Naturephilia
Naturephilia
What kind of society is best? We have come to accept the concept of the “open society”: this is deemed better than the “closed society”. These terms were introduced by Henri Bergson in the 1930s and then popularized by Karl Popper in the 1950s. The best society is the most “open” one. But what is it for a society to be open? There is no simple definition (it isn’t like a shop being open for business). Roughly, the idea is that an open society is one that is democratic, tolerant, liberal, critical, law-governed, and allows freedom of speech—as opposed to authoritarian, intolerant, illiberal, uncritical, lawless, and prohibits freedom of speech. In an open society you can act and speak as you please so long as you harm no one thereby. If we live in such a society, we will be happy; otherwise not. Nothing in this conception includes religion, so the good society can be an irreligious society. You can be religious, but you need not be. It has been felt that this ideal is a bit on the thin side: it is largely negative and ignores various human aspirations and needs. The gap is commonly filled by religion, typically but not necessarily Christianity. So, the maximally good society has been thought to be both open and religious. The trouble is that religion has been crumbling for years (or centuries), so that all that is left in our social philosophy is the secular notion of the open society. Is that enough? Do we need a return to the religious?
Religion is typically conceived as theistic. Specifically, we are told to love God and our fellow man. This directive is not easy to obey: many find it difficult to believe in God, and man is hard to love. We are exhorted to direct our love this way precisely because it is not natural to us; punishment is therefore threatened if we don’t obey the directive. We are not born loving God and the human race. So, are we limited to the etiolated conception of the open society? Not that there is anything wrong with that—it beats tyranny—but it seems humanly insufficient. There is an existential gap; the heart is not satisfied. Life in an open society is not ipso facto a meaningful full life. We thus seem condemned to a hollow existence (as existentialism maintained, heroically). Put simply, the question is what to love. We can’t really love an open society; but we can’t believetraditional theistic religion. We seem stuck. When religion held sway, we lived in a religious community that bound people together and provided a vehicle for their deeper aspirations; but in a merely open society nothing binds us and nothing provides the requisite emotional infrastructure. Thus, we find fleeting fashions, popular culture, art and music, esoteric hobbies, cults, mass sports, the mobile phone—anything to fend off the ennui of normal human existence. Is there a solution to this predicament?
This is where nature comes in. Theistic religions instruct us to love God above all else—not nature. We are indoctrinated in a suspicion of nature, especially our own nature. We are to praise and worship God but not the natural world (so grubby, so material). Jesus had nothing to say about the love of nature, but plenty about the love of God. Nor was our love of other people supposed to be directed to their natural condition—certainly not their “animal nature”. Nature was on the other side—opposed to the supernatural world inhabited by God. Loving nature is accordingly deemed impious, unholy, degenerate. But this is not a natural way for humans to feel—hence the reprimanding character of traditional theistic religion (we are all born sinners etc.) We must “rise above” nature—the world of beasts and beastliness. Sex becomes taboo, or deeply problematic. Animals are to be deplored or exploited. But this is not the way we naturally feel about these things—especially as children. Children must be “cured” of their natural ways—their childish passions. There is only so much love in the human heart and it must be directed correctly—to the right intentional objects. Love God not your dog. If the choice is between going to church or walking your dog, do the former. Religion is thus conceived as a battle between natural inclination and virtuous conduct.
However, there is an opposing tradition: the love of nature as opposed to a supernatural God. Thus, we have naturephilia and biophilia[1]—love of nature as a whole and love of a particular part of it, viz. plants and animals. It is easy to caricature this kind of philosophy by restricting attention to certain aspects of nature, particularly what is called “wild” nature. But the idea isn’t to encourage love of the wild, i.e., the non-human; it is to encourage love of all creation, including the non-wild. We are not being instructed to go and live naked in the forest. Nature is here construed as everything but God: art, artifacts, games, sports, music, food, friends, family, sex, clothes, study, books, cars. We have an innate disposition to love nature—the physical things around us, whether found or man-made. Life without this kind of love would be dismally thin—the abstract love of God really doesn’t cut it. We like to walk in the woods, ride our bike, swim, pet our dog, eat our food, see our friends, play a game, read, sing, etc. We are passionate about these things. Sometimes we feel the majesty of nature—the night sky, the oceans, the mountains, the beasts of the jungle. So, let us applaud these passions, encourage them, refine them—instead of declaring them ungodly or worse. We should make a religion of our inborn natural passions. Some people choose to dedicate their lives to God; why not let people dedicate themselves to apes or insects or rocks? A life dedicated to philosophy is really a life dedicated to nature—to the existing natural world. We evolved in the natural world, both wild and civilized, and we are naturally adapted to that world (we didn’t evolve in a supernatural world); no wonder we feel deeply connected to it. We want to explore it, experience it, absorb it. Our human nature is a reflection of nature. Our emotions are the results of nature. No doubt other animals love their natural environment; they don’t hanker after some supposed non-natural environment (“paradise”). We just have to accept that what we naturally love we oughtto love. We should therefore embrace naturephilia and biophilia. That is our religion.
