Contents: Introduction Why environmentalism? Green politics and deep ecological ethics Green poli... more Contents: Introduction Why environmentalism? Green politics and deep ecological ethics Green politics and the question of growth Economy and ecology Commons, community and environment Political ecology and the social contract Political ecology and government Recovering politics Bibliography Index.
In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the... more In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the world’s press.2 Uproar followed, for in the memo Summers made certain policy recommendations concerning pollution based entirely on monetary considerations. In itself this might not be thought objectionable, but Summers was talking about the morbidity and mortality associated with high levels of pollution; the third world was under polluted and so he suggested that such pollution be exported to the less developed world where human life was ‘cheaper’ than in more developed nations. As he pointed out, people in the less developed world did not tend to live as long or earn as much as those in the developed world. In money terms the loss, and particularly the early loss, of a productive life in the developed world far outweighed the same loss in the less developed world. True, levels of morbidity and mortality would certainly increase in less developed nations as they became the repository for the world’s toxins, but such increases would hardly matter given the low monetary value of lives in these regions, and they would certainly be far outweighed by the monetary gains from healthier, longer lived peonle from developed nations.
Introduction Since European settlement, agricultural land management in Australia has followed a ... more Introduction Since European settlement, agricultural land management in Australia has followed a familiar trajectory of the kind Alfred Crosby (1993) labels `ecological imperialism'. The trajectory has two complementary stages. In the first stage, the task is conceived as transformative. The pressing demand is for the `neo-Europeanisation' of the landscape: to modify and reshape the native environment so as to make it possible to pursue European-style agricultural practices and forms of production. Given the impact of such transformative practices, the second stage of the `imperialist' land management trajectory is overtly extractive and developmental: to render the transplanted European agricultural methods and forms of production as productive as possible in the alien but `domesticated' agricultural environment. There are, however, signs that a third kind of agricultural land management regime is gradually emerging. This time the land management task is not envisaged as primarily transformative and exploitative -- though such goals are not abandoned -- but as a matter of preserving and shaping ecologically viable practices of agricultural production (Campbell 1994). Such an approach is, in one sense, `conservative' -- for it begins by looking at the ecological sustainability of existing agricultural practices -- but in another, potentially `radical' in so far as it involves uncovering and exploring the possibilities of more ecologically sensitive and viable patterns of agricultural production (Williams 1995; Archer 1997). This third, and still largely prospective, style of sustainable agricultural land management has been prompted by environmental problems of land and water resource degradation and by developments in environmental and natural resource studies of the ecological space in which agricultural enterprises take place (Campbell 1994; Brown 1998).(1) That the change is still in large part prospective may be explained by a constellation of factors which can be usefully divided between those essentially internal to the productive practices which shape existing systems of agricultural production, and those that are largely external. Internal factors hindering or furthering the development of ecologically viable patterns of agricultural production are factors which can be addressed by changes in farming practices at an individual and industry level; while external factors hindering or furthering such development are those which imply changes on the broader social and political planes. In this paper we focus on those internal factors which bear on ecologically viable agricultural production; and suggest a model for encouraging agricultural producers in the practices of sound ecological farm-management which aims, on the one hand, to avoid an over-dependence on individual voluntarism, and, on the other, excessive faith in imposed political authority. This model builds on a conception of farming as a self-accrediting, self-policing profession in the way that (for example) medical practitioners and lawyers constitute a profession; and is intended as an ecologically informed development of so-called `whole farm planning.' (Garrett 1993). We assume the pressing ecological need for such a model and show that there are good reasons, from a strictly economic point of view, for the agricultural producer to embrace such land management changes. We argue that there are already available, in the form of the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) and state-based Farmers' Associations, the bodies necessary to champion the professionalisation of farming; and, in the form of experienced non-governmental community based land management bodies such as Greening Australia and the World Wide Fund for Nature, the requisite expertise and liaison skills essential for the effective facilitation, development and implementation of ecologically viable strategies of agricultural production. Finally, we offer some brief remarks on possible connections between this focus on the internal factors of production and those external factors -- primarily concerned with the operations of the agricultural market -- which lead many to a premature pessimism on the possibilities for sustainable agriculture. …
To take the idea of a non-anthropocentric ethic of nature seriously is to abandon morality itself... more To take the idea of a non-anthropocentric ethic of nature seriously is to abandon morality itself. The idea of humanity is not an optional extra for moral seriousness. Non-anthropocentric environmental ethicists mistake the kind of value non-human entities may bear. It is not moral value, but aesthetic value.
