Challenges to Human Dignity in the Ecology Movement

Introduction

Today there are truly pressing environmental concerns, yet they are often tinted with ideological colors. These ideologies draw from philosophical, historical, and cultural sources and are presented to the public as unbiased science. ¹ What is disturbing in these ideas is the subtle attack on human dignity, especially on the Judeo-Christian concept of the human person. Some try to debase the value of human beings. Others wish to attribute human dignity to animals, plants, and Mother Nature, thus rendering it worthless. In each case, there is an insistence that the difference between humans and their environment is one of degree, and not of kind.

Historical Overview and the Catholic Position on Human Dignity

At first glance, human dignity seems like a catchphrase that ordinary people can easily grasp. Upon further examination, we discover that it is not a simple concept but one that embraces different notions derived from many sources: classical Greco-Roman writers, the Judeo-Christian tradition, modern philosophy, and the recent language of human rights. Stoics such as Seneca and Cicero wished to convey a sense of excellence with this word. According to this view, certain talents or virtues—athletic, musical, intellectual, or artistic—are highly esteemed by others and confer upon those who possess them a certain dignity. The biblical account of creation is another important source of inspiration for human dignity. Since every human being is made in the image of the creator, everyone has inherent dignity; something that pertains to his very nature and cannot be diminished or taken away. For Christians, the incarnation further elevated the position of humanity since God himself saw fit to assume our nature. Later on, Immanuel Kant posited the intrinsic quality of human dignity based upon the secular grounds of individual freedom and rationality. The famous dictum that “human beings are an end, never a means” finds its origin in Kantian philosophy. All these elements contribute to the “tangled” sources of human dignity. ²

At the moment, there is an ongoing debate as to whether human dignity is intrinsic and present by virtue of membership in the human race, or whether it is something extrinsic, attributed, acquired, and capable of being lost. The conservative position, favored by those with religious leanings, emphasizes the former position by appealing to the inerasable character of the imago Dei found in us. These religious underpinnings form such an important part of Western culture that they make the concept acceptable even among non-believers. This is by no means a unanimous consensus. Some support the latter position by arguing for a restriction of personhood (and thus human dignity, though they would shy away from this term) to those who are self-aware, free, and able to choose. For instance, Tristram Engelhardt makes the case for this from a liberal contractualist perspective, while Peter Singer uses preference utilitarianism to arrive at a similar conclusion. ³ Pragmatists, such as Ruth Macklin and Art Caplan, argue that dignity is a useless concept or a social construct, reducible to respect for persons and their autonomy. They consider it a suspect tactic used by so-called religionists to smuggle faith into public discussions. ⁴

Fortunately, not all secular approaches negate the import of human dignity, even though many of them reject a substantive or metaphysical understanding of human nature. ⁵ A strong support of human dignity comes from recent emphases on human rights. After the tragic experience of the Second World War and the Nuremburg trials, many nations felt the need for a safeguard against future infringements on human rights. Thus, in 1948 the United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its preamble says: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Nevertheless, the declaration never explicitly defined the meaning, content, and foundations of human dignity. As Mary Ann Glendon describes, the 1948 Declaration sought a political consensus instead of providing a moral or philosophical treatise on human nature and the rights and dignities derived from it. ⁶ In spite of this deficiency, nations affirmed human rights and dignity because man's inhumanity to man was fresh in their minds—the Holocaust, slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansings, political murders of dissidents in totalitarian regimes, religious coercion, human trafficking, torture and degradation of prisoners. It was through this via negativa that they affirmed the existence of universal human rights.

The Catholic understanding of human dignity is best gleaned from the instruction Dignitas personae published in 2008 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In choosing this title, the Church wishes to emphasize the importance of human dignity in any fruitful and meaningful discussion on life issues. This document categorically affirms that human dignity is intrinsic and present in all human persons from conception to natural death. ⁷

Respect for human dignity implies, therefore, protection of human life and the integrity of the procreative act which constitutes the basis of marriage and family life. ⁸ The theological foundations of human dignity are manifold. A theological basis of our dignity is the goodness of our creation in the image and likeness of God. Furthermore, the magisterium makes the argument for intrinsic human dignity from a Christian perspective. The mystery of Incarnation has elevated human beings to a higher level of dignity, as they can now become sons in the Son of God and “sharers in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). ⁹ Finally, the eschatological dimension is present in this vision of human dignity since our end is to live in eternity with God. ¹⁰

Devaluation of Human Worth: Materialism, Evolutionism, and Transhumanism

In contemporary debates on the protection of the environment, there are times when zealous protection of nature—especially animals and plants—results in a negation of human dignity. It is somewhat paradoxical that certain environmental groups which advocate against animