Environmental Justice in African Philosophy

Munamato Chemhuru

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000567755
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

This book focuses on environmental justice in African philosophy, highlighting important new perspectives which will be of significance to researchers with an interest in environmental ethics both within Africa and beyond.

Drawing on African social and ethical conceptions of existence, the book makes suggestions for how to derive environmental justice from African philosophies such as communitarian ethics, relational ethics, unhu/ubuntu ethics, ecofeminist ethics and intergenerational ethics. Specifically, the book emphasises the ways in which African philosophies of existence seek to involve everyone in environmental policy and planning and to equitably distribute both environmental benefits (such as natural resources) and environmental burdens (such as pollution and the location of mining, industrial or dumping sites). This extends to fair distribution between global South and global North, rich and poor, urban and rural populations, men and women and adults and children. These principles of humaneness, relationships, equality, interconnectedness and teleologically oriented existence among all beings are important not only to African environmental justice but also to the environmental justice movement globally.

The book will interest researchers and students working in the fields of environmental ethics, African philosophy and political philosophy in general.

1Environmental Ethics in African Philosophy

DOI: 10.4324/9781003176718-2

1.1 Introduction

The quest to establish African environmental ethics as an independent discipline in philosophy has in recent times been one of the core objectives in contemporary African philosophy. Only recently has African environmental ethics developed into an independent body, having gained currency in the last half of the twentieth century (Oruka, 1997: xvi). The history of African environmental ethics has otherwise been marked primarily by what was happening to the history of African philosophy prior to the twentieth century, when its existence was denied. This effectively meant that African environmental ethics was also denied, since it is an important aspect of African philosophy. I will not, however, venture into these historical issues of African philosophy in great detail, since that is not my mission here. Nevertheless, I will be constantly referring to it because its history influences that of African environmental ethics. Against this background, there are still some misconceptions as to whether or not African environmental ethics actually exists and whether it is a new discourse altogether. This chapter partly addresses such misconceptions. In that regard, it is important to note that denying the existence of African environmental ethics is as good as denying the existence of African philosophy, since African environmental ethics is an essential part of this philosophy. At the same time, it is absurd to think that way and to even assume or entertain the view that among African communities, there are no conceptions of, for example, the moral status of nature, animal rights and welfare, and the effects of global warming, pollution, climate change, poverty, pollution, the extinction of biodiversity and environmental justice conceptions.

In this chapter, I will dispel some of the views that insinuate that environmental ethics is a new discourse both in the Western tradition and in African philosophy in particular. I seek to show that human beings, particularly African communitarian societies, have always been conscious of the need to relate well with nature, even well before the publication of mid-twentieth century literature on environmental ethics. Such literature – especially that of Aldo Leopold (1949), Rachel Carson (1963), Lynn White (1967), Holmes Roston (1995) and J. Baird Callicott (2002) – suggest that environmental ethics is a post-modern philosophical discourse. Although these philosophers are not making specific reference to African environmental ethics, they seem to be speaking universally about environmental ethics, implying that even African environmental ethics did not exist prior to the twentieth century. I provide some objections to such views. In order to dispel such misconceptions within the African philosophical context, I trace the history of ancient African environmental philosophy or indigenous African environmental philosophy in terms of how it can be interpreted as conceptualising peaceful existence between human beings and nature. I show how conceptions about various aspects of environmental ethics such as moral status of nature, animal rights and welfare could be read from ancient African philosophy. In order to show the nature of such environmental ethics in African philosophy, I will work with the twentieth century writings on African environmental ethics as well as the twenty-first century discourse on African environmental ethics. The reason for this is that much of ancient African philosophy has not been documented, although some historians of philosophy may want to claim that some aspects of ancient Greek philosophy are actually drawn from African philosophy (James, 1954). I seek to show how this important body of literature on African environmental ethics has largely been more focused on affirming the existence and nature of African environmental ethics against the background of the denial of the existence of African philosophy. I then proceed to consider the missing link in these considerations of African environmental ethics where questions of environmental justice are concerned.