Will it be enough? If we combine love of nature with the open society, will we have the ideal world? Will we be perfectly happy? I don’t think so, but it will produce a life that is sustainable and tolerable. There will still be death, disease, disappointment, betrayal, violence, stupidity, and all the rest; but we won’t be condemned to the spiritual emptiness of the bare open society or the absurdities of traditional religions. The open society is just a protective framework for the full expression of human nature; it isn’t what we primarily value. You don’t wake up in the morning and thrill to the prospect of free speech or the rule of law (so what, you might say); but you do wake up and feel excited about the bounties of nature (in the full sense I described). You are not thrilled by being permitted to play guitar or read a book but by actually playing guitar or reading a book. You can’t make a religion out of the open society alone, but you can make a religion out of the natural world—and there is nothing wrong with such a religion. Our politics must include the latter as much as the former.[2]
[1] The term “biophilia” was coined by Erich Fromm and taken up by E.O. Wilson.
[2] We might refer to thin politics and thick politics, or procedural politics and substantive politics. We need rules to enable and preserve human flourishing, freedom being paramount, but we also need substantive concrete goals and values. We must be permitted to bird-watch and love to bird-watch. (I include humans as part of nature, so we can love them too, in so far as we can.)
About Speciesism
About Speciesism
Speciesism is the prejudice that species is a morally relevant characteristic. Speciesism says that moral status is not supervenient on psychology but includes biological identity. Two individuals could be psychologically identical and yet not share their moral standing, because of a difference of species. In particular, identity of interests does not entail identity of moral status. I am not concerned here with the truth or falsity of speciesism; I am concerned with the interpretation of the doctrine. The general anti-speciesist idea is to label a specific bias against non-human animals—treating them as morally lesser on account of their difference from the human species. Are we really biased against other species, rightly or wrongly? To answer that question, we need a workable definition of species. In biology the concept of species is somewhat vexed. The textbook definition is that two organisms are of the same species if and only if they can interbreed. There are all sorts of problems with this definition, but I am not concerned with those problems; I am concerned only with the relevance of this concept to our standard moral practices. For it is clear that we do not discriminate against other animals based on the principle of interbreeding—this does not enter into our thoughts or attitudes. And it is also clear that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for equality of moral status: not necessary because we would not discriminate against individuals just like us save for an inability to interbreed with us; and not sufficient because being able to interbreed with us does not logically preclude large differences of phenotype (e.g., looking and behaving like a dog). This criterion has nothing to do with our actual discriminatory practices, which are based on outer appearances. It is the same with a genetic criterion: we don’t care if the other’s genotype coincides with ours, and might never have heard of the genotype. Sameness of genes is not the basis of our discriminatory attitudes. Some biologists (rightly in my view) are chary of the whole concept of a species in carving up animal populations (how do species differ from intra-species types?); yet we still discriminate against animals morally. The obvious conclusion is obvious: we discriminate on the basis of surface appearance. Not even phenotype, since this includes internal anatomy, but simply how the organism perceptually appears. Even simpler: our moral attitudes depend on how the animal looks. The point the anti-speciesist is making is that looks are no basis for moral judgment. The animal may look very different from you, but it might have identical interests—say, in not being eaten for food. If it looks like a human, you don’t kill it for food; but if it looks like a chicken, you do– irrespective of its psychology (desires, interests, capacity for happiness, susceptibility to pain). The proper conclusion, then, is that the prejudice in question is aptly labeled “surfacism” not “speciesism”: that last term is a mischaracterization of the prejudice in question. There is no such prejudice on any reasonable definition of “species”, but there is a prejudice of going by surface appearances—which are, of course, correlated with species differences, roughly speaking. The term “speciesism” gets the point across well enough, but strictly speaking it is a misnomer; “surfacism” is better.
