Nature and Future Generations

Chapter 4: Duty

Duty

In this chapter we look first at Immanuel Kant’s argument for our duty to act rationally, which is a milestone in moral philosophy, and then at Gandhi’s reasoning that doing our duty requires nonviolent action.1 We consider reasons for asserting a duty not to litter and draw inferences from this argument for the care of nature.

We also review Jewish and Muslim teaching about nature and note the reasons given in Western thought for a duty to protect public land. Then we consider our duty to future generations and to those who are poor, before assessing what our duty might be to animals, species, ecosystems, and landscapes.

[[Insert Figure 4.1]]

Doing Our Duty

How do we know our duty? The answer given by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) continues to be the foundation of deontological ethics. Kant lived a century after Isaac Newton explained the mechanics of the world without relying on divine intervention (except for the act of creation), which may be why Kant shunned religious reasoning despite being a Christian. Kant claimed to rely on reason alone in asserting that our duty is simply to do what is rational.

More than a century and a half later, when colonized societies in Africa and Asia were struggling for independence, Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) transformed the Hindu idea of duty, which is rooted in the caste traditions of Indian culture, into an imperative to seek truth-power (satyagraha) through nonviolent action (ahimsa). For Gandhi, too, doing our duty requires acting rationally.

Rational Imperative

It is often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This seems to mean that when taking an action, hoping for the best does not guarantee a good result. Surely, however, it should not be understood as meaning good intentions are worthless. If by a good intention we mean trying to do what is right, then this intention is the basis for every ethical act.

Immanuel Kant argued that having the right intention means having a good will. This does not mean what we usually mean when we say our intention is to achieve the best possible outcome. By a good will, Kant meant an intention (or motive) that is pure.

We talk like this when we say a person is unselfish or is acting without ulterior motives. For Kant, acting with a pure motive involves doing what is right because it is right. A good will means doing our duty because it is intrinsically the right action to take, rather than because we think the result will be good.

By “will” Kant meant the capacity for moral action—our freedom to do what is right. The extent to which human autonomy is recognized and respected may vary among cultures and throughout history. Yet each of us, Kant held, is a “self-legislating will.” Because we are free, we each make choices on our own. To be ethical, these choices must be rational.

Kant argued that reason enables us to do our duty because it reflects the moral law within us. Doing our duty means acting on our conscience, which Kant saw as our rational nature. Actions are ethical, he asserted, when we do (with a good will) what reason reveals to be right. This does not mean acting to achieve the best consequences. Instead, it means acting rationally with good intentions.

For Kant, an ethical principle is rational if we all, as rational beings, agree that it may be applied without any exceptions. Such a categorical imperative, he argued, is the opposite of hypothetical thinking, which involves conditional statements, such as “I would take an action, if I thought it would have primarily beneficial consequences.”

The categorical imperative affirmed by Kant is often stated in two forms:

•Act only on that maxim (ethical presumption) through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

•Act so as to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never as a means.

Kant reasoned that acting in a way that has universal application requires respecting the dignity of every person. Our autonomy is linked to our rationality, which is distinctly human. Therefore, we contradict ourselves and act irrationally when we treat other persons as less than ends in themselves, by using them as a means to gain our own ends.2

Moral philosophers rely on Kant’s deontological argument for our rationality and autonomy to justify asserting the rights of individuals. Chapter 7 considers this argument and the development of human rights law.

From Karma to Ahimsa

Traditional Hindu society is divided into castes that serve the society in various ways, and morality in this tradition involves performing the social duties identified for each caste. Hindu teaching affirms that those who do their duty will eventually achieve release from the suffering of this world through the chain of cause and effect (karma), which leads to liberation from the cycle of rebirth.3

The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu classic, teaches that doing our duty means renouncing “the fruits” of our actions. In this ancient tale the god Krishna tells Arjuna, who believes fighting a battle is futile, that because he is a mortal, he cannot foresee the consequences that will follow his decisions. Therefore he should simply do his duty as a warrior, leaving the future to karma.

