MODULE 1: Kinship

 Agenda

1. Quiz
2. Kinship

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MODULE 1: Moral status

• What is the moral status of an eagle or a tree?
• What principles govern the way we treat an eagle or a tree?
• What is OUR relationship to the eagle or the tree?

Today: more about the relationship

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Kyle Powys Whyte, "Kinship and environmental justice"

• philosopher at Michigan State
• Native American, Potawatomi  (pot -a -WOT - a - me)
• draws on ideas from Robin Kimmerer, also Potawatomi, a botanist, and author of Braiding Sweetgrass  and The Service Berry.

Who are the Potawatomi?

• Potawatomi   -- one nation in Oklahoma, four in Michigan
• Whyte talk at the UN 

Topics in article--

• kinship (today)
• kinship-based account of environmental justice (module 3) 
• colonization -- removal from original lands (module 4)

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Kinship

"In general, kinship refers to qualities of the relationships we have with others--whether others are humans, plants, animals, fishes, insects, rocks, waterways, or forests" (p. 267)

"Kin relations are like ideal family or friendship bonds, and are composed of types of relationships and qualities of relationships.  In a good friendship, the friends may be mutually responsible, for example, to support each other's wellbeing. Mutual responsibility is a type of relationship--that is, a general category of a relationship.  But what makes this relationship truly a kinship relationship is if the mutual responsibility has certain inherent qualities. Qualities are dimensions of relationships like trust, consensuality, transparency, reciprocity, and accountability." (p. 267-268)

"Reciprocity is an important kinship quality. A bond has the quality of reciprocity when each relative (or freind) believes the others to be in a long-term gift-receiving and gift-giving relationships." (p. 268) 

Kinship relations can be with ... corn (Potawatomi), reindeer (Sami people in Siberia), potatoes (Quechua people in Andes)  (p. 269)

"Robin Kimmerer, speaking of ecosystems as 'the living world,' says that 'the living world is understood, not as a collection of exploitable resources, but as a set of relationships and responsibilities.  We inhabit a landscape of gifts peopled by nonhuman relatives, the sovereign beings who sustain us, including the plants' (Kimmerer, 208, p. 27)."  (p. 270)

"One way to understand environmental injustice is as an assault on kinship relationships." (p. 270). 

Maori (mow-ree) people of New Zealand -- Waikato river --  river is used for power, diverted, warmed, pumped -- disrupting the kinship relationship to the river  

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How can we eat and live, if we see nature this way?

Kimmerer -- "The Honorable Harvest" (40:50 - 46:48)

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Invitation: when you encounter plants, animals, even water, over the weekend--ask yourself if these kinship ideas resonate at all. What it would take to start seeing trees and squirrels as kin? 

MODULE 1: Animals (continued)

 AGENDA

1. Reporting meetings
2. Palmer's view

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Summary of ideas in first part of Clare Palmer's article

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Palmer's View "Animal Ethics"  (annotated)

Our conflicting attitudes

Attitudes toward wildebeest (it's plural!) crossing the Mara river.    

Attitudes towards pets in a natural disaster.   Hurricanes, fires.

NBC news

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Palmer asks: is it justifiable  to have these very different attitudes? Does it make sense?

Utilitarianism

Palmer's proposal

1. General obligations (to all sentient animals) 
• based on their nature, they do have moral status
• examples: shouldn't harm gratuitously, shouldn't kill for no good reason
2. Special obligations (just to specific animals)
• based on history, context, relationships
• you took responsibility for an animal
• you are responsible for an animal's problems
• protecting, assisting, saving...are special obligations
• two animals can have the same moral status, yet we can have different obligations to protect, assist, save

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Applications of Palmer's view:

Assisting wildebeest crossing Mara river (choose one)

1. Obligatory
2. Merely permissible (not obligatory, not wrong)
3. Wrong

Assisting pets harmed by the California fires (choose one)

1. Obligatory
2. Merely permissible (not obligatory, not wrong)
3. Wrong

Killing Marius

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Next part of Palmer's argument

So far it looks like she's saying we have have limited obligations to wild animals

1. Wild animals and their problems are not our responsibility, so we don't have to help with....
• predation
• infant mortality
• natural disasters
• accidents
2. BUT, due to anthropogenic (human-caused) problems for animals, of their problems ARE our responsibility

Palmer's main example: Climate change 

human behavior --> hotter, drier climate --> more wildfires --> wild animals injured by wildfires

 

how the LA wildfires are affecting wildlife and pets

human behavior -->  warmer weather in arctic --> less sea ice --> problems for polar bears, seals, walruses 

 

Hope for polar bears?

MODULE 1: Animals

Agenda this week

1. Monday: moral status of animals + discuss reports
2. Wednesday: moral status of animals + discuss reports
3. Friday: moral status of plants

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Reports

Reporting document

Canvas topic choice assignment

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MODULE 1: When making environmental decisions, what has moral status?

View (1) Anthropocentrism (Baxter)

just people have moral status; we should be concerned with other beings only to the extent that they affect or matter to people

View (2) "Animals matter too" -- they have moral status as individuals

• not just as specimens of species
• not just as contributors to ecosystems
• we have obligations to individual animals
• they have value as individuals
• at least some animals

Environmental questions involving animals

1. New drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--does the impact on caribou matter (directly)
2. Wind turbines--does the impact on birds matter (directly)?
3. Culling buffalos in Yellowstone--does the death of each buffalo matter (directly)?
4. Using pesticides like DDT -- does harm to penguins, fish, even mosquitos matter (directly)?

POLL -- is your gut feeling yes or no?

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Clare Palmer, "Animal Ethics"  (annotated)

The Marius question -- a puzzle about painless killing

Warning: pretty gruesome

 

The vet explains himself in a TED talk

Public reaction

Two very different defenses

1. Animals don't matter as individuals, but only as species, and the zoo is protecting the species
2. Captive animals are better off being able to breed, even if the surplus has to be killed

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Animals DO matter as individuals --  why? which?

Utilitarianism (Peter Singer)

• utilitarians think the prime ethical directive is: maximize total happiness
• who has moral status? all sentient beings
• sentience = the capacity for pain, pleasure, and other positive and negative experiences
• other capacities may matter but only indirectly 
• must do cost-benefit analysis
• The Marius question -- if it's painless killing is it OK?
• The environmental questions

Rights view (Tom Regan)

• all beings who are "subjects of a life" have basic rights--right to life, right to liberty, right not to be tortured
• doesn't matter if they're less intelligent (so are babies)
• no need for cost-benefit analysis
• Apply to Marius

Hierarchical view (Gary Varner) 

• persons (us), near persons (higher animals), merely sentient
• they all have moral status (doesn't come in degrees)\
• But they have varying degrees of moral significance
• We owe more to higher animals
• Apply to Marius

Humane traditionalism (not discussed by Palmer)

• No animal has anything like human moral status
• But we have certain obligations to animals (if sentient)
• No pointless killing, no torture
• Thoughts about Marius?

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Context view (Clare Palmer)--next time