This terminological revision brings out an important point: the prejudice in question is not unique to our treatment of animals; in fact, it is rampant. It is the general form of human prejudices (with a couple of interesting exceptions, which we shall come to). Racism is clearly largely dependent on surfacism (“lookism”): we must not judge the quality of a man’s character by the color of his skin—skin being most apparent to the naked eye. Other prejudices cluster around this focus on visual appearance, but it is surely fundamental: looking black is the problem (or possibly white). The mistake is to infer from the surface features to the inner person: it may be indistinguishable from that of the observer. There is no necessary correlation between outer and inner: skin color and character are independent variables. Just so, hairiness is not necessarily correlated with psychology: I could be ten times hairier than you and yet equally intelligent. The body type and the mind type are not invariably linked. At bottom, the root of the problem lies in the inaccessibility of minds to the senses—the other minds problem. We cannot observer another individual’s mind, though we can observe his body; and we can’t infer the one from the other. Morality concerns mind and mind is invisible, so morality is epistemologically at a disadvantage; we can’t just look and see the morally relevant status of an individual—though we can come to know it by other means. Going by surface appearance may be a quick and easy way to assess the other’s moral standing, but it is not a reliable way. You look and see that another organism is an insect, so you don’t worry too much about its well-being; but this method is worse than useless when it comes to other animals. It is wrong to assume that other animals are morally inferior to us just because they look different; we need deeper knowledge of their inner nature. This is the truth behind the talk of “speciesism”. What is called “racism” is logically similar: we needn’t get hung up about the definition of race in order to formulate the moral issues (or even assume that race is a real category); we just need to identify the problem as a form of surfacism, a common human weakness. Anyone can see that surfacism is just plain stupid; no rational person would be caught dead being found guilty of it.
Now that we have the right concept in our hands, we can try generalizing it. This is not difficult. Consider sexism, agism, and heightism: aren’t these clearly instances of surfacism? Women look different from men, old people look different from young people, short people look different from tall people. Prejudices form around these perceptual facts, but you can’t infer anything that matters from them—intelligence, character, capacity for happiness, susceptibility to pain. The corresponding prejudices are less intense than in the case of animals and other races, but they all form a recognizable natural kind—they are all forms of surfacism. It isn’t that the concept of speciesism (so called) is a radical conceptual and moral departure; it is just the same old prejudice that we see in intra-human cases. Basically, it’s a matter of varying body types. Body type is not a sound basis for moral evaluation—simple. This is just fallacious reasoning (I’m not saying it is nothing but this fallacy). It is basically the same with other prejudices with which we are familiar: type of clothing, hairstyle, weight, accent, language spoken, etc. None of these tell you much if anything about morally relevant matters—yet people have an irrational tendency to rely on them. Animals are just one end of a spectrum of cases.
Are there any exceptions to this generalization? I can think of two candidates: anti-semitism and homophobia. These do not seem dependent on perceptual appearance: Jews and homosexuals don’t look that different from Gentiles and heterosexuals. People don’t infer unfavorable judgments from their appearance, though there may be minor divergences in this respect. The prejudice is not derived from misguided inferences from surface appearance. What they do derive from is hard to say—the question has been controversial. I won’t attempt to resolve the issue, except to note that combating them requires more than pointing out the fallacy of inferring mind from body. It is necessary to refute commonly held beliefs about the people in question. They are more puzzling as prejudices than the other kinds, less easily diagnosed. I don’t see much similarity between them except to say they have been historically entrenched. To be gay and Jewish can’t be easy, because you are up against two forms of prejudice not one—or dark-skinned, gay, and Jewish (a relatively small group). However, my aim here has been to outline a taxonomy of prejudices not to undermine them (except indirectly).[1]
[1] It is an interesting question whether there would be any prejudices of the types we are familiar with if there were no visual difference to ground them: all animals look alike, all people look alike, men and women look alike, etc. There might still be deep differences at a non-visual level, but nothing at the visual level—would that preclude the usual prejudices? If so, vision is the main culprit.
