Gerhold K. Becker 

ABSTRACT

　　Of the many environmental problems humanity is facing, unchecked global warming is the most severe and requires a comprehensive response from all sectors of society. As the UN report Making Peace with Nature has pointed out convincingly, humanity has been at war with nature for much too long. Since such a war cannot be won, it is suicidal and has to stop. Yet in spite of scientific evidence of global warming and numerous reports by international organizations about the dire consequences for mankind there is a real danger that the window of opportunity for making peace with nature will close before decisive actions have been implemented. In order to prevent this from happening, this paper calls for a better understanding of the various dimensions of nature and of the deep interdependencies that define humankind’s relationship with our natural environment. Taking up Pope Francis’ call for ecological conversion, it argues that a transformation of our traditional attitudes toward nature is necessary. This process cannot be left to science and technology, but has to involve the rich cultural and spiritual resources of humanity and must be grounded in the clear awareness of our moral responsibility for sustainable development.

Transforming Humanity’s Relationship with Nature

　　In February 2021 the UN Environment Program issued a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The report is a synthesis based on evidence from global environmental assessments and entitled: Making Peace with Nature (UNEP 2021). In his Foreword, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, writes: “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is senseless and suicidal.” It is suicidal, since the current mode of development undermines the Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being. While we all depend on the Earth’s resources, their uncontrolled exploitation through powerful technologies is now jeopardizing the Earth’s capacity to sustain human well-being and prosperity.

　　As a war against nature cannot be won, making peace with nature is the only alternative we have. After all, we are part of nature and thus are fighting against ourselves, at least against our well-considered own interests. Ending this war requires great determination that does not shy away from tough political, social, and economic decisions. These will of necessity have deep implications for our traditional ways of life that we have come to take for granted.

　　As the report points out, the key to a sustainable future is transforming humankind’s relationship with nature. This process must take into account the human interdependencies with nature and a better understanding of the natural processes on which all life, including human life, depends.

　　Of equal importance is, however, a clear vision of the good life and all its fundamental values we aspire to and from which we could draw standards for politics and economics alike. This is foremost the task of ethics as the study of the moral conditions of a life worth living. The clearer we are aware of how deeply we are embedded in the natural world and depend on its resources, the more inevitable the conclusion will be that a truly good life in the comprehensive sense of this term cannot be achieved through a hostile exploitation of nature but only when we live in harmony with it. This shifts the focus of general ethics to the moral significance of nature and its implications for individuals and society alike. While attempts at transforming nature into humanity’s own image has turned out to be suicidal, what is possible and urgently required is the transformation of our perceptions of nature and our relationships with it. According to the UN report this is the sole “key to a sustainable future.”

The Call for Ecological Conversion

　　Transforming our attitudes toward nature requires more than statistics and scientific parameters documenting the disastrous human impact on nature. Needless to say, they are all of utmost importance in directing measures by governments and international bodies that may at least mitigate the most serious consequences of human interference with nature and promise long-term sustainable development. For such policies to take hold, however, and to effect a radically changed attitude towards nature, it seems that this could not be left to science and politics but requires a comprehensive approach that involves all our ingenuity, imagination, and the whole range of intellectual and spiritual resources. As long as the environmental awareness of the general public was low and not yet up to the dangers resulting from the destruction of our natural environment and specifically of global warming, warnings from science or indigenous people were largely ignored and governments could even cast doubt on scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change. Much time was thus wasted until rising temperatures, worldwide changing weather patterns, and increasing losses in biodiversity could no longer be denied and began to be taken seriously in politics and society and finally led to concrete targets in emission control.

　　This seems to suggest that decisive actions in sustainable development can only be expected from a clear awareness of our precarious relationship with nature that is shared by the general public and can stir governments and business into action. For this to happen, nature must not remain the rather obscure threat out there to mankind’s survival that leaves us helpless and exposed to doomsday prophesies without answer. We should, however, not trust our usual belief in a technological fix either and leave everything to science and technology for a solution to our plight.