Recalling this story may help us understand why Gandhi was concerned about the emphasis in Western political thought on securing natural and human rights. Like Kant, Gandhi understood moral action as doing what is right for its own sake. Asserting our rights can mean this, but often those who emphasize their rights seem to be primarily concerned with protecting what they have. Instead of a right to freedom, therefore, Gandhi affirmed a duty to respect the freedom of others. For Gandhi, right action is our duty. Rights are the fruits of right action. We secure rights for ourselves and all others by doing our duty.

In the struggle for an independent India, Gandhi relied on an ancient Hindu teaching expressed in Sanskrit as tat tvam asi, which is usually translated as “that thou art.” This phrase may be taken to mean that we are divine, that the human person is one with the transcendent, that there is ultimately no separation between you (and me) and reality. Our duty is to manifest this truth in every action.

Therefore, taking the right action is not a matter of doing our duty regardless of our motive, for to be “one with” our duty means having the right motive. To be ethical we must both intend to be ethical and do what is right.

Gandhi saw this meaning reflected in the story from the Bhagavad Gita of Krishna and Arjuna. For him, it meant that every person has a duty to pursue the truth through nonviolent action, leaving the consequences to God. He reasoned that taking nonviolent action is the only way to verify that we are not acting to benefit ourselves. In the practice of satyagraha, he wrote, we should “always try to overcome evil by good, anger by love, untruth by truth, himsa (violence) by ahimsa.”4

Gandhi agreed with Kant that we should not use others for our own gain and should always try to act with a good will and without ulterior motive. His conviction that moral action, truth, and God are one is a Hindu way of affirming that we should always act on rational principles that apply universally.

Duty to Nature?

Kant’s categorical imperative does not extend to animals, as he argues that we have a duty to respect human autonomy because we are rational beings, and this is not true of other organisms. “So far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.”5

Yet Kant realized that Newtonian mechanics cannot fully explain the natural world. Half a century before Darwin published The Origin of Species, Kant wrote: “Nature organizes itself.”6 Every organism, he argued, is “both an organized and a self-organizing being, which therefore can be called a natural purpose.”7 Because things (such as machines) are organized, but not self-organizing, Kant reasoned that organisms are not things. Yet he held that humans have direct duties only to each other, and only indirect duties with respect to nonhuman organisms.8

Gandhi’s argument for respecting all persons does not rely on their individual autonomy and rationality, but instead affirms the rationality manifested in karma. As the cycle of life, death, and rebirth offers an accounting of moral action over time that includes animals as well as humans, Hindus believe we have a duty to respect all organisms. Therefore Gandhi was a vegetarian and thought everyone should be. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress,” he wrote, “can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”9

Gandhi’s argument for nonviolence to animals is religious and rational. The Bhagavad Gita is read as a religious text, and Krishna is a Hindu god. Yet Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna is more a rational argument than a divine command. Krishna urges Arjuna to have faith in karma, by doing his moral duty, rather than in his limited ability to foresee the future.

Right Action

Kant saw that animals have a natural purpose, but found no reason to conclude that humans have any direct duty to creatures that are not autonomous and rational. Gandhi argued that our duty of nonviolence rationally requires respect for all life, but allowed that consequential reasoning may justify setting this presumption aside, if there is an irreconcilable conflict between human life and other forms of life.10

Kant and Gandhi had different worldviews. Kant saw all nonhuman animals as lacking the rationality that defines our moral community. He thought each person has a rational duty to avoid harming an animal that belongs to another person, as a way of respecting the animal’s owner. In contrast, Gandhi saw karma as defining a moral community that includes both human and nonhuman animals. Therefore he argued that our duty to be nonviolent with one another also extends to nonhuman animals.

Darwin’s argument for natural selection emphasizes random change, which undermines Kant’s reasoning that we should think of every organism as having its own “natural purpose.” Our current view of evolution, however, takes the ecology of nature into account. Therefore, I have argued that it is rational to infer that nature has value for itself. This inference does not support the Hindu belief in karma,11 but does give us a reason to accept a duty for all life.

Moral philosopher Paul Taylor offers one way of affirming such a duty: “Insofar as we regard any organism, species population, or life community as an entity having intrinsic worth, we believe that it must never be treated as if it were a mere object or thing whose entire value lies in being instrumental to the good of some other entity.”12

To clarify how our understanding of duty differs from the reasoning of Kant and Gandhi, it may be helpful to consider how we might argue for a duty not to litter.

