1. Emotions as Obstacles
One morning on my recent trip to Canberra, I encountered a fluffy bunny grazing in the grass. Rabbits are not a common encounter for me and other fellow urban Sydney-siders. We quietly approached the bunny and snapped multiple photos in admiration. Many Canberrans, however, found our reaction quite amusing—there are bunnies everywhere, and the large population has been a tough environmental problem.
I did know that feral European rabbits are an invasive species in Australia. They have caused extensive damage to the natural environment, including the decline in numbers of many native animals. This knowledge, however, did not stop me from admiring them. I knew their population needs to be controlled, for the sake of the environment. However, I couldn’t help but feel bad when I think about the fact that rabbit control would require us to kill many rabbits through methods like poisoning and disease infection. One biological control method is the myxoma virus, which causes myxomatosis that only affects rabbits. On RSPCA, we learn that it is “a particularly nasty virus”, with common symptoms like “swelling, redness, ulcers and discharge around the eyes, nose and genitals” and “blindness caused by eye inflammation.” Just imagine how the cute bunnies feel when they have this nasty virus…
Reflecting on my encounter with the bunny, I realised that my emotions towards it, including my admiration for its cute appearance and empathy when I imagine its pain, can be obstacles in supporting its control programs. There are other emotions that might also be considered obstacles in other issues in environmental ethics. We often feel awe and wonder toward things that we should not preserve (nor prioritise to preserve)—just think about the majestic brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park and luminescent mining pollution. Meanwhile, certain things that we ought to preserve look rather mundane or even disgusting, such as the small brown bogong moths that were recently listed as endangered.
It might thus be tempting to think that we should refrain from being emotional when we make environmental decisions, because we often make bad decisions when we let emotions lead the way. Instead of letting our emotions decide what we should do, we should perhaps base our decisions on the “cold” scientific facts. In other words, we should be “emotionless” when we make environmental decisions.
2. The Need for Emotions
Even though emotions can often be obstacles in good decision-making in environmental ethics, the suggestion that we should be entirely “emotionless” in environmental decisions is problematic. Here, I wish to highlight one way that emotions are necessary in good environmental decision-making: they reveal to us certain values that we otherwise cannot recognise.
Science can tell us many things about nature: for example, it can tell us that the number of bogong moths has been declining rapidly, and that they are an important food source for many other endangered animals. Scientific facts alone, however, are insufficient in guiding decisions. This is because we also need to make value judgments when we make decisions. Suppose that we need to decide which endangered species we should prioritise to conserve. Intuitively, we might think that we should prioritise conserving the species that is the most important for the local biodiversity (e.g., a keystone species). The question, however, is why biodiversity has value in the first place.
Many environmental ethicists are not content with answering the question by only appealing to the importance of biodiversity to us human beings. Certainly, they agree that biodiversity has value because it is important for the survival and well-being of human beings. However, they think it is problematic to say that it is valuable only because of its uses for us. For them, this is morally problematic in a similar way to how it is morally problematic to say that my friend is valuable only because of their uses for me. For many environmental ethicists, we should care about biodiversity because it also has value in itself, regardless of how useful it might be for us. Furthermore, some environmental ethicists argue that we might not sufficiently preserve biodiversity if we are only concerned about its uses for us. As Koppina and collaborators observe, “the loss of some biodiversity does not affect humanity (at least not yet), as evidenced by mass extinctions.”
One problem with arguing that biodiversity has value in itself is that we might find it very difficult to endorse such value. This is especially the case when we are used to thinking that human beings (and our happiness, well-being, etc.) are the only objects that have value in themselves. This is when emotions can become useful. Consider the wonder we experience toward weird creatures that look nothing like us. Such wonder can often make us realise that biodiversity has value in itself—that there is something good about having such a diverse range of beings around us, even if we do not directly benefit from such diversity. Without reflecting on emotions like wonder, it might be difficult for some of us to recognise certain values in nature.
For some philosophers, emotions are sometimes unique ways of apprehending values in that they reveal to us values that we otherwise do not have access to. This is a claim that can often be found in feminist philosophy in relation to emotions like anger. Alison Jaggar writes that:
Only when we reflect on our initially puzzling irritability, revulsion, anger or fear may we bring to consciousness our ‘gut-level’ awareness that we are in a situation of coercion, cruelty, injustice or danger.
In other words, without these emotions, those who are oppressed might not recognise the moral disvalues in their unjust situations. This is particularly the case when one lives in a society that normalises oppression and injustice. Even when one rationally judges her situation to be fair, the “gut actions” of emotions like anger can still motivate her to question her initial judgment and to further reflect on her situation.
The situation in environmental ethics is quite different, but I suspect that we do not have the best track record when it comes to valuing things in the nonhuman world properly. In particular, it is likely that we have undervalued certain entities or overlooked certain values altogether. Since emotions can be unique ways of apprehending values, one way to improve our value judgments is to reflect on the emotional experience we have in our engagement with nature. Just as we might overlook the oppressiveness of our situation without reflecting on anger, we might overlook the value of biodiversity in itself if we do not reflect on the wonder we experience toward weird creatures around us.
We therefore need a more nuanced view on emotions in environmental ethics. We cannot fully follow the lead of our emotions: some emotions do need to be regulated for better decision-making. Yet, we should also recognise that an “emotionless” procedure also cannot guarantee the right decisions. Emotions are necessary in decision-making because they reveal certain values to us, values that we do not have access to if we simply stop being emotional. This is not only something we should consider when we make personal decisions in the context of environmental ethics, but it also matters for environmentalists who wish to appeal to emotions to impact others’ decisions: cultivate our emotional dispositions wisely, but do not abandon emotions altogether.