“A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of land.” --Aldo Leopold

History of Aldo Leopold lteQj4

What is Ethics? Ethics help us to decide how we ought to live, what a “good” life is, and how we should behave. An ethical statement (a)expresses a value (rather than a fact), and (b) is “prescriptive” (rather than “descriptive”).

An ethical statement expresses how the world should be (we shouldn’t pollute). A factual statement, on the other hand, expresses how things are (people do pollute).

Broad Sense an ethic helps us to identify what is valuable or good; what we want to do with our lives; how we want to organize and prioritize our lives in order to achieve a meaningful existence.

Ethics are guidelines for behavior an ethic will help us to decide what we should do---it is a kind of “code of conduct” that regulates our (collective) behaviors.

Environmental Ethic It expresses our values toward nature and guides our behaviors with respect to the environment. Behaviors “spill over” into a public sphere

Land Ethic ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it

Next Step in Evolution of Ethics the expansion of ethics to include nonhuman members of the biotic community, collectively referred to as "the land." Leopold states the basic principle of his land ethic as, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."biotic community

First Key human considerations regarding the land and land use central to environmental decision- making and practice, but does not go as far as to make the land itself deserving of human moral consideration. land use

Second Key to rethink our notion of what it means to say something deserves our human moral consideration (is “morally considerable”).

Third Key to rethink what it is to be human that humans are different from and superior to nonhuman animals and “nature” since humans are atomistic, individualistic, rational, self-interested pleasure or preference maximizers.

Fourth Key human beings as essentially (and not merely accidentally) emotional, relational, ecological selves who are members of both human and ecological communities

Fifth Key rethink what counts as a morally relevant value in ethics, ethical decision-making, environmental policy and philosophy.

Sixth to rethink the role of emotion, care, love and empathy in what it means for humans to owe things to each other and the land.--- requires the development of emotional, experiential (e.g., hands-on) ecological literacy

Seventh Key to understand the relationships between ecological diversity and cultural diversity in the creation, maintenance and perpetuation of human and land health.

Land Health The culture of primitive peoples is often based on wildlife. Thus the plains Indian not only ate buffalo, but buffalo largely determined his architecture, dress, language, arts, and religion.” The value and loss of cultural diversity is intimately connected with the value and loss of biodiversity.

Eighth Key Makes forest and wilderness preservation necessary for any adequate ethic, environmental ethic or environmental policy.

Nineth Key that one need not have a Ph.D. in ecology in order to “see” the value of Wilderness

Tenth Key The characteristics of the land determined the facts as the characteristics of the men who lived on it

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The Land Ethic--Ahead of its time the need to foster an environmental ethic that protects and preserves wilderness for current and future generations of humans, nonhuman animals and ecological communities alike.