　　In his highly acclaimed encyclical letter Laudato Si (2015), Pope Francis has sharply criticized the “technocratic paradigm” for dominating economic and political life and showing “no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations” (Pope Francis 2015, no. 109). In taking up his call for “a global ecological conversion” (no. 5, passim), humanity has to develop a new ecological sensibility for the climate emergency and accept scientific evidence of tipping points in the Earth’s climate system that could turn it inhospitable for humans. The seriousness of the collective danger we face may justify resolute, non-violent measures to sway governments into action as long as the window of opportunity is still open and, for example, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions could make a difference. Above all, however, and in accordance with Pope Francis’ plea, we need to change all-too-common attitudes towards nature and foster a sense of responsibility for our common home and its preservation for future generations. Unless “care for nature” becomes “part of a lifestyle” (no. 228) grounded in an “ecological spirituality” (no. 216) that has recognized its duty of “intergenerational solidarity” (no. 159), the endless bickering between countries and interested parties over emission targets may continue and bring us ever closer to disaster.

　　In regarding the world as God’s creation, religious worldviews provide strong motivations for environmental responsibility by recognizing Earth as entrusted to us in good stewardship to be handed over to those who come after us. Obviously, motivations for profound ecological conversion and the transformation of our attitudes toward nature can also come from various other sources, including literature, poetry, fiction, film, and the visual arts. They too should be welcome as they contribute to global environmental awareness, which politicians and businesses can hardly ignore. A good place to begin may be returning to the great literary masterpieces that inspire our imagination, stimulate our thought, and may prompt us into action.

Moby Dick and the Dimensions of Nature

　　Herman Melville’s masterpiece Moby-Dick; or, The Whale was published in 1851 in New York, when the lucrative whaling industry of New England began to shift from the overfished Atlantic all the way to the South Pacific. It is the story of the last of Captain Ahab’s whale-hunting voyages in pursuit of a cunning and ferocious white sperm whale the whalers called Moby Dick. The whale had become a legendary object of fear and superstition among whalers, since it caused many disasters and always escaped its attacking pursuers. When it cut off one of Ahab’s legs, he could think of nothing else but to take revenge. He assembled a crew of castoffs and refugees from various countries and continents, and several days into the voyage he revealed to them that the sole purpose of their mission was to hunt and kill the white whale.

　　After a long journey the whale is finally sighted and a three-day chase begins. On the first day the whale crushes one of the boats, on the second it snaps off Ahab’s artificial leg and drags down in Ahab’s harpoon line one of his best men. Finally, on the third day Moby Dick smashes the side of the whaler when Ahab manages to strike the final blow. Yet he is caught in his own harpoon line and drowned, tied to the whale. The whaler Pequod sinks and takes all boats and their crews except for one down with it.

　　Moby Dick is a very complex novel that draws on Melville’s own scientific studies of the life of whales, his extensive whaling experience, and the commercial exploitation of the seas. Notwithstanding other perspectives, the central focus of the novel is humanity’s relationship with and attitudes toward nature (Schultz 2000).^[1] Its main symbol is Moby Dick (Flower 2013).

　　The white whale stands, firstly, for the treasure trove of abundance that is apparently freely available for everyone able to take possession of it. Thus the whale is “out there” in the vast seas to be hunted for blubber and oil to light people’s home. It is a commodity that can be sold to make people rich. Nature, it appears, is a free good that belongs to nobody and is up for grabs.

　　Yet nature’s riches are, secondly, not easily available like fruits that fall from trees. From time immemorial humans had to establish themselves in opposition to nature, had to cut down trees to make room for settlements, defend themselves against predators, take precautions against natural disasters, and search for their niche within a natural environment where they could live in some kind of truce with it. The attitude of taking advantage of presumably inexhaustible natural resources with skill and ingenuity wherever possible and with ruthless force when necessary became an ingrained character trait that largely defines human interaction with nature throughout history.

