Being Human On Earth
by Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda
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Our Role in Reversing Environmental Degradation
Books Reviewed
Being Human: Ethics, Environment,
and Our Place in the World.
Anna Lisa Peterson.
Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001. 300 pp. $18.95 (Hardcover).
The Care of Creation: Focusing
Concern and Action.
R. J. Berry.
Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press,
2000. 213 pp. $17.99 (Softcover). |
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The last third of the twentieth century
witnessed an unprecedented shift
in Earth-human relations. Human
impact now threatens Earth's capacity to
regenerate life as we know and love it.
These two books face that stark reality,
and breathe hope in the midst of it. They
respond to a profound need for theological,
ethical, and spiritual grounding for
transformation in the human species'
relationship to planet Earth.
An abundance of books probing
roots and implications of the ecological
crisis has appeared in the last decade.
The works span disciplines, transgress
conceptual boundaries, and invite
unlikely conversation partners. The terrain
is both rich and chaotic. My intent
is to locate Being Human and Care of
Creation in that landscape.
Being Human reflects on religious
dimensions of ecological ethics and on
debates about nature—human nature,
other-than-human nature, and the relationship
between the two. Anna Lisa
Peterson rightly describes her approach
as "ethical anthropology" in relation to
Christian theological anthropology, as
both bear on environmental ethics. She
moves artfully and self-consciously
between the questions and contributions
of multiple disciplines including theology,
feminist and ecofeminist theory,
anthropology, political philosophy, environmental
ethics, comparative ethics,
and evolutionary and ecological sciences.
The risk in spanning disciplinary
and conceptual ground is great, especially
when that terrain is replete with
landmines from both conservative and
progressive perspectives. Such breadth
requires treating more theoretical issues
than can be addressed thoroughly in a
single volume. Yet the risks certainly are
not worth surrendering the conceptual
breadth, and Peterson negotiates the
dilemmas with integrity and insight. She
identifies theoretical and methodological
issues central to her argument, and
addresses them succinctly. In fact, her
mind is delightful. She asks both the
evident and the obscure questions, draws
unlikely connections, probes nuance,
admits ambiguity and paradox, and refuses
reductionism. While on a few occasions,
her foray into multiple territories
results in too thin an account, those gaps
do not invalidate her overall theses.
Peterson's basic premise is that
ideas and convictions about what it
means to be human and about nature
bear crucial moral weight. They shape
ethical systems and practices. More specific
to her project, reigning Western
ideas about humanness and about
nature shape ecologically unsustainable
ways of life. If we hope to change these
ways of living, we must examine their
undergirding anthropologies, and construct
or reconstruct alternative notions
of humanness.
The author's aims are two. First,
she seeks to disclose the ecologically
destructive consequences of certain
anthropological notions, and to propose
alternatives that "might help us find less
harmful ways of being human in the
midst of nonhuman nature." Secondly,
she aims at uncovering internal dynamics
that enable an ethic actually to challenge,
transform, and sustain lived
practices.
To these ends she undertakes two
tasks. The first and substantive task is to
explore visions of different natures—
human nature, "nonhuman" nature, and
the nature of relationship between the
two—in six cultural traditions. Her intent
is not comprehensive treatment of these
traditions, but exploration of their anthropological
claims and the potential implications
of those claims for environmental
ethics. The first tradition explored is the
"established Western Christian and modernist
narratives" of human uniqueness,
domination of nature, and individual
autonomy. The second is recent social
constructionist theory that paradoxically
both critiques the former and reproduces
its notion that some exclusively human
quality—language, culture, soul, or rationality—
renders humanity both unique
and superior to the "natural" world. She
then examines four traditions challenging
these Western perspectives on humanness
and humanity's place in nature:
Buddhism, Taoism, and the traditions of
the Navajo and the Koyukon people of
Alaska. Peterson moves from these
"external" challenges to the "internal"
challenges launched by feminist and
ecofeminist theory, and by recent natural
sciences and their questioning of a "wide,
definitive, and unbridgeable gap"
between humans and all other species.