Respect for Others

It seems clear that we have a duty not to throw litter in our neighbor’s yard, because it is well accepted that we should respect the rights of our neighbors to their privacy and property. If asked why we should respect the rights of other persons, we could refer to the arguments of Kant and Gandhi, or we might state a widely accepted moral principle, such as the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This is, in fact, a text from the New Testament (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31) that may also be found in other religious teachings:13

•Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” (Udana-Varga, 5:18)

•Confucianism: “Surely it is a maxim of loving kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you.” (Analects, 15:23)

•Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.” (Mahabharata 5:1517)

•Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” (Sunnah)

•Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men. This is the entire law: all the rest is commentary.” (Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

•Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” (T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien)

•Zoroastrianism: “That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.” (Dadistan-I-dinik, 94:5)14

In the next section we consider what it means to have a duty because a scripture says that God commands it. Yet the Golden Rule is usually not invoked as being right because it is in the Bible, but because it makes sense. We do not want neighbors putting litter in our yard, so it is rational to treat our neighbors as we want them to treat us.

This argument is less useful, however, in considering a law that would impose a penalty for littering along the highway. The side of the road is not anyone’s property, so tossing trash from a car window is not the same as throwing it into a neighbor’s yard. Littering a public space does not seem to violate the rights of others in the way that putting trash in their yard does.

Suppose, however, that the law against littering were an ordinance passed by a town meeting and, as citizens of the town, we were invited to participate in making this decision. Would these facts strengthen the argument that we have a duty to support the law? Even if only a majority of those voting favored the law, we would probably find it reasonable to conclude that a town has the authority to make such a law and, if it does, that everyone has a duty to obey the law.

Thus our commitment to abide by rules made in a fair way for our community seems to generate a duty. When (1) an issue is within the jurisdiction of the decision-making body, and (2) the procedures used for making a law are fair, and (3) the law itself is reasonable, we accept a duty to obey the law, whether or not we voted for it or took part in making it. This kind of reasoning supports the idea of citizenship (the duty of every citizen) and provides a rational basis for the rule of law and representative government.15

Respect for Nature

Do we, however, have a duty not to litter because we have a duty to nature? The question here is whether a landscape has intrinsic value. Kant held that we have no duty to the natural world, as it lacks rationality. Gandhi affirmed that we have a duty to animals, because they participate in the moral rationality of karma, but this tells us nothing about the intrinsic value of nature.

Arguing that we have a duty to care for nature for its own sake means affirming that a landscape has intrinsic worth apart from anyone’s use and enjoyment of it—that fields, forests, and beaches have intrinsic value, which we should respect by accepting a duty not to litter there.

Chapter 2 asserts that the intrinsic worth of nature rests on biological facts: that every organism is self-organizing and pursues its own good, and that ecosystems are self-organizing and life-sustaining. Accepting this argument seems to justify a law against littering anywhere, which creates a duty to protect the environment simply because it has intrinsic value. Reasoning by analogy would allow us to extend this duty to other ways of respecting the environment, such as recycling, reducing pollution, and protecting biodiversity.

We have other duties, of course, and these may be in conflict with our duty to protect the environment. For example, our duty to care for ecosystems may clash with our duty to help others realize their economic rights through economic development. How are we to resolve such conflicts of duty?

Kant distinguished not only direct and indirect duties, but also perfect and imperfect duties. A perfect duty is always to be performed, whereas an imperfect duty is only required in certain circumstances. We have a perfect duty not to harm another person, but only an imperfect duty to forgive other persons. We can use rights language to further clarify the distinction. Another person has a right not to be harmed, but no one has a right to be forgiven.

For Kant, protecting the environment would be a perfect duty as well as an indirect duty. We should always protect property. Our duty to help others improve their economic status would be, for Kant, an imperfect duty applying only to those in need. Because Kant reasoned that perfect duties outweigh imperfect duties, he would argue that our duty to protect property should take priority over our duty to support economic development.

Alternatively, we might ignore Kant and utilize other ways of reasoning to resolve a conflict of duties. We might predict the likely consequences of acting on each duty and then compare the probable results. Or we might consider the kind of person we think we should be as a way of evaluating each possible action. For those who are religious, resolving a conflict of duties would likely involve considering the ethical teachings of their tradition.