　　Thirdly, nature stands for the universal struggle for survival and the fight of all against all. In “the universal cannibalism of the sea” the antagonistic forces in nature itself are revealed showing how all “creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began” (Melville 1988, ch. 58). Thus nature shows also a ferocious side. It acts like a dangerous animal that will fight back without mercy when attacked. It runs its own course and does not care about humans. Nature is not and never has been in the exclusive service of humans. Descartes’ vision of humans becoming masters and possessors of nature (maîtres et possesseurs de la nature) is just a dream (Descartes 1637, p. 62). A “moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill (…); yet forever and forever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make” (Melville 1988, ch. 58). Embedded in nature’s innumerable life systems, humanity is just one member in the vast but fragile chain of beings for which the depletion of biodiversity would spell disaster.

　　Nevertheless, the various aspects of nature seem to point, finally, beyond themselves towards an image that grounds them all. In all its mightiness nature arouses in humans a sense of wonder and awe. Nature’s grandeur inspires aesthetic feelings and a sense of belonging to a greater whole that points to a dimension beyond the daily struggles for survival. Thus Moby Dick, “the mighty, misty monster” “solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea” and its head “overhung by a canopy of vapor glorified by a rainbow” turns into a majestic image of the otherness of nature that “baby man” will simultaneously fear and adore. It is this Nature to which Ahab cries out in despair and awe: “O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies” (ch. 70). This image is held up by indigenous people in protest against the one-dimensional image of nature in science and commerce. When the whale sinks the Pequod, whose name recalls the first Indian tribe exterminated by white Americans, nature seems to take revenge for the killing of the native people of a land that foreign conquerors claimed their own. As the Pequod’s crew of people, assembled from around the world, is a microcosm of humanity, its sinking may serve as a warning to the world that mankind can never prevail in a war against nature. The message seems to be that we too will be crushed unless we change our exploitative attitudes and take resolute measures to repair the damage we have already done.

Elusive Nature

　　The various aspects of nature point to a fundamental intuition, whose conceptual origin can be traced to ancient Greek philosophy, but which is shared across cultures. In Cao Xueqin’s famous novel The Story of the Stone (1760), Bao-yu accompanies his father Jia Zheng on his inspection tour of the newly completed large landscape garden. He is pleased with the garden’s distinctive features of miniature mountains, gushing streams, and “rocks in all kinds of grotesque and monstrous shapes.” When his tour arrives at a particularly pleasing site of the garden, Jia Zheng admires its naturalness. He is, of course, aware that all this was made “by human artifice” and not by nature, although it is “none the less moving” in its “natural simplicity.”

　　When Bao-yu is asked for his opinion, he admits that he “never really understood what it was the ancients meant by ‘natural.’” His father’s blunt definition of the natural as “that which is of nature, that is to say, that which is produced by nature as opposed to that which is produced by human artifice,” cannot clear his doubts. The difference between a hamlet in the countryside and bamboo planted in a garden or a stream diverted from its natural course are all the result of human artifice. But in the former case the human agency is obvious as a “forcible interference with the landscape”, in the latter it is not, since there is “no appearance of artifice,” and that makes it look ‘natural’ (Cao 1973, pp. 336-337).

　　By defining nature as that which is out there independently of human practice, Jia Zheng refers to a concept of nature, which still plays a major role in contemporary deliberations about environmental protection and the conservation of ‘natural’ habitats. Nature is what exists and evolves without human intervention all by itself. Nature is what has no human origin, is not made, but is that out of which things can be made. This idea is central in the Daoist tradition to which Jia Zhen alludes.^[2] While humans depend on the resources of nature, their unrestrained exploitation makes nature ever more elusive and undermines the very conditions of mankind’s survival.

　　If nature could be found only in undisturbed wilderness where humans are not and never have been, the scope of ‘nature’ would be reduced with the increase of human capacity for interference and manipulation. By using our “power to preserve a sense of what is not in our power,” our relationship with nature becomes paradoxical and a function of human capacity. Trying to preserve nature in its purity is in fact an act of intervention, since a natural park is not nature, but a park (Williams 1995, p. 240; Elliot 1997).

　　If we have indeed entered the Anthropocene, the “epoch in which humans and our societies have become a global geophysical force” (Steffen et al., 2007, p. 614), then the ‘natural’ may have largely disappeared already and humanity is everywhere in nature encountering itself. While this extends the scope of human responsibility, it also embeds humanity firmly in nature. As “human agents are as much products of nature as are sunflowers and seahorses” (O’Neill et al. 2008, pp. 130-1), nature is not “the world from which intentional human acts have been abstracted.”