Here she draws primarily on cultural
and physical evolutionary theory.
Peterson's second task is to probe
the book's central metaethical question:
What qualities, and particularly what
structural dimensions, of some ethical
systems make them livable and compelling,
especially for enabling people to
"change their ways of understanding and
living on the earth"? Her more particular
subquestion—When religious ethics catalyze
positive social and ecological transformation,
what factors lead to that
effectiveness?—is grounded in her
premise that "many, even most, lived
ethics in human history have been religious."
(One wonders a little about this
premise, but fortunately the author notes
exceptions to it.) She responds that a key
factor is a narrative quality: "Ethical ideas
are embedded in narratives and receive
their coherence and force from them."
The appeal to narrative as the
structure of effective ethics, while fruitful,
is problematic. Peterson identifies
most of these problematic aspects, with
the characteristic thoroughness that I
came to expect and enjoy. She focuses
on one. Narratives with the power to
shape or reshape lifeways cannot necessarily
be borrowed or invented; they
emerge from context, worldviews, and
lifeways themselves. How then, are we to
"identify and implement alternative ethical
narratives" that will shape life? In
response, Peterson points to bioregionalism
and becoming "native to place."1
Yet space does not allow her coverage to
be deep, and her greater contribution is
in posing this question and identifying
other difficulties pervading the now frequent
appeal to narrative ethics.
Peterson artfully weaves together
the two tasks of exploring different
natures and metaethical questions with
one tertiary thread, the issue of "risks
that arise in regard to comparative
ethics." Unfolding as a matrix of
response to these concerns, this book
rightly places theory staunchly in the
service of socio-ecological transformation.
Peterson's metaethical question
is crucial, although not necessarily recognized
as such by many, for both religious
and philosophical ethics.
Pursuing it is one of her major contributions.
In two concluding chapters the
author fleshes out an alternative to dominant
Western anthropological assumptions,
drawing upon the traditions
previously examined. Her proposed
framework sees humans as a species
within nature; attributes intrinsic value
to the nonhuman world; and emphasizes
similarity or continuity between
humans and the rest of nature, while not
denying the obvious existence of difference.
Finally, having delinked the intrinsic
value of human being and human
features from exclusiveness, she delinks
difference from the right to dominate.
In the final pages, Peterson's intellectual
agility introduces too many new
concepts without providing sufficient
theoretical grounding. Most notable is
her effort to link relational understanding
of human selfhood to mothering
practices, and both to experiences of
community in contexts of multivalent
difference. Yet her point, well constructed
in the course of the book,
remains: Challenges to dominant Western
constructions of the human and of
nature (her substantive point) and the
turn to narrative structure in ethics (her
metaethical point) are two elements of
environmental ethics that can contribute
to a new and sustainable relationship
between the human species and the
planet. A second weak point is her brief
account of Martin Luther's moral
anthropology, which more accurately
reflects later Lutheran theology than
Luther himself.
A third point needing stronger work
is Peterson's appeal to feminist ethics.
She rightly turns there for a powerful
critique of dominant Western anthropological
claims, recognizing that "reconceptualizing
what it means to be human
lies at the heart of feminist ethics." Yet
drawing upon a category as intricate and
internally conflicted as feminist ethics
raises complex issues—definitional, categorical,
and functional. They require
the kind of astute and succinctly
expressed methodological grounding that
Peterson provides for other issues. She
has proven herself to be skilled, and
powerfully so, at identifying methodological
pitfalls in drawing upon complex
bodies of theory. That skill needs to play
out also in her appeal to feminist theory.
