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112 | THe Putosopuy or Eco-PoLıtics whether Mill’s criterion can be applied to activities held to be basically useful that transform nature and, primarily, whether the formula justifies the principle of ecological precaution. Mill did not specify who the others are whom we must not obstruct “in pursuing their own good in their own way”!°’. We can therefore remedy this gap with the previously quoted statement of another famous utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham, that the question is not whether those in question are capable of thought and speech but whether they are capable of suffering. And here we have already the justification of a radically animal and environmentally friendly politics, on a strictly liberal basis. In one of his studies, Marius de Geus takes the striking differences between the two liberal traditions traceable to Locke and Mill. These make it possible to understand the mixed reception of ecological aims on the part of the liberals: for one, the happiness principle means selfish individualism; for the other, the service of others’ happiness. One proclaims power over nature; the other has compassion over the nonhuman beings forced out of their habitat, killed or tortured by man. For one, wellbeing means above all the enjoyment and possession of material goods; for the other, intellectual goods and the distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Accordingly, one is in favour of unlimited growth and the other seeks the right measure and believes in a durable economy. One rejects any limits on individual freedom; the other supplements this with the mutual ban on doing harm." Contemporary mainstream liberalism is closer to the views of Locke and holds that legal protection is due at most to the individual’s right to a healthy environment — derived from basic human rights, on the pattern of social rights. Those who think in this way prefer to appeal to procedural law, the strength of the liberal state, in cases where environmental interests clash with other interests. It is true that liberalism appears more suited to the public representation of ecological values and interests than any other theory of government. It is, however, unsuited for actually enforcing what it represents. The neutral state would no longer be what it is, were it to recognise that these values and interests can outweigh others. The true political-economic relations of power in practice exclude the possibility of this conviction attaining predominance. The mysterious glass ceiling is thus formed, which, in a seemingly ununderstandable way, imposes severe limits on the behaviour 100 bid. p.16. 101 Marius de Geus: Sustainability, Liberalism, Liberal Democracy. In John Barry, Marcel Wissenburg eds: Sustaining Liberal Democracy. Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001.
