Environmental studies The Eye of the Beholder

Project description
write a response to this short essay. What can you ad to the topic? Use at least one source.

I am still torn over the discussion of the intrinsic value of nature. My gut tells me that nature has its own intrinsic value, but I have not given enough thought to the subject that I can make a convincing argument for this feeling. At first reading I tend to side with much of what Rolston has to say about objective intrinsic value. In simpleton’s terms, I feel he argues that, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and things have value based on a contentious valuer. Although this idea is considered anthropocentric, I feel that the beholder can shift and be from different perspectives such as biological and geological. Though like Hettinger, I have an issue with Rolston’s idea of intrinsic value depending on “positive creativity”. Who decides what positive creativity is? Like Buddhist, everything has an inherent goodness and I think this should be a substitute for positive creativity.

An anthropocentric view of the valuation of nature is compelling because who other than humans can consciously value something beyond its usefulness too them? Do you think an animal will sit back and appreciate nature for its aesthetic appeal? I don’t know that an animal can value anything beyond its usefulness to their survival. Instinct drives them. It can then be argued that “we humans cannot know enough about what these animals and plants are like in themselves to escape our own blinders” (Rolston, 2012, pg 117). This means that we need to get over ourselves and recognize the possibility that nature has intrinsic value in a nonanthropocentric realm. Hettinger remarks on a statement made by Rolston “it is arrogant to think that for hundreds of millions of years flourishing nature on Earth was actually valueless and then became valuable when humans arrived to bestow value on it” (Hettinger, 2012, pg 121). I agree with this statement, it is arrogant indeed. Did nothing have value to anything prior to humans showing up on the scene? This brings me back to Rolston’s objective intrinsic values, based on the eye of the beholder. This seems to make the most sense to me. I am not a believer for the sake a believing; typically I need evidence or a compelling and reasonable argument to sway me. I think that a viewpoint conversion from anthropocentric to biological to geological depending on “the beholder” is a plausible argument to grasp and not justify a strictly human centric view of nature.

Based on my views above I tend to sympathize with the ideas of Naess and deep ecology, that humans and nature are apart of the same ecosystem and should live in equilibrium. However, I feel that it also undervalues humans with “equal intrinsic value”. And I think this is an error with deep ecology even through I find myself an advocate with many of the ideas put forth. A current downside to deep ecology though is that it is not practical for the entire world to follow and live by. It can only be afforded by those nations that have means to find a balance with nature and live sustainably.

Hettinger, N. (2012). Comments on Holmes Rolston’s “Naturalizing Values.” In L.P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.), Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application, (6th ed., pp. 119-122). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Inc. (Reprinted from Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application, (1998)).

Rolston, H. (2012). Naturalizing values: Organisms and species. In L.P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.), Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application, (6th ed., pp. 105-119). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Inc. (Reprinted from Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application, (1998)).

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