Plathon

Fortune and misfortune of the Idea of Progress

The second half of the 20th century saw a growing awareness of ecological danger, the idea of a destructive imbalance that had established itself between nature and man. We are rediscovering the fragility of the natural interdependencies of "ecosystems", and at the same time our powerlessness to predict or control the impact of human action on these interdependencies.

The disappearance of the Aral Sea, the discovery of the "plastic continent", the proliferation of various natural disasters (floods, fires, storms) around the world are events that are increasingly coming to the attention of the public and are symptoms of the increasing ecological danger to human societies.

Thus, the dream of modernity to "ender ourselves, as it were, masters and possessors of nature", to use Descartes' famous formula, seems to be slowly disappearing (René Descartes, Discourse on Method, Hackett, 1998, p. 35).

Preserving our environment has become a mere necessity in order to give the human species the opportunity to sustain itself. Behind the functional debates (ecomodernism vs. critique of growth), what is fundamentally at stake is to determine the possible foundations of ecological ethics, i.e. the principles that govern the relationship between humans and nature and in particular the actions of humans in the world. Two possible ways are ahead of us: on the one hand, a philosophy of being that promotes an ethics of abstention, and on the other hand, a philosophy of man that defends a morality of action.

Ontological foundations of ethics: the primacy of being.

In his masterpiece The Imperative of Responsibility, Hans Jonas explains that for the first time in the history of mankind, nature is no longer invulnerable. What has always been taken for granted – that there are people on earth, that there is a habitable world – is being questioned. Technology has become an immense power, capable of destroying the entire planet and leading to the self-extinction of humanity.

On the one hand, therefore, the vulnerability of nature, which is entirely subject to the power of man, and on the other hand, this enormous power that man has acquired through science and technology. This potentially total and destructive force demands from man a new ethical basis of responsibility for action. Jonas denounces the Kantian categorical imperative (“Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” - Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals) as flawed by an essential error: the prerequisite that humans are here to apply it. A more fundamental imperative is needed, which is primarily linked to the concern for the preservation of humanity as a species: “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life” (Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility). An imperative that should enable the establishment of the first true "ethics of the future", in contrast to Kantian ethics, so to speak, which is "directed at the individual" and therefore an "ethics of simultaneity" – according to Jonas (ibid.).

This new obligation was "born out of danger. [It] necessarily insists first and foremost on an ethics of preservation, prevention and not of progress and perfection" (ibid). What Jonas calls the "heuristics of fear" is intended to act as intimidation to prevent ill-considered and potentially catastrophic decisions. When in doubt, we have to expect the worst, and... refrain from acting – unless a catastrophic contingency is completely ruled out. Jonas' ethics is an ethic of abstention, the ultimate goal of which is to enable the continuation of human life.

Jonas' argument is ontological, insofar as it concerns the primacy of the obligation to exist. This ontological foundation must replace traditional, human-centered morality. The basis of ethics is no longer the perfection of human destiny, but the preservation of being. The supreme authority will be restored to nature, and the dependence of ethics on ontology, on being, will be recognized. The only really categorical imperative, then, would not be the one by which I bind myself willingly, but the one by which I recognize that being limits me. In this perspective, ethics has the task of creating new life-saving restrictions.

The Anti-Humanist Trap

After Jonas, an entire generation of thinkers has dealt with this question of man's responsibility towards the environment and posterity. Jonas still anchors ethics in people. Some, however, take the ontological perspective even further.

Among contemporary thinkers, John Baird Calicott pursues the goal of making the land ethics a proper philosophical and value system. The term comes from Aldo Leopold's 1949 book A Sand County Almanach, in which Leopold writes: "the land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. [It] changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such" (Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanach, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 204). And a little later: "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, ibid., p. 225).

Callicott expands the concept of the land ethics with the aim of eliminating the "modern" dualism that draws a separation between the human species and the rest of nature. Callicott announces the end of the modern concept of nature, which has its origins in the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Callicott's philosophical project is based on the idea that a radical change in our worldview is necessary in order for us to solve the ecological challenges of our time: "The ecological crisis [is] a profound denial of the attitudes and values of modern Western civilization on the part of nature itself." A radical paradigm shift would therefore be necessary, leading us away from modernity and towards what he calls a "reconstructive postmodern philosophy". This "ecocentric" philosophy, he says, calls for "a holistic philosophical restructuring," "a shift of intrinsic value, hitherto reserved for individuals, toward earthly nature" (John Baird Calicott, Ethique de la terre, Wildproject, 2010, pp. 26-27).

For many in this generation of thinkers, like Calicott, modernity would have led merely to ever more deadly and horrific weapons, the exploitation of man by man, and ultimately the exploitation of nature.

In this perspective, the individualism of the Enlightenment is equated with the egocentrism of man. Therefore, there is no choice but to recognize the intrinsic value of nature. It is incumbent on us to recognize certain rights or even a separate legal personality in nature. This perspective inspires concrete initiatives or regulations: 

• The collective "Les Gardiens de la Seine" in France has initiated an "Appeal for the Rights of the Seine" (https://laseineencommun.org/). 
• Similarly, New Zealand has legally recognised the "rights" of the Wanghanui River since 2018 (Te Awa Tupua Act, New Zealand Public Act 2017 No.7, ss.13 & 14). 
• Or, to give another example: Ecuador has recognized the "rights of Mother Earth (Pacha Mama)" in its constitution since 2008 (Constitucion de la Republica del Ecuador, Chapter 7 “Rights of Nature”).