In this first section, I define environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, respectively. I do this in order to be clear about their meanings since I will be making reference to them very often when I examine African environmental philosophy and African environmental ethics in the ensuing sections. In the second section, I examine ancient environmental ethics by situating it within the African philosophical discourse. I intend to counter particular misconceptions relating to the status of both African philosophy and African environmental ethics by analysing the philosophical outlook of African environmental ethics from the ancient African philosophical tradition, the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, respectively. I will end the chapter by demonstrating the research gap relating to the question of environmental justice, which still remains underexplored in these works on African environmental ethics.

1.2 Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Ethics

A clear understanding of both ‘environmental philosophy’ and ‘environmental ethics’ is important to this work. I therefore begin by defining environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, respectively. Since I will focus on African environmental philosophy and African environmental ethics in the ensuing chapters, it would be appropriate to first clearly define what environmental philosophy and environmental ethics are before discussing them within the African context. This will be particularly useful when I refer to African environmental philosophy and African environmental ethics, respectively, in questions relating to environmental justice in African environmental philosophy.

Most environmental theorists often use the terms ‘environmental philosophy’ and ‘environmental ethics’ interchangeably. However, it must be emphasised that there is a difference between the two, although it remains superfluous and rather less important in much of the discourse on environmental thinking. This is because environmental philosophy and environmental ethics are closely connected concepts by virtue of the fact that environmental ethics is an important domain of environmental philosophy. In my conception of environmental philosophy and environmental ethics in this work, I see no reason to understand and use them separately because they complement each other and are focused on conceptualising good relations between human beings and nature. I therefore seek to show why one need not be distracted by definitional hazy in examining African environmental ethics in African environmental philosophy. Ultimately, my intention is to work on, and interpret African environmental ethics as an important component and complementary area of African environmental philosophy.

Both environmental philosophy and environmental ethics deal with fundamental questions about how human beings ought to relate with nature. Although the central questions of environmental philosophy could be viewed as theoretically broader than those of environmental ethics, just as the questions of philosophy are broader than those of ethics, both at least attempt to search for relations that ought to subsist between human beings and the environment. Robin Attfield defines environmental philosophy as “the study of the concepts and principles relating to human interactions with nature and the natural environment, to related presumptions about the relation of humanity with nature, and to practical implications for both humans and societies” (Attfield, 2018: 38). Although this definition is broader than that with which environmental ethics is actually concerned, it is not too far away, and different from that of environmental ethics per se. Closer to this view of environmental philosophy is also the understanding of environmental ethics as an important branch of environmental philosophy, which is concerned with studying normative values and principles in environmental philosophy.

Environmental ethics seeks to challenge some of the longstanding normative ethical positions relating to human relations with nature. This view of environmental ethics is aptly captured in Aldo Leopold’s (1949) notion of the ‘Land Ethic’, which could be taken as the new theoretical basis for understanding what environmental ethics is all about. According to Leopold, “all ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise; that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts… The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land” (Leopold, 1949: 203–4). Understood this way, environmental ethics therefore ought to involve the extension of ethical considerability to the rest of nature or the environment as a whole. Although it is not explicit from Leopold’s view, environmental ethics should also consider the possibility of treating the environment as an end in itself, or that it should be granted ethical standing for its own sake. In order to take all these fundamental questions into consideration, environmental ethics ultimately ventures into the province of environmental philosophy, such that a clear-cut division between the two might be difficult to make.