Licenza d’uso L’articolo e ̀ messo a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente p... more Licenza d’uso L’articolo e ̀ messo a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d’uso Rivisteweb, e ̀ fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l’articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati.
Tony Lynch and Bert Jenkins explore the conditions necessary for order, protection, safety and tr... more Tony Lynch and Bert Jenkins explore the conditions necessary for order, protection, safety and trust.
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2016
Many think doing animal ethics demands we see moral humanism as a speciesist prejudice of the kin... more Many think doing animal ethics demands we see moral humanism as a speciesist prejudice of the kind found with sexism and racism. The only serious case for this rests on the Argument from Marginal Cases. We find that argument to the point, but show that properly understood it supports humanism. Understanding why it does this lets us see how we ought to go on in animal ethics.
In October 1819 an Irish parish priest in Ross Carberry, Cork, Father Jeremiah O’Callaghan, redis... more In October 1819 an Irish parish priest in Ross Carberry, Cork, Father Jeremiah O’Callaghan, rediscovered the traditional Catholic hostility to interest-taking or usury.’ That he had to rediscover it is significant in itself. It was not that the Church had officially (or even publicly) recanted its traditional hostility to usury; rather it had — as Father O’Callaghan found out to his cost — purposefully allowed the traditional position to fall from view. In effect, it was swept under the carpet. But O’Callaghan was made of sterner stuff; and, taking the doctrine seriously, he refused the Last Sacraments to a dying merchant who had: retailed his goods, that is, flax seed, worth not more than nine shillings, to the poor, in the Spring, for sowing, and obliged them to pay in Autumn twelve shillings and sixpence; gaining therefore three shillings and sixpence, upon every nine shillings, for six months; or more than 27% per annum. Though the seed would be certainly of less value at the time of making the payment: for it would not sell at all in the autumn.2
Socialists and defenders of laissez-faire share the view that in the market agents pursue their s... more Socialists and defenders of laissez-faire share the view that in the market agents pursue their self-interest, not the good of others. On this basis, socialists reject the market as an arena of immorality, while laissez-faire theorists attempt to defuse the charge by relying on the providential consequences of the "invisible hand," However, both stances presuppose a view of morality that too sharply separates self-interest and altruism. Some try to separate the economic arui morality into discrete spheres. In contrast, a compatibilist account shows the ways a concern for personal profit and a concern for others can come together. Such a motivationalist approach allows one to re-conceive the "invisible hand." It is no longer a serendipitous justification of the merely self-interested, but an invitation to think of the various mixtures of altruism and self-interest required to produce those results that may commend the market.
When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation right-populism emerged as a political force in Australia many to... more When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation right-populism emerged as a political force in Australia many took it to be a radical threat to the health of political democracy. It was nothing of the sort. It was, rather, a symptomatic expression of the failure of that democracy as elites of the traditional labour and business parties embraced a shared policy orientation that undercut their ties to their traditional working-class and middle class bases. Hanson’s right-populism emerged from the increasingly status anxious traditional Liberal Party base as it drew upon and reasserted the class-repressing, status elevating, middle class ideology of home that the founder of the party, Robert Menzies, had laid out in the 1940s. This ideology defined the status of the traditionally conservative middle classes as patriotic and self-reliant; frugal savers whose status demanded government refuse the entitlement claims of those perceived as the more feckless and less prudent in the community, and protect t...