Alcaraz versus Sinner
Alcaraz versus Sinner
Yesterday’s French Open final between Alcaraz and Sinner was the greatest tennis match ever played. No adjective can do it justice. You might think I am exaggerating, but this is the consensus view. Sinner is 23, Alcaraz 22—at the beginning of their tennis careers. The match lasted over five hours and had many ups and downs for both players. It had to be seen to be believed; I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t see it. The two greatest players of all time are almost exact contemporaries. Sinner is number 1 in the world, Alcaraz is number 2. No one is a match for either of them, except each other. The final tiebreak in which Alcaraz was up 9-1 was truly astonishing. You might wonder if the recently retired greats, Federer and Nadal, would be able to give these two men some serious competition; but I really don’t think so. They are in a class of their own. Djokovic did well against Sinner in the semi-final, considering, but didn’t take a set and never looked like he could win. I think Sinner and Alcaraz amazed each other. The former is solid as a rock and virtually unbeatable, but the latter can bring the magic and then nothing can stop him (he made 7 double faults and missed many first serves, but he still won). For tennis enthusiasts, and any sentient human being, it was a truly remarkable performance from both players. I went out and hit some balls in a daze afterwards.
Divine Bivalve
Divine Bivalve
I confess: I am an oyster fanatic. So are most people who eat oysters. I just read Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw (2016) by Jeremy Sewall and Marion Lear Swaybill, which lovingly surveys the world of oysters. The oyster is praised, revered, celebrated, worshipped and adored—by farmers and consumers alike. It always has been since early times. The Greeks loved them, as did the Romans, as did nineteenth century New Yorkers. They were overharvested to the point of extinction, eaten in huge quantities, in some places essential to life, consumed by rich and poor alike. They are a food apart, often described as “heavenly’ and “divine” (sometimes thought aphrodisiac). To eat an oyster is an event; to eat a dozen an indulgence. People lust after them. We are told that the world is our oyster—ours to enjoy and revel in. No question, oysters have been a kind of religion, with all the ecstasy and fervor of a religion. They even produce the pearl, an object of beauty nestled inside a nacreous white shell.
It takes work to grow and collect oysters. It takes skill to open and prepare them. They demand a special dressing—the mignonette (ideally, chopped shallots in white wine and champagne vinegar). They are expensive. I think they deserve a firm place in the religion of zoolatry, alongside the eagle, the elephant, the tiger, and the butterfly, among others. They seem made by God for human delight and sustenance. They are mythological (Venus emerges from one). In a church of zoolatry, they would be prominently featured. In addition, we need not concern ourselves with ethical questions: they are insentient like plants and can be consumed in good conscience. They are also eco-friendly. They do no harm and much good. They are, we might say, a little bit of heaven—how things ought to be but rarely are. When I order them (never less than a dozen) I refuse to share—not because I am particularly greedy but because they are my communion with nature, my religious ritual, my taste of paradise. Food and religion go regularly together, as in feasts, fasts, holy days, prayers, offerings. Oysterness is close to godliness.
They also remind us of our oceanic past—our affinity with the sea (cool, briny). In oysters we experience nature at its best (as far as we are concerned). There is nothing supernatural about them—they are relatively simple creatures, born of the earth. We may be tempted to think that they prove the existence of a caring God, but really, they are just products of natural selection. The wonder is that nature could produce that exquisite taste—the culinary divine. It isn’t surprising that some people happily devote their lives to oysters—the humble, but stupendous, bivalve. And yet, strangely, there is something repulsive about them, something off-putting—slimy, slithering, mucous-like, sometimes sickness-inducing. They can quickly veer into the disgusting. They remind us that nature is two-sided: for us and against us. Shucking is dangerous, requiring gloves and a special knife. You can open a bad one and have to discard it. Pleasure comes with risk. They are the divine in the disgusting and dangerous. Yet we thrill to their boneless bounty, their gustatory generosity. You don’t even need to chew them. They go down a treat, taking the work out of eating (you slurp them). Little angels, as it were. Still, there is an element of fear, as there always is with nature, a degree of ambivalence. We are bivalve ambivalent. In this they resemble the erotic, with which they are often associated. There is a lot going on in the humble oyster, despite its natural simplicity. We wouldn’t want to elevate them to the top of the zoolatrical pantheon (or would we?), but they certainly deserve a place of special honor. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the almighty and deeply munificent oyster, lord of all bivalves. A round of applause, please.[1]
[1] Have I hymned them sufficiently? I have tried to do their magnificence justice, but still I feel I have not quite given them their due. There is an ineffability about the oyster.
