Environment: When ethics expands beyond humanity to the biotic community

Source: A call for an ethic of integrity and stability

"Quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. 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."

(Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic", 1949)

Explanation: From interpersonal morality to ecological ethics

Aldo Leopold innovates that ethics does not merely govern relations between one person and another, but between a person and their ecological environment. Ecological morality preserves the beauty of the world, the stability of living diversity, and its integrity. Leopold demands that we adopt a broad, long-term, systemic perspective, rather than our narrow, immediate human outlook, which is usually purely expedient and utilitarian.

Perspective: Between deep ecology and green utilitarianism

Many of us consider ourselves "green" because we argue that we need clean air, resource conservation for future generations, or calming natural beauty—yet that is not what Leopold is after. Leopold demands deep ecology: nature has a right to exist independent of us. In the Book of Job, God boasts to Job of the sea monsters, creatures from which man derives no benefit and over which he has no control (Job 40:25–28). Noah was commanded to rescue predators and impure animals in the ark as well, not only what could be eaten. On the other hand, does nature "care" what state it is in? Ecological balance will always be preserved over time; plants and animals will disappear and new ones will emerge; the law of conservation of energy always holds. Only humans possess consciousness, and it may well be, after all, that nature conservation is ultimately about humanity, while nature will "manage on its own."

Going Deeper: The gazelle as a litigant: the standing of nature in halakhah and civil law

Following a master zoning plan for construction in the Jerusalem hills, nature conservation organizations petitioned against the plan. Among the petitioners appeared: "The Israeli Gazelle," as a legal party to the proceedings. This is how Justice Elyakim Rubinstein responded:

"In Jewish law, an animal may hold legal standing as a party to a trial. The Mishnah in Sanhedrin (Chapter 1, Mishnah 4), discussing domestic and wild beasts that killed a human being, establishes that 'an ox that is stoned—by twenty-three [judges],' meaning that an ox that killed a human is tried before twenty-three judges; and the same applies to a wolf, a lion, a bear, a leopard, a hyena, and a snake that killed a human—they are tried for stoning by a court of twenty-three. Such is the halakhah (Jewish law)—yet I believe this is not the case in Israeli law.

Animals have their rightful place regarding the prevention of their suffering, and their welfare is achieved through humans and organizations dedicated to this cause, and the doors of legal standing are open to public petitioners. Animals, it seems, do not possess legal standing in and of themselves, and neither does the gazelle in our case—unlike the other petitioners in this petition, who may, if they wish, raise claims concerning the gazelle as well, in their own names as seekers of the gazelle's welfare."

Halakhah granted an independent right to life and dignity to nature as well, whereas Israeli law (and most legal systems worldwide) grants such rights only for the sake of human beings.

Culture: The tragic conflict of existence through cinema

Many films for both children and adults engage with nature conservation, usually centered around humanity's condition in the world. Films such as Pocahontas (Disney, 1995), Happy Feet (Warner Bros., 2006), Moana (Disney, 2018), and The Day After Tomorrow (Fox, 2004) center on humans and depict ecological dystopias. Only a handful of films examine the issue with greater complexity, one of which is Princess Mononoke (Japan, 1997), which avoids presenting clear-cut "good guys" and "bad guys." Instead, it depicts a tragic conflict: Lady Eboshi destroys the forest to build a town and care for lepers (a humane deed), but in doing so she awakens nature's fury. The film presents the painful cost of existence: in order to live, we must take from nature; the question is how to do so without turning into monsters.