One issue of import is her reference to
"most women" or "the characteristic
experiences of women," while in fact
addressing largely the concerns and
scholarship of white, educated, Western
feminists. This contradiction replays a
central mistake of Euro-American feminism:
essentializing women and women's
experience in the shape of some women
and some women's experience. Many
feminist scholars and activists currently
seek to undo that universal "we," which
is in fact a very particular "we." Secondly,
frequent reference to feminist ethics,
feminists, or feminist theorists coupled
with a close focus on one contested trajectory
of feminist thought must situate
that trajectory in critiques of it and in the
multiplicity of feminist theoretical perspectives,
more fully than Peterson does.
Not to do so implies that the strand to
which she refers is representative or is the
most salient regarding the issues at hand.
This omission may obscure (albeit unintentionally)
other, possibly more rele-vant,
strands of feminist ethics. To appeal
to an ethic of care and to the work of
Gilligan, Noddings, and Ruddick is not a
problem. To portray it as the primary
source within the category of feminist
theory (until her category of ecofeminism),
without acknowledging signifi-cant
challenges to that work by other
feminists, is.2 On the whole, however,
this gap does not undermine the strength
of Peterson's constructive proposal.
The value of any good venture in
ethics is not only what it does but where
it leads, in terms of what doors it opens
and what is required methodologically to
go through them with integrity and
accountability. Peterson does not disappoint
in either. I speak first to the latter.
I agree with Peterson that if humanity is
to reverse its course of ecological
destruction, it is important for dominant
Western cultures to examine other
ethical traditions. Yet, any foray by Western
scholars into cultures colonized or
marginalized by Western powers, for the
purpose of comparative ethics, is fraught
with landmines. Peterson acknowledges
many of those perils, while also identifying
good reasons to proceed. Her main
attention is to the intellectual perils of
comparative ethics, rather than to the
material and cultural survival issues
related to cultural appropriation. Attention
to the latter is a crucial next step.
That is, if the knowledge of indigenous
and other colonized cultures may be
vital to sustainable Earth-human relations,
then how are scholars and activists
from colonizing cultures to draw upon
them without inadvertently misappropriating,
misrepresenting, silencing, or
erasing them?
Peterson notes the need to address
"the practical and the 'political' demands
of an ecologically damaged world" (italics
added), and observes that prevailing Western
anthropological assumptions exist
"within a larger Western capitalist, industrial,
consumer culture . . . [and] are
deeply intertwined with this culture, and,
to a considerable extent, freed from their
original religious roots." These observations
point toward subsequent inquiries
that would fill in other pieces of the puzzle
that Peterson aptly pursues. One is
this: If anthropological frameworks are
grounded in narratives, then challenging
those frameworks may require (1)
understanding their embeddedness not
only in religions narrative, but also in
the powerful political-economic narratives
of advanced global capitalism that
define the human as "economic man"
and as consumer; (2) historicizing those
narratives; and (3) unraveling their role in
legitimizing ecological destruction. One
almost hopes that Peterson would lend
her extensive expertise in moral anthropology
to that task.
Like Being Human, The Care of
Creation probes the nature of human
being, other-than-human being, and the
relations between the two, but does so
specifically from theological and biblical
perspectives. This edited volume contains
chapters by nearly twenty theologians,
ethicists, scientists, professionals in
environmental work, and others largely
situated within traditions of evangelical
Christianity. Predominantly British, the
authors also include continental European
and North American scholars. The
collection is a substantial theological
commentary on An Evangelical Declaration
on the Care of Creation, issued in
1994 by the newly formed Evangelical
Environmental Network (EEN). That
network arose from a gathering of evangelical
Christians who disagreed with a
conclusion of the World Council of
Churches' consultation on its Justice,
Peace, and Integrity of Creation Programme.
They objected to that assembly's
challenge to humanity's unique role as
"image of God." The Declaration calls followers
of Jesus Christ to repent for their
role in ecological degradation, and asserts
a biblically-based stewardship ethic, otherwise
referred to as "creation care."