　　The clearest evidence of us being part of nature is the human body. It not only links us to all organic beings in the world, but in our metabolism also to inorganic, physical matter. By inhaling oxygen, drinking water, eating food, and discharging material waste, we are intrinsically ‘natural’. From an evolutionary perspective we are just another biological entity subjected to the same natural laws like everything else.

　　However, unlike seahorses and sunflowers, we are also persons with moral standing and the responsibility that comes with it. Our moral agency is grounded in nature but is not identical with it; it falls outside the methodological ambit of the natural sciences. Obviously, humanity has transcended “the cannibalism of the sea” (Melville) by establishing a culture of moral respect for each other as persons. Thus the ultimate reason for environmental concerns and for preserving our planet for future generations is the moral respect we owe each other and a moral concern for the whole of creation (Scanlon 1998).

Facing the Ecological Crisis

　　As it turns out, ‘nature’ is a multidimensional concept, and it is difficult to find the right path towards ‘making peace with nature’. Obviously, making peace implies the cessation of hostile acts so that a harmonious relationship may develop. In view of the vast amount of data documenting in great detail the extent of damage inflicted on nature by humans it is hard to see how peace can be restored. The one damage that stands out, however, is anthropogenic climate change. Uncontrolled heating of the atmosphere will affect all life systems on the planet. It will deplete biodiversity and spell extinction for many life forms, whose exact function in the Earth’s life cycle is still largely unknown; their demise is an irreplaceable loss for mankind.

　　Whereas peace is frequently associated with harmony, it remains unclear what this could mean for our relationship with nature. Apparently, nature’s life systems are not in states of equilibrium, as this would imply stagnation (Botkin 1992, Botkin 2012). Yet they do not seem to represent chaotic conditions either but point to the idea of nature in flux thus highlighting variation, fluidity and change in natural systems (Pickett & Ostfeld 1995; Simus 2011). Human interference with nature has, however, led to precarious developments that are likely to destroy the fragile balance between natural systems that up to now have benefitted human development through only incremental adjustments of individual components. By levelling out imbalances they achieved overall some kind of harmony between human development and nature. Scientific evidence and individual experience seem to confirm that this harmony has now been deeply disturbed, if not destroyed. Thus in many areas human interaction with nature has reached tipping points in components of the Earth system, “around which small perturbations can trigger an irreversible transition from one stable state to another” (IGS 2019).

　　The very idea of peace is defined from an anthropocentric perspective, since it is humanity that needs such peace to survive and to flourish. Nature as the complex system that regulates all life on the planet will always ‘survive’ by adjusting to any conditions regardless of the consequences for human life. In this sense, ‘nature’ could only be destroyed by an asteroid that would smash Earth to pieces. Yet even such a catastrophic event would be ‘natural’ and may, over time, lead to new formations from which life may again evolve. This is clearly a rather disturbing scenario. It shows, however, that life on Earth, and in particular human life, is not ‘guaranteed’ by nature but entrusted to us. Even if we, from a religious perspective, believe that the world is God’s creation and reject any secular, cosmological view, this would not exempt us from our moral duty of taking responsibility for our interactions with nature. We can neither trust that, somehow, technology will come up with solutions for the damage already done nor that ‘nature’ will act as a benevolent mother who will care for her children. Although the image of Mother Nature may have its place in indigenous cultures, it is nowadays challenged by the image of disinterested nature that will run its own course without regard for humanity. In other words, it is up to us whether our impact on nature will change the conditions for life in ways that, in the long term, may turn the planet into a wasteland that no longer can provide the necessary resources for its people, or whether we can muster enough political and economic determination to keep it as livable as possible for us and future generations.

^[1]On Schultz’s counts, ‘nature’ appears forty-four times in the novel.

^[2]Tao Te Ching (2001), ch. 25:自然 zi-ran in D.C. Lau’s translation: “which is naturally so”, in Ames & Hall (2003, p. 115): “what is spontaneously so.”

Gerhold K. Becker, is Founding Director of the Institute for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University.

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