*** Please note there's an important typo in David Strong's article.  On p. 155, the line midway down the first column in its second paragraph is missing the word 'not'.  It should read "... exclusive use of candles and outhouses does not place ...". ***

David Strong's Claim:  Technology aims at increasing human freedom and happiness, but our present thinking about technology involves a warped view of what freedom and happiness are.  The result is that technology, ironically, makes us less happy.

Strong's Case for this Claim:

Why do we value technology?

" 'It means less work.' 'It's more comfortable.' ... 'It's less of a hassle.' " (149)

In other words, technology frees us to do other things.

But, in practice, technology doesn't free us up to do fulfilling things that make us happier.

"what people are freed up for are not other [fulfilling] things, but more commodities." (155)

Technology, as we have developed it, alienates us from the world.

"What seemed promising at the outset -- relieving people of burdens -- leads ironically to disengagement, diversion, distraction and loneliness." (155)

Strong uses a distinction made by Albert Borgmann to help make his point.

Things: A thing "is inseparable from its context, namely its world and from our commerce with the thing and its world ... The experience of a thing is always and also a bodily and social engagement with the thing's world." (152)

E.g., a wood stove

Devices: A device "provides a commodity, one element of the original thing ... and disburdens people of all the elements that compose the world and engaging character of the thing." (153)

"The machinery makes no demands on our skill, strength or attention ..." (153)

E.g., central heating

Our focus on devices is a source of alienation and so of unhappiness.

"Our aspirations for freedom and happiness go awry when we attempt to procure them with devices." (158)

"television turns us into something less than members of the animal kingdom." (159)

The Solution?

"The basic question here is:  Do we need to be relieved of every last and least burden? Aren't some of these burdens actually good in senses that touch our very humanity?" (155)

"When people are asked what they enjoy most and enough time is left for a genuine answer to emerge, we often find that the most enjoyable things involve doing something, and usually something rather complex and demanding." (158)

We need a sense of ourselves as things that are 'embedded' in the world.

One suggestion for how we might accomplish this is that we should alter our conception of our relationship to the environment by adopting an Ecocentric conception of what has value.

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An Econcentric Ethics:  The Land Ethic

Contrast with:  An Anthropocentric (i.e., human centred) Ethics - only humans have moral value.

The Land Ethic suggests that we should think of ecosystems (i.e., land) as having moral value.

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) - A Sand County Almanac (1949)

Land - "Land ... is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.  Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward; death and decay return it to the soil."

Land, in other words, is an ecosystem.

The Land Ethic - "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Does this mean you must care as much for a cougar as you do for you family/friends?

No, Leopold saw the Land Ethic as adding to moral obligations we already saw ourselves as having, not canceling or replacing them.

Think of the Land Ethic as involving concentric circles.

In the centre is you, your family & friends.  Next is, perhaps, your colleagues, fellow students, townspeople, after that, perhaps your fellow Canadians and so on.  Eventually, we come to a circle involving the non-human world.

Does that mean our obligations to the natural world are very weak?

No.  Consider that you sometimes are obliged to do things for your country instead of doing them for your friends/family.  You have to pay taxes, even if you'd rather spend the money on yourself or your boyfriend/girlfriend.  Likewise, sometimes your obligations to the natural world will take precedence over things you'd like to do.

E.g., driving an S.U.V.

A harder case: what if it comes down to human life vs. animal life?

Conceivably, the Land Ethic may tell us that animal life wins out.

How convincing a view is the Land Ethic?

Another View on Our Relationship to the Environment:  'The Tragedy of the Commons'

Strong suggests an approach to the environment that sees us as embedded in the world, Garrett Hardin presents a very different view. (Note that his article is presented as being about the problem of overpopulation.  We will use it, however, to illustrate a particular sort of view about our relationship to the environment.)

Hardin sets out to consider problems like resource depletion & overpopulation.

He argues that the root of these problems is to be found in the idea of a commons.

A commons is a resource open to all:

"Picture a pasture open to all." (287)

When the situation we live in is not socially stable, the commons may work okay.  Tribal wars, disease, etc. will keep the number of shepherds down.  But, when things are socially stable, trouble begins.

"As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain."  He will ask himself, 'What will I gain by adding one more animal to my herd?' " (287-88)

The answer is that he will gain the benefit of having one more animal (for wool or for slaughter).  This comes at a cost as well.  The extra sheep will 'use up' a little more of the pasture (i.e., it needs to graze on some of the pasture, so there's that much left for all the other sheep).  However, that's not a cost our shepherd has to bear on his own.  That costs gets split over all the other shepherds who use the pasture.  How much difference can one sheep make?

But, of course, all the other shepherds, since they're "rational beings" will think the same way.

"The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; ...  But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons.  Therein in the tragedy.  Each man is locked in a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit ... Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." (288)

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Suppose two prisoners are brought in for questioning. Both are suspected of being involved in the same crime (and, in fact, both were involved in the crime). The police officers doing the questioning put the two men (call them 'Bill' and 'Al') in separate rooms and attempt to get one or both to confess to the crime. They do this by presenting the possible ways things might turn out.

Neither confesses - no punishment for either one

One confesses but not the other - $100,000 and no jail time to the person who confesses, 15 years to the other person

Both confess - 3 years each

Suppose that you're Bill and you're looking out just for yourself.

Suppose you also know that Al is also looking out only for himself. What should you do?

Think of it this way.  You have two options:

1. You don't confess.  In this case, the best that happens is that you get to go home and the worst that happens is that you get 15 years.

2. You do confess.  In this case, the best that happens is that you get to go home $100,000 richer and the worst that happens is that you get three years.

So it looks like you ought to confess.  What's the problem with that?

Since Al is also looking out for himself, you'll get 3 years each.  That's far from the best possible outcome for you.  In fact, it's the third best out of four.

As with the Tragedy of the Commons, being rational doesn't give you a good outcome here.

The problem is created by the fact that the pasture is a commons.

Likewise, overpopulation results from freedom to breed.

The collapse of the cod stocks resulted because the DFO treated the stock largely as a commons.

Air pollution happens because the air is treated more or less as a commons.

The solution is to stop treating the pasture as a commons.  Privatize it (or when that's not possible, regulate it.)

Instead of 10 herdsmen on one common piece of land.  Give each exclusive right to one tenth of the pasture.

What good does privatizing it do?

Hardin claims the difference here is that now all costs resulting from expanding your stock have to be dealt with by you alone.  Now, a rational man won't expand his flock indefinitely.

Hardin draws a number of practical morals from this.

In order to solve pollution problems, the solution isn't always more regulation, sometimes it's privatization.

"Freedom to breed is intolerable."

We should cut down on overseas aid.

Notice, by the way, that although Hardin says there is no technical solution to problems like overpopulation, that's exactly what he does offer if you think of technology in the way we have been in this class.  Privatization and regulation are technologies in our sense (although not in Hardin's).

If it does, is Hardin's solution the right one?

Which view of our proper relationship to the environment is the right one - Strong's or Hardin's?

[Philosophy 2801]