A Historical House
A Historical House
I live in a historically designated house. Recently, I decided to look more closely into the history. It has changed my attitude to where I live. The house was built in 1923 of locally sourced coral rock, mined from the Venetian pool. It lies half a mile outside what is now Coral Gables, and is the only coral rock house in this part of Miami. Coral Gables itself has quite a few coral rock houses built around the same time as mine. Such houses ceased being built soon after because of a shortage of rock, so they are in short supply; they are now regarded as rare gems. George Merrick’s house was built as early as 1906, the oldest house in what would become Coral Gables being built in 1899; the others were built between 1921 and 1926. Coral Gables itself was created and incorporated in 1925 (Coconut Grove was incorporated in 1919). So, my house was part of the beginnings of what is now a famous town—the “City Beautiful”. It is indeed a very nice house. It still has the original tiled floors. The beige rock still reflects the sunlight beautifully. It has an extensive tropical garden with many rare plants. My study looks out over a lush green landscape. It is possible to find a nice video about in on YouTube by Ashley Cusack, a local realtor, by searching under 2411 SW 62nd Avenue, 33155. Somehow, I had been taking all this for granted, but now I see why the house is historically designated and cannot be torn down or extensively reworked. It was constructed at roughly the same time as the historic Biltmore hotel, which is a couple of miles away. These were the original buildings of what would have been a small village a century ago. It is now regarded as the equivalent of Beverly Hills, and is indeed rated as more expensive than that location.
I don’t know who built this house and for what purpose, or why it is at some distance from the cluster of similar houses that constituted the nascent town. The connecting road, Coral Way, was not constructed till 1922 and would have been primitive by modern standards. The other houses surrounding my house were built in the 1950s and 1970s; there is nothing like my house near me. It is unique in what is now South Miami. I picture it as isolated, proudly alone in a tropical landscape. Was it some kind of plantation or just a choice by the owner to keep his distance? I assume the original owner knew George Merrick, given his proximity and importance to the town. The owner will have seen the Biltmore grow up, though living in splendid isolation. I have my own kind of isolation, though now I am surrounded by newer houses with a children’s hospital at the end of the road. I skateboard where there used to be only vegetation. I do regard it as a haven and have found it conducive to contemplation. It is quiet and restful. I have my trampoline, table tennis table, and knife throwing range; also, two motorcycles and a car. I sold the attached property recently, so now another big modern house has been built next to mine—the march of progress, I suppose. I now contemplate this history and wonder about previous occupants going back 102 years. It seems fitting that the house should now be occupied by a philosopher nostalgic for the past.
American Philosophical Association
American Philosophical Association
I first attended the APA in 1977 and have attended it many times since, in various capacities. I found it quite enjoyable. I would go to papers, look at new books, hang out with old friends. I thought it was a good thing. But I haven’t been in twenty years, and it has been really impossible for the last twelve years. You know why; it begins with the letter C. No doubt there have been earnest meetings devoted to the subject, peopled by strident zealots and weak-kneed enablers—I would not expect to receive any invitations from this institution these days. Do you think I was ever contacted to offer my point of view? Of course not. Par for the course, you might say. But that isn’t really the problem: what would it be like for me to attend an APA meeting? Socially, personally—what would it be like? Some would feel it their duty to shun me; others would be sheepish. What would people say? What would I say? There’s the rub: I would float in a haze of hatred. I would look at people with ill-disguised contempt, utter disdain. If anyone spoke to me, I would be cool at best, furious at worst. It would be awkward beyond belief. What if I spoke up at a paper? How would that be received? What if I ran into old friends I haven’t heard from in years? How would the conversation go? It is unimaginable. I see myself walking into a crowded room and the chatter quieting to a hush, with some people walking out. Or would people just pretend I wasn’t there? Do you think I would try to make myself agreeable? I would not. It’s fortunate that I live in Miami where the APA never travels, or else this thought experiment might become actualized.