The relationship between environmental philosophy and environmental ethics is similar to that of philosophy and ethics, or philosophy and epistemology, where ethics and epistemology are central branches of philosophy. Without either metaphysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics or ethics, philosophical questions cease to exist. Moreover, philosophical questions can only be philosophical if – and only if – they are either metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetical, logical or ethical in nature. Similarly, all questions of environmental ethics are therefore environmental philosophical questions. However, environmental ethics may not be exhaustive of all environmental philosophical questions, some of which may not really be ethical in nature, although they could have a bearing on conceptions of environmental ethics. By way of example, the metaphysical questions as to whether non-animate beings such as vegetation and physical nature ought to be treated as having ethical status are environmental philosophical questions that they have a bearing, however, on the ultimate conception of environmental ethics. Accordingly, environmental ethics becomes an applied ethical view of environmental philosophy. As an important branch of environmental philosophy, environmental ethics should be understood as practical ethics since it attempts to construct practical conceptions about how human beings ought to relate with the environment. To confirm this practical orientation of environmental ethics, Attfield notes that “environmental ethics studies the principles of values and obligation, the concepts involved, the status of these principles, and their application to practical issues such as the preservation of biodiversity, ecological restoration and the mitigation of climate change” (Attfield, 2018: 39). Given this practical dimension of environmental ethics, I will be making reference to environmental ethics more often than environmental philosophy on most of the issues that I discuss in African environmental philosophy.

Despite the temptation to use the terms environmental philosophy and environmental ethics interchangeably, as I will sometimes be doing here, it must be emphasised that the area of environmental philosophy is broader than environmental ethics in both scope and focus. The area of environmental philosophy is relatively broader in that it considers a broad range of philosophical issues that extend beyond the ethical questions that environmental ethics is specifically concerned with. Environmental philosophy goes beyond the scope of environmental ethics by dealing with philosophical issues that even go beyond merely ethical ones, including questions that might be metaphysical, epistemological, religious, social, political and economic in nature among others (Attfield, 2018: 39). Accordingly, while environmental ethics is concerned with ethical questions relating to value, obligations, principles, application, restoration and applying ethical principles to given ethical scenarios and situations, environmental philosophy goes beyond such ethical questions. According to Katz, “environmental philosophy examines, analyses and (in part) justifies direct ethical principles regarding human action on the natural environment. Its focus is the proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nonhuman natural world” (Katz, 1991: 80). In short, environmental philosophy and environmental ethics cannot be understood separately.

So far, the generally loose usage of the terms environmental philosophy and environmental ethics to refer to similar questions seems to be clear and somewhat justified. However, in trying to make a distinction between the two, it must be borne in mind that “environmental concerns regularly strain the domain of ethics” (Callicott and Frodeman, 2009: XX). In other words, environmental philosophical questions and concerns are not only ethical but they are quite complex in nature. Ultimately, then, environmental philosophy deals with those questions that fall outside the boundaries of environmental ethics. From a very strict philosophical perspective, for example, one would not imagine that there could be any ethical relations between human beings and nature such that humans could be deemed as having duties and obligations towards it. Such a relationship simply does not and cannot exist. This is because nature (either animate or non-animate) lacks agency in so far as it is not a moral agent in its own right and that it is not our moral counterpart, and therefore lacks reciprocity. Nature could, however, possibly be viewed as some kind of moral patient warranting our attention and care. Moral patients are generally things that are not moral agents and not morally accountable because they lack the prerequisites for such accountability, like all aspects on nature towards which human beings ought to have moral responsibility towards because they can be harmed/made worse off or better by human action (see, for example, Regan, 1983: 19). For this reason, environmental ethics cannot, within its domain properly account for the ethical basis for granting moral status to, for example, non-animate beings and the rest of nature. It might be somewhat better, therefore, to speak of environmental philosophy, which is at least broader that environmental ethics. To bring this view into perspective, Callicott and Frodeman opine that “the silliness of the question do rocks have moral rights marks the limits of environmental ethics an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsements Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Environmental Ethics in African Philosophy
• 2 Environmental (in)Justice in Africa: The North – South Challenge
• 3 Environmental Justice from an African Land Ethic
• 4 African Relational Environmental Justice
• 5 African Ecofeminist Environmental Justice
• 6 Intergenerational Environmental Justice in African Philosophy
• Index