College of Business Administration

Business Management and the Natural Environment

Discussion Questions for September 22, 1998

1) The question of 'value' is foundational to discussions of environmental issues. How is a 'value' for the environment to be determined? Can 'value' be measured without reference to money? Is there a way to establish value without being homocentric?

Consider the following:

"If I am right there is no theory of intrinsic value that, in a parsimonious fashion, can possibly meet the demands this conception of an environmental ethic imposes upon it."

What is the basis for this conclusion?

With what 'values' was Zuckerman concerned? Were any 'values' overlooked by the framing of the issue in the following way?

"Zuckerman faced a dilemma. He had to choose whether to butcher Wilbur (the slaughterhouse would have paid for the pig) or on moral and aesthetic grounds to spare his life..."

"What reasons have we to preserve biodiversity, protect rain forests, and maintain the quality of lakes, rivers, and estuaries?"

2) It is alternately claimed that...

"Nature is random, contingent, blind, disastrous, wasteful, indifferent, selfish, cruel, clumsy, ugly, struggling, full of suffering, and, ultimately death?
This sees only the shadows, and there has to be light to cast shadows.
Nature is orderly, prolific, efficient, selecting for adapted fit, exuberant, complex, diverse, renews life in the midst of death, struggling through to something higher."

Which view is correct? What are the practical implications of embracing one or the other view?

3) Apply the immediately previous question to these alternate world views:

"So this land of the great plains is claimed by the Lakota as their very own. We are of the soil and the soil is of us. We love the birds and beasts that grew with us on this soil. They drank the same water as we did and breathed the same air. We are all one in nature. Believing so, there was in our hearts a great peace and a welling kindness for all living, growing things."
-Luther Standing Bear

"If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all."
-Ronald Reagan

4) Let us now consider the problem of dualism:

"The Bible's discrete distinctions between God, nature, and humanity form a core of current scholarly thought on biblical attitudes toward nature. Because God is distinct from his creation, nature is effectively secularized."

True?

5) Who are we? What role do our 'religious' understandings play in this definition?

6) Locke makes the following statements which address property ownership:

"No man's labour could subdue or appropriate all, nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to entrench upon the right of another or acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his ne ighbour, who would still have room for as good and as large a possession as before it was appropriated."

Infringing on the commons only occurs when one takes more than can be used. Punishment would occur only if one took products of nature that "perished in their possession without their due use."

Are there any other infringements on the commons beyond consuming that which one can not use? What is implied in Locke's argument regarding the principle of scarcity? About consumption?

7) Locke's basic view about property ownership is implied in the following statements:

"Whatsoever he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something of his own, and thereby makes it his property."
"...cultivating the earth and having dominion...are joined together."
"Tis labour which puts the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would be scarcely worth anything."

In contrast, the Native American's basic view of ownership is implied in the following statement:

"...the Great Spirit told me...that the lands belong to Him, that no people owns the land."

How do these two viewpoints differ with regard to the value of nature? Specifically, the intrinsic vs instrumental value? Is not the view that 'value' is established by the addition of 'our' labour hopelessly homocentric?

Stone argues that "the commons areas are essentially underprotected" (p. 75). And Jeffreys, as cited in The ant, the grasshopper, and the GNP, states "Why is the water polluted now? Because no one owns it" (p. 46). How does owning property affect one's treatment of that property?

If we assume that owning property makes us behave more positively toward it, perhaps enclosure is a good way of protecting the environment. Agree or disagree? Do we have to go to the extreme of 'privitization' in order to protect the commons? What evidence can you offer in favor of 'privitization' (eg., how effective has privitization been in Eastern Europe)?

8) Locke has very distinctive views of the man's purpose with regard to the environment:

"God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to its best advantage of life and convenience. The earth and all that is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being."

"God gave the world to men in common, but since he gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated."

Locke believes land that is left "wholly to nature" is "waste." How does this viewpoint compare with the attitudes of today's American businesses? Give examples.

9) One of the distinguishing characteristics of any social system is the way in which property is owned and transferred from one party to another. What are the socio-political implications of community property ownership? Of private property ownership?

If the best way to insure adequate treatment of the environment is through some form of community ownership, can we conclude socialism is a better political system for ensuring the protection of nature? What evidence do we have for this conclusion?

Perhaps a hybrid system would be a good framework for preserving the environment. Either "community owned, individually managed" or "individually owned, managed for the community." What type of system do you recommend?

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