes the rights of nature (Rep. I, paras46–66; Rep. II, paras73–75; Rep. VII, paras1 and 36). Consumerism, development, human cognition, economy and, of course, ethics, are other epistemological fields which all are drawn on in the discussions (Rep. II, paras59–63; Rep. III, para.38; Rep. VII, para.8). Two theorists are especially highlighted by the Reports as important sources of inspiration for the paradigm of thought sought after. These are Arne Naess, philosopher and environmental ethicist, and system theorist Donella Meadows, along with their respective fields of study. According to the Reports, these two stand out as individuals and efforts particularly suited to inspire the concretization of the ethical ideal that the Reports are asking us to seek (Rep. II, para.62; Rep. IV, paras16–17). I place emphasis on this as the reference to Arne Naess establishes a direct link between the Reports’ argumentation and Spinoza’s metaphysics.

Taken together, and considering how the Reports’ recommendations are based on these voices and many more, the Reports come across as a rather diplomatic product of a careful search for the lowest common denominator within a multifaceted context. The fact that a clear ambition – which is to respond to the threat of nature’s degradation by way of reformulating our moral theory – shines through in the Reports despite the heterogeneity of their sources, is interesting to note as it speaks in favour of this ambition being an important and central idea within the current discourse on the global problem of environmental degradation. Having concluded this, let us turn now to the way by which the Reports provide for an outline of how our current, basic thinking patterns must change in order to incorporate an environmentally more sound definition of value and moral right and wrong, in short: a new ecological morality.

Key concepts and chronology

One of the key notions for the Reports’ argument about a viable path towards a new kind of environmental care and protection is the concept of holism. Holism is portrayed as promoting a balanced relationship between human beings and the Earth (Rep. I, para.45). For the Reports, holism stands for the idea of understanding the function of a part by attending to the whole (ibid. para.38). The first Report argues that the balanced relationship which is promoted by holism is present in many indigenous cultures as well as in ancient western traditions but that it has been lost in the transition to modernity³ and that it may be regained by revisiting the common basis of various ‘indigenous beliefs and traditions’ which all have ‘an inherent holistic vision’ (Rep. I, paras6, 16 and 47). In order to contribute to the preparatory process of the 2012 Rio+20 conference, the second and third Reports add more specific information about the scholarly and scientific development of a holistic understanding of the world (Rep. II, para.3; Rep. III, para.2). The fourth Report, written after the +20 conference, looks ahead and draws on the outcome document of that conference as well as a third interactive dialogue held on the International Mother Earth Day. Accordingly, this Report aims at providing ‘inputs for discussion of the post 2015 development agenda’ (Rep. IV, para.1). The same goes for the fifth, sixth and seventh Reports. They focus on the normative adaptation of the specific physical and metaphysical understanding of the world which is to ground the new normative ethics in demand (Rep. V, paras2, 11 and 12; Rep. VI, paras2 and 5; Rep. VII, paras15, 16 and 18).

Specifically, the first Report begins by establishing that it aims to highlight the implicit holistic meaning of sustainable development. According to this Report the implicit holistic meaning places a special emphasis on the environmental pillar of the concept of sustainable development (Rep. I, para.4).⁴ Paragraphs 15 and 16 of the first Report explain the problem connected to the realization of the environmental (holistic) aspect of sustainable development:

Since UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio 1992], sustainable development has become part of the international lexicon. The concept has been incorporated in many UN declarations and its implementation, while complex, has been at the forefront of the world’s institutions and organizations working in the economic, social and environmental sectors. However, they all recognize how difficult it has been to grant the environmental pillar the same recognition enjoyed by the other two pillars despite the many calls by scientists and civil society signalling the vulnerability and precariousness of the Earth since the 1960s.

An explanation for this dilemma may be found in the relationship that civilizations over the course of centuries have had with the Earth and also with their own existence, particularly since the industrial revolution.

(My emphasis)

We see in this argument how the first Report couples the lack of efficiency of our current legal protection of nature with the way we, who live in the aftermath of the industrial revolution in the western hemisphere, relate to (i.e. understand and value) the world and being. Thus, from this we may conclude that already at the outset of the Reports it is clear that it is the basic, philosophical foundation of modern societies that is the root of unsustainability and that a different kind of such foundation is needed in order to remedy our destructive relationship with nature.

The second Report picks up and develops this argumentation by explaining just where in the history of philosophy our understanding of existence and the world went wrong and why we began to allow for a wanton destruction of nature (Rep. II, paras8–34). The second Report, then, can in a way be read as developing the conceptual framework around a philosophy of holism as well as explaining why this philosophical position never gained a foothold in the history of western philosophy. To this end, it begins by describing the relationship between humankind and nature as a relationship that needs to be studied within the realm of ‘philosophy and religion’ (ibid., para.8). The Report argues that the relationship between humankind and nature lies at the heart of all ethical investigations concerned with the issues of the meaning of life and happiness (ibid.). By the end of the second Report, the notion of holism (which in the first Report was revealed as central for the discovery of a new, environmentally friendly ethics) is connected with a change to a new paradigm of thought. A paradigm the central tenet of which is the idea of the world as a single and c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Editions used and abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Harmony with Nature Reports and the call for non-anthropocentrism as a response to the environmental problem
• 2. Spinoza’s metaphysics Substance monism, naturalism and psychological egoism
• 3. Spinoza and law
• 4. Spinoza and the state
• 5. A Spinozistic theory of international law
• 6. The Reports and the normative implications of an eco-ethical approach inspired by Spinoza’s philosophy
• Index