We seek to understand the contemporary adaptive co-management framework of natural/forest resourc... more We seek to understand the contemporary adaptive co-management framework of natural/forest resource conservation. To do this we trace the genealogy of adaptive co-management and its call for the “democratic participation” of “all stakeholders”. We show how this inserted commercial agents as stakeholders, thus providing contemporary neoliberal accumulation regimes with a problem-solving framework for natural/forest conservation shaped by, and amenable to, their characteristic managerial discourse of “flexibility”, “innovation”, “voluntary self-regulation”, “incentivization”, “partnership”, “network(ing)”, “social learning” and “local knowledge”.
In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the... more In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the world’s press.2 Uproar followed, for in the memo Summers made certain policy recommendations concerning pollution based entirely on monetary considerations. In itself this might not be thought objectionable, but Summers was talking about the morbidity and mortality associated with high levels of pollution; the third world was under polluted and so he suggested that such pollution be exported to the less developed world where human life was ‘cheaper’ than in more developed nations. As he pointed out, people in the less developed world did not tend to live as long or earn as much as those in the developed world. In money terms the loss, and particularly the early loss, of a productive life in the developed world far outweighed the same loss in the less developed world. True, levels of morbidity and mortality would certainly increase in less developed nations as they became the repository for the world’s toxins, but such increases would hardly matter given the low monetary value of lives in these regions, and they would certainly be far outweighed by the monetary gains from healthier, longer lived peonle from developed nations.
Our central claim has been that our commercial dealings should be subject to moral scrutiny. In o... more Our central claim has been that our commercial dealings should be subject to moral scrutiny. In our use of money there should be a strong moral component, for commerce is not a morality free zone. In this we differ from outright critics, such as Fourier, for whom money and the market are irremediably corrupt and we differ from those unabashed advocates of commercial life for whom money generates no moral concerns whatsoever. Our line is that while commerce is morally permissible it needs to be morally constrained.
Contents: Introduction Why environmentalism? Green politics and deep ecological ethics Green poli... more Contents: Introduction Why environmentalism? Green politics and deep ecological ethics Green politics and the question of growth Economy and ecology Commons, community and environment Political ecology and the social contract Political ecology and government Recovering politics Bibliography Index.
In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the... more In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the world’s press.2 Uproar followed, for in the memo Summers made certain policy recommendations concerning pollution based entirely on monetary considerations. In itself this might not be thought objectionable, but Summers was talking about the morbidity and mortality associated with high levels of pollution; the third world was under polluted and so he suggested that such pollution be exported to the less developed world where human life was ‘cheaper’ than in more developed nations. As he pointed out, people in the less developed world did not tend to live as long or earn as much as those in the developed world. In money terms the loss, and particularly the early loss, of a productive life in the developed world far outweighed the same loss in the less developed world. True, levels of morbidity and mortality would certainly increase in less developed nations as they became the repository for the world’s toxins, but such increases would hardly matter given the low monetary value of lives in these regions, and they would certainly be far outweighed by the monetary gains from healthier, longer lived peonle from developed nations.
