The Need For Human Greed

Opinion

Everyone has heard the saying “Diamonds are forever.” This one common saying, reveals a major issue between the human race their environment; they do not value it. This common homocentric mentality has led to destruction of the Earth and its resources. By giving off the image that the Earth’s minerals and resources are endless, humans have gained a morality which has led to the use and abuse of said resources. For instance, in his timeless piece The Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin exposes this exploitation of the Earth’s resources. He writes, “A hundred and fifty years ago a plainsman could kill an American bison, cut out only the tongue for his dinner, and… was not in important sense being wasteful” (Hardin 1245). Here, Hardin not only shows the complete lack of respect for the resources of the Earth, but he also shows the total absence of morality in the plainsman. In order to be more productive members of the ecosystem and move forward with a positive effect on the world around them, humans must not only become educated on the problems which have plagued environmental scientists and philosophers for many years, but they must also realize that these problems are not black and white, nor do they have easy solutions. How did so many humans begin to think that the world and its resources serve solely instrumental purposes? When did humanity start equating needs with selfish wants and desires, and how can we force another shift in the morality of humans to where nature is no longer considered instrumentally, rather intrinsically, valuable?

Before jumping into the discussion on the decreased moral capacity of the human species, it is necessary to first define many of the terms which cause chaos and confusion amongst the members of the environmental science and philosophy communities. In this field, the meaning of many common words switch to something slightly different and more meaningful. For instance, while debating the value of nature, one must first define value, nature, and then include the definitions of intrinsic and instrumental, as well. According to Adam Smith, “the word VALUE…has two different meanings…The one may be called “value in use”; the other, “value in exchange.”” (Fishman 270). Therefore, value has multiple definitions, depending on what is being valued and how it is being valued. When deciding something’s value, one must first figure out what type of value it has. This is where the definitions of intrinsic value, where “an entity has value in and of itself” (Katz 39), and instrumental value, which is “the value an entity has for another entity” (Katz 39), come into play. Without clarifying these different forms of value, one will never understand why the Western World, and many developed nations, have chosen to only instrumentally value nature and the environment. It is of utmost importance to define the word “nature,” as well. While there are those who consider humans not part of the natural world, for the sake of this argument, nature will be defined as anything that is considered to be found in one’s environment without human interaction. Some other terms which need to be defined before a valid argument for how humans ended up with such a lack of morality and consciousness, are basic needs, or the minimum amount needed for a human to survive, and luxury, or something that is not needed for human survival. With the waters muddied quite a bit, one may now progress into the much murkier waters of human morality and the environment.

There are many historians who believe that Humans started their journey of ignorance towards nature and the value of Earth and its resources when the religion of Christianity fused to the culture of the Western World. In a piece of writing called The Intrinsic Value of Nature, Donald Worster speaks about the difference between the intrinsic and instrumental values given to nature by different groups of people. He blames Judeo-Christian’s for the common belief of “man’s dromion over nature, not only as an achieved reality, but as an imperative for civilization” (Worster 44). This dominion, notes Worster, is given to Judeo-Christians in the Bible by their God. He shows that the reason the environment is viewed as only instrumentally valuable is because people have been put in charge of nature and the land. This interpretation has taken people out of nature, and has made their actions of dominating it almost holy. While Christianity has changed where people considers themselves, pertaining to nature, a common environmental viewpoint, called Instrumentalism, can also be blamed for turning humanity into a society which values a green lawn more than it values the water it needs to survive.

Instrumentalism, where “nature is just a means to fulfill human goals” (Worster 45), can also be blamed for the common view that humans are not a part of nature but rather the owners of all of Earth’s glorious resources. Instrumentalism is an environmental view which was highly favored, especially during the age of industrialism, to allow for people to strip the Earth of its’ resources without having any moral culpability or awareness. Worster shows that instrumentalism, which spread like wildfire all over modern civilizations, gave man “the right to decide what is to be done with all other creatures” (45). When humans were given this right, their morality was further pushed towards the right side, where instead of protecting the Earth and the animals on it, people used what they wanted, when they wanted, for whatever they wanted This process of thinking has led to the use and abuse of nature, animals, and even other humans who have been considered lower class because of their skin tone or social class. While, instrumentalism and Christianity can both be blamed for the selfishness of man, blame will not cure the problem, nor will it secure the Earth’s resources for the future.

In order for the World to not run out of resources such as food and water, Humans must change the way they look at the environment and nature. Instead of dominating nature and ruling over the Earth’s animals and resources, William Cronon writes, in The Human Factor in Environmental Change, that humans must understand that “the choice is not between two landscapes, one with and without human influence; it is between two human ways of living, two ways of belonging to an ecosystem.…” (23). Therefore, Cronon is saying that the choice is not between different environments, one where humans don’t use and touch the environment and the other where humans destroy the environment, but rather the difference lies in the morality of the species and whether or not the land and environment are being respected and considered intrinsically valuable. Humanity must be educated about the pressing matters facing today’s ecosystem, such as water scarcity and resource abuse, for education is the only way to have an extension in the human morality. If society is not educated, there will be many sheep herded by big business and religion instead of by their own guilt and morality, and this lack of self-determinism is what is leading, and will continue to lead, to the destruction of the Earth’s natural resources and the human race.