R. J. Berry's volume explores central
biblical themes related to creation care
that are opened in the Declaration, and
includes constructive critical perspectives
on it. Taken as a whole, the book argues
that the Bible, read in its entirety, mandates
the caretaking of creation, condemns
humanity's exploitation of it as
contrary to the obligations of biblical
faith, and provides "a number of biblical
principles . . . to help bring disciples of
Jesus Christ into proper relationship to
creation." The book argues, from within
the evangelical community, against two
commonly held assumptions: that the
Bible does not call for creation care, and
that the Genesis reference to dominion
constitutes a divine mandate for human
domination of the rest of nature.
Written largely to the evangelical
Christian community worldwide, this
work is refreshingly honest and self-critical,
admitting and seeking to undo
what one author refers to as a tendency
among evangelical Christians to be "laggardly"
in response to the imperative of
creation care, to be "entirely indifferent
to environmental issues," or even to
line up against the environmental movement.
The volume is addressed also to
the broader Christian community and
secular audiences as testimony to the
fact that "biblical faith can be a positive
force for the solution of the environmental
crisis, rather than the negative
force that is has often been accused of
[being]."
Identifying and respectfully
addressing "troublesome stumbling
blocks in the way of creation-keeping
discipleship" common to evangelical
Christians is one of the book's valuable
contributions. Several contributors focus
on barriers related to "unbiblical beliefs"
or faulty biblical interpretation. The
power of this focus, of course, lies with
the audience—evangelical Christians
who see themselves as people "who follow
the commands in Scripture."
Striking is the authors' near consensus
in affirming the "cosmic significance
of the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ," and contesting
as unbiblical the tendency to
"reduce the whole point of the gospel to
human salvation." "According to Biblical
faith," many of the contributors insist,
"God's cosmic plan of restoration
includes the whole creation, not just individual
'souls.'" The ethical corollary, also
explicitly made, is that humankind is to
relate to creation in terms of "its relation
to divine love." According to that relation,
creation not only is included in salvation,
but also is indwelled by the Spirit of
God, is messenger of God's love, and
praises God. This valuation of creation,
combined with the evangelical assertion
of "the lordship of Christ in every area of
life," means that social and ecological
relationships are a "place of redemption,
and not merely the two-dimensional
backdrop for the drama of human
salvation." Theological consensus in linking
personal righteousness to social and
ecological righteousness, and connecting
personal redemption to the redemption
of creation, stands staunchly in keeping
with some strains of evangelical Christianity,
and in opposition to others. Bringing
it to the front burner of theoethical
thought in the evangelical community
may be the book's most theologically
significant and volatile contribution.
The volume's further contributions
are many. First, it offers firm biblical
grounding for its claims, both by reinterpreting
the controversial Genesis texts,
and by insisting that all of Scripture, not
just a few texts, be considered in probing
the normative relationship of humanity
to the Earth. Moreover, the book is to be
valued for integrating voices of scientists
and theologians discussing the same
issues with respect for each other and for
the significant role that each has to play.
To the authors' credit, they take on
debates within the evangelical community,
always in a constructive voice. Most
notable is a direct address to "the rift in
evangelical Christianity in the U.S."
between Christians opposed to the environmental
movement and those who see
action on behalf of ecological wellbeing
to be inherent in Christian discipleship.
Finally, commendable is the linkage
made by many contributors between ecological
degradation and economic injustice.
Some of the authors explicitly fault
the "growing engine of economic globalization,
with its tendency to ignore the
limits of creation in pursuit of the creation
of wealth."
One of the volume's shortcomings
also characterizes the Declaration itself.
Neither attends significantly to the effective
roles that other faith communities—
beyond the Christian community—might
and do play in reversing the ecological
crisis. This point is made gently and
forcefully within the volume. More effective
on a global scale would be a stance
that sees all the great faith traditions as
resources to be plumbed for the sake of
building sustainable relations between
humanity and the Earth.