Introduction Since European settlement, agricultural land management in Australia has followed a ... more Introduction Since European settlement, agricultural land management in Australia has followed a familiar trajectory of the kind Alfred Crosby (1993) labels `ecological imperialism'. The trajectory has two complementary stages. In the first stage, the task is conceived as transformative. The pressing demand is for the `neo-Europeanisation' of the landscape: to modify and reshape the native environment so as to make it possible to pursue European-style agricultural practices and forms of production. Given the impact of such transformative practices, the second stage of the `imperialist' land management trajectory is overtly extractive and developmental: to render the transplanted European agricultural methods and forms of production as productive as possible in the alien but `domesticated' agricultural environment. There are, however, signs that a third kind of agricultural land management regime is gradually emerging. This time the land management task is not envisaged as primarily transformative and exploitative -- though such goals are not abandoned -- but as a matter of preserving and shaping ecologically viable practices of agricultural production (Campbell 1994). Such an approach is, in one sense, `conservative' -- for it begins by looking at the ecological sustainability of existing agricultural practices -- but in another, potentially `radical' in so far as it involves uncovering and exploring the possibilities of more ecologically sensitive and viable patterns of agricultural production (Williams 1995; Archer 1997). This third, and still largely prospective, style of sustainable agricultural land management has been prompted by environmental problems of land and water resource degradation and by developments in environmental and natural resource studies of the ecological space in which agricultural enterprises take place (Campbell 1994; Brown 1998).(1) That the change is still in large part prospective may be explained by a constellation of factors which can be usefully divided between those essentially internal to the productive practices which shape existing systems of agricultural production, and those that are largely external. Internal factors hindering or furthering the development of ecologically viable patterns of agricultural production are factors which can be addressed by changes in farming practices at an individual and industry level; while external factors hindering or furthering such development are those which imply changes on the broader social and political planes. In this paper we focus on those internal factors which bear on ecologically viable agricultural production; and suggest a model for encouraging agricultural producers in the practices of sound ecological farm-management which aims, on the one hand, to avoid an over-dependence on individual voluntarism, and, on the other, excessive faith in imposed political authority. This model builds on a conception of farming as a self-accrediting, self-policing profession in the way that (for example) medical practitioners and lawyers constitute a profession; and is intended as an ecologically informed development of so-called `whole farm planning.' (Garrett 1993). We assume the pressing ecological need for such a model and show that there are good reasons, from a strictly economic point of view, for the agricultural producer to embrace such land management changes. We argue that there are already available, in the form of the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) and state-based Farmers' Associations, the bodies necessary to champion the professionalisation of farming; and, in the form of experienced non-governmental community based land management bodies such as Greening Australia and the World Wide Fund for Nature, the requisite expertise and liaison skills essential for the effective facilitation, development and implementation of ecologically viable strategies of agricultural production. Finally, we offer some brief remarks on possible connections between this focus on the internal factors of production and those external factors -- primarily concerned with the operations of the agricultural market -- which lead many to a premature pessimism on the possibilities for sustainable agriculture. …
To take the idea of a non-anthropocentric ethic of nature seriously is to abandon morality itself... more To take the idea of a non-anthropocentric ethic of nature seriously is to abandon morality itself. The idea of humanity is not an optional extra for moral seriousness. Non-anthropocentric environmental ethicists mistake the kind of value non-human entities may bear. It is not moral value, but aesthetic value.
Licenza d’uso L’articolo e ̀ messo a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente p... more Licenza d’uso L’articolo e ̀ messo a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d’uso Rivisteweb, e ̀ fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l’articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati.
Tony Lynch and Bert Jenkins explore the conditions necessary for order, protection, safety and tr... more Tony Lynch and Bert Jenkins explore the conditions necessary for order, protection, safety and trust.
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2016
Many think doing animal ethics demands we see moral humanism as a speciesist prejudice of the kin... more Many think doing animal ethics demands we see moral humanism as a speciesist prejudice of the kind found with sexism and racism. The only serious case for this rests on the Argument from Marginal Cases. We find that argument to the point, but show that properly understood it supports humanism. Understanding why it does this lets us see how we ought to go on in animal ethics.
In October 1819 an Irish parish priest in Ross Carberry, Cork, Father Jeremiah O’Callaghan, redis... more In October 1819 an Irish parish priest in Ross Carberry, Cork, Father Jeremiah O’Callaghan, rediscovered the traditional Catholic hostility to interest-taking or usury.’ That he had to rediscover it is significant in itself. It was not that the Church had officially (or even publicly) recanted its traditional hostility to usury; rather it had — as Father O’Callaghan found out to his cost — purposefully allowed the traditional position to fall from view. In effect, it was swept under the carpet. But O’Callaghan was made of sterner stuff; and, taking the doctrine seriously, he refused the Last Sacraments to a dying merchant who had: retailed his goods, that is, flax seed, worth not more than nine shillings, to the poor, in the Spring, for sowing, and obliged them to pay in Autumn twelve shillings and sixpence; gaining therefore three shillings and sixpence, upon every nine shillings, for six months; or more than 27% per annum. Though the seed would be certainly of less value at the time of making the payment: for it would not sell at all in the autumn.2
Socialists and defenders of laissez-faire share the view that in the market agents pursue their s... more Socialists and defenders of laissez-faire share the view that in the market agents pursue their self-interest, not the good of others. On this basis, socialists reject the market as an arena of immorality, while laissez-faire theorists attempt to defuse the charge by relying on the providential consequences of the "invisible hand," However, both stances presuppose a view of morality that too sharply separates self-interest and altruism. Some try to separate the economic arui morality into discrete spheres. In contrast, a compatibilist account shows the ways a concern for personal profit and a concern for others can come together. Such a motivationalist approach allows one to re-conceive the "invisible hand." It is no longer a serendipitous justification of the merely self-interested, but an invitation to think of the various mixtures of altruism and self-interest required to produce those results that may commend the market.
When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation right-populism emerged as a political force in Australia many to... more When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation right-populism emerged as a political force in Australia many took it to be a radical threat to the health of political democracy. It was nothing of the sort. It was, rather, a symptomatic expression of the failure of that democracy as elites of the traditional labour and business parties embraced a shared policy orientation that undercut their ties to their traditional working-class and middle class bases. Hanson’s right-populism emerged from the increasingly status anxious traditional Liberal Party base as it drew upon and reasserted the class-repressing, status elevating, middle class ideology of home that the founder of the party, Robert Menzies, had laid out in the 1940s. This ideology defined the status of the traditionally conservative middle classes as patriotic and self-reliant; frugal savers whose status demanded government refuse the entitlement claims of those perceived as the more feckless and less prudent in the community, and protect t...
We seek to understand the contemporary adaptive co-management framework of natural/forest resourc... more We seek to understand the contemporary adaptive co-management framework of natural/forest resource conservation. To do this we trace the genealogy of adaptive co-management and its call for the “democratic participation” of “all stakeholders”. We show how this inserted commercial agents as stakeholders, thus providing contemporary neoliberal accumulation regimes with a problem-solving framework for natural/forest conservation shaped by, and amenable to, their characteristic managerial discourse of “flexibility”, “innovation”, “voluntary self-regulation”, “incentivization”, “partnership”, “network(ing)”, “social learning” and “local knowledge”.
In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the... more In 1991 an internal memo from the World Bank’s Chief Economist Lawrence Summers was leaked to the world’s press.2 Uproar followed, for in the memo Summers made certain policy recommendations concerning pollution based entirely on monetary considerations. In itself this might not be thought objectionable, but Summers was talking about the morbidity and mortality associated with high levels of pollution; the third world was under polluted and so he suggested that such pollution be exported to the less developed world where human life was ‘cheaper’ than in more developed nations. As he pointed out, people in the less developed world did not tend to live as long or earn as much as those in the developed world. In money terms the loss, and particularly the early loss, of a productive life in the developed world far outweighed the same loss in the less developed world. True, levels of morbidity and mortality would certainly increase in less developed nations as they became the repository for the world’s toxins, but such increases would hardly matter given the low monetary value of lives in these regions, and they would certainly be far outweighed by the monetary gains from healthier, longer lived peonle from developed nations.
Our central claim has been that our commercial dealings should be subject to moral scrutiny. In o... more Our central claim has been that our commercial dealings should be subject to moral scrutiny. In our use of money there should be a strong moral component, for commerce is not a morality free zone. In this we differ from outright critics, such as Fourier, for whom money and the market are irremediably corrupt and we differ from those unabashed advocates of commercial life for whom money generates no moral concerns whatsoever. Our line is that while commerce is morally permissible it needs to be morally constrained.
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Papers by Tony Lynch