Avoiding the presumption of guilt

It would be difficult not to agree with Hans Jonas' statement, namely to foresee the statement "to foresee an excess of our power over our power" (The Imperative of Responsibility).

But is it appropriate to replace an ideology that is accused of having subjugated nature to man with an ideology that would subordinate man to nature?

Thus, instead of appealing to the will to establish a new ethical relationship with nature, we would be condemning the will of man by making his actions guilty of nature itself, because it would alter the "inviolable" balance of nature. Aren't we opening the way for a risky anti-humanism that burdens human action with a fundamental presumption of guilt?

A humanistic conception of ethics would have the task of making the responsibility of the good (which demands its preservation) compatible with the responsibility of the better (which demands progress) and of proving that the better cannot necessarily be the enemy of the good? In other words, combine ethics with progress, and not reduce ethics to delay and innovation to destruction.

For several centuries, the impressive scientific and technical progress of modernity raised the hope that one day we would be able to shape nature, and perhaps even one day free the human body itself from biological constraints.

In recent decades, a growing mistrust has accompanied the concept of progress. At the same time, more and more voices are being raised to question the way of thinking about man's relationship with the environment as it has been shaped in the West over the past five centuries. After all, this way of thinking would only have led to the exploitation of man by man in the 19th century, the unimaginable destruction of the First World War, or the terrible crimes of the Second World War.

We may well consider ourselve the masters and possessors of nature if we cultivate an authoritarian view of technical progress. But this only led to a further development of our skills, our power, our performance. We increase the means of our action, but not the ends. We then run the real risk of making humanity an instrument of merely cumulative technical progress in the name of civilization.

Progress would now only be that of a purely material improvement. We create objects that are becoming more and more effective, attractive or playful, designed more to satisfy our desires than to support our will. The endless recreation of artificial needs through the proliferation of desirable objects now seems to be entering a spiral that leads to a blind exploitation of the resources needed without caring about their inevitable depletion. The term "progress" seems to have gradually detached itself from any moral dimension and retained only a technical dimension. It now mostly refers to a self-accumulative process that is confused with the excesses of the consumer society.

In the process, we have lost its authentically "modern" meaning. Technology can be surpassed by ethics if, instead of a simple pragmatic adaptation of morality to technological innovations, a sense is created, an ethical potentiality in the sense of creating reasons for action by which we make ourselves more perfect than nature alone has created us.

As already mentioned, in the first pages of the Imperative of Responsibility, Jonas denounces the Kantian categorical imperative as being fraught with an essential error. “A human being has a duty to raise himself from the crude state of his nature, from his animality (quoad actum), more and more towards humanity, by which he alone is capable of setting himself ends” (Emmanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 518). Humanity is designed to evolve and perfect itself over generations. The imperfection of man is the mark of a higher destiny. Our imperfection as individuals is therefore not a flaw, but the impetus to our uninterrupted perfection as a species.

This idea is that of humanity as a moral community that spans generations. Man's moral responsibility derives from this innate imperfection, from his capacity for perfection, and from his involvement in an intergenerational moral community. It obliges us to create and maintain the conditions for the progress of all humanity. The Kantian categorical imperative implies a responsibility that goes beyond our individual existence. We are called upon to act as if our maxims of action should apply to all people.

The responsibility for those who do not yet exist is therefore only fulfilled through the perspective of the future. This responsibility towards the future consists in preserving the access of future generations to the destiny of humanity intact, i.e. in guaranteeing the continuity of a world in which the ends and means of justice remain possible.

This responsibility is of a moral nature, because it goes from one will to another. Its basis is humanistic and not ontological. Consideration for posterity is to be placed on the same level as that which I owe to myself as a being of nature. In no case is it a question of submission to the absolute power of being, but of the constitution of a culture that must treat the fate of all other people as an end in itself.

It is not an ethic of simultaneity, to use Jonah's words again. Concern for posterity, the awareness of humanity's long-term responsibility towards itself, forms the basis of an ethics that is essentially oriented towards the future.

Driving for the better: an action-inspiring demand

The juxtaposition of an "ethics of abstention" and a "morality of action" illustrates two different approaches that can be considered the basis of environmental ethics for our time. The term "ethics" is understood here in the sense of a set of rules that aims to direct action in relation to a given good. A set of rules that encircles, limits and limits the action with regard to the preservation of the good, with the main goal of not causing any damage to the existing. 

An "ethics of abstention", such as that which can be derived from Hans Jonas' "Heuristic of Fear", is based on the premise that caution and restraint are required in the face of risk. It calls on us to refrain from acting in case of doubt in order to avoid potential damage. 

In contrast, a moral of action is a demand that inspires action. The sense of duty drives us to the better and demands action as the realization of an ideal. Instead of being constrained by the untouchability of being, we operate on the basis of a vision of destiny and the responsibility of the human species towards itself. This perspective can be described as "humanistic" (rather "anthropocentric") because it focuses on the potentials of humans. Thus, instead of keeping the present in an artificial immutability, we can project ourselves into a vision that we want to carry into the world.

Romain Leroy-Castillo