One striking discrepancy between
the Declaration and Care of Creation:
The former uses no gendered language
for God, while the latter portrays an
exclusively male God. That limitation
in the book is a weakness, and one
wonders what dynamics are responsible
for its failure to mirror the Declaration
in this matter. Finally, the book would
be strengthened by admitting more
ambiguity about the mandates of "biblical
faith" and the "apparent clarity of
scriptural teaching." For example, the
argument that the Bible calls humans
to care lovingly for the Earth would, in
the long run, be stronger by admitting
the ambiguity presented not only by
the Genesis texts but also by others
such as the dominion perspective in
Psalm 8, and the otherworldly bent of
some Johannine and even Pauline literature.
The book's value extends beyond
the evangelical community to the larger
Christian community and broader secular
society. It speaks to the moral power
of taking Scripture seriously as norm for
life, and makes a strong biblically based
case for radical transformation in human
relations with the rest of creation.
Like all good work, this volume
calls for more. Will the evangelical co-munity
offer to ecological ethics more of
the biblically based critique that its serious
attention to Scripture's normative
role enables it to offer? For example,
evangelical scholarship might examine
how other aspects of presupposed theologies
and biblical interpretation also
contribute to the desecration of God's
good creation. How, for example, might
male privilege, white privilege, or Eurocentrism
in theological assumptions and
biblical interpretation be linked to ecological
degradation?
Often the best conversation partners
are unlikely ones. Such are Being
Human and Care of Creation. Both hold
that understandings regarding human
beings and humanity's relationship with
the rest of creation are central to environmental
degradation and in its reversal.
Yet Peterson's work deemphasizes
humanity's difference from the rest of
nature and delinks that difference from
human superiority, while Berry's edited
volume largely affirms an "exalted status
[of humanity] within creation." In Care
of Creation, the primary category
employed for the normative human relationship
to the rest of creation is "stewardship."
Being Human, in contrast,
recounts both the potential in stewardship
ethics and its limitations, grounded
largely in its dependence on human
superiority. Notably, one contributor
from the edited volume also adopts a
stance both critical and appreciative of
the stewardship paradigm, and offers
biblical grounding for that position.
The shared shortcoming of both
books is perhaps unavoidable in a single
volume. While both do a superb job with
an important task, demystifying certain
factors within Christian traditions that
undergird ecological degradation,
neither volume takes seriously the necessary
complementary task of demystifying
political-economic ideologies and
power structures accompanying those
theological underpinnings. The aims of,
in Peterson's words, "changing the way we
live in the world," or as Berry puts it,
"environmental stewardship [as] parcel of
everything that Christians do," challenge
core aspects of daily life in the global
North. To move toward these changes
requires identifying not only theological
and hermeneutical barriers, but also their
alignment with political and economic
arrangements mitigating against "environmental
stewardship." Peterson and
numerous contributors to Care of Creation
allude to these factors and their
interconnections. Only one author (and
he in the edited volume) digs into them
deeply, attributing the "anti-environmentalism"
of some evangelical Chris-tians
to "political commitments" linked
with "free-enterprise capitalism." Finally,
a critical word about words. Given the
serious challenge to anthropocentrism
issued by both books, subsequent work
might relinquish "environmental ethics"
in favor of language that does not portray
the other-than-human world primarily
as "environment" for human beings.
These volumes are daring, intellectually
responsible, and highly read-
able. Both are invaluable resources for
forging paths toward sustainable ways of
being human in the greater community
of life on Earth, today and for generations
to come.
NOTES
1. Bioregionalism refers to efforts in the
environmental movement to build sustainable
human communities that are an
integral part of and in harmony with the
broader natural community of an ecological
region or ecosystem.
2. The critique relevant here is the opposition
between justice and care implied by
Gilligan and by any ethics of care insofar
as it upholds that opposition.
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Second Opinion #10
Publisher: Park Ridge Center, Chicago
Date: April, 2002.
ISSN: 0890-1570
112 pages.
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