Page 70 [70]
68 | THe Puitosopny or Eco-Pouirics
important respects from what we knew or thought we knew in regard
to the ethical judgement of actions.
- Firstly, the radius of action of our changed acts: the difference in
time and space between an act and its consequences has increased to an
astonishing extent. Carbon dioxide released into the air now will affect
the planet’s climate in the following century as well. The product sold
in a nearby shopping centre was produced in a distant land, possibly in
inhuman conditions or with a technology that seriously pollutes the
environment, but the buyer has no real insight into this anymore.
- Secondly, the authorship of acts has come into question: to what
extent are we the cause of the unknown and unwilled consequences of
our acts? To what extent are the leaders of a company responsible for an
industrial catastrophe and to what extent the architect who planned the
plant, the competent authority or even I myself, who buy the company’s
products?
- Thirdly, good intention and a healthy sense of ethics are no longer
sufficient for correct behaviour, because we no longer experience the
suffering or see the damage we have caused. At most, we can learn of
it indirectly. To understand whether we have decided well or badly, we
need to acquire increasingly complicated knowledge. In brief, knowledge
has become for us an ethical responsibility!
These realisations have convinced ever more thinkers that a
fundamental transformation of our way of life and the political-economic
system, made unavoidable by the challenge of the global ecological crisis,
cannot be justified with reference to the existing ethical consensus.
Ethical considerations have demanded the re-examination of the
prevalent value-system and the extension of the limits of the ethical
universe: the application to man’s nature-transforming activities of moral
considerations and the consideration of the interests of our fellow living
beings. Without this, we cannot justify the prohibition of the destruction
of nature. For if we rely on the assertion of human interests, we can be
sure that an aggressive minority — those who happen to live in the
present — will appropriate their representation again and again and
replace it with own momentary, seeming interests. (The dangers
threatening humanity in the future always seem too remote.) Ecological
politics invariably proves to be alien to the current system, because it
follows goals that cannot be met under the present circumstances. It
cannot expect its goals to be seen as good as long as it cannot justify the
validity of the moral principles on which they are based. ‘This is what
the various schools of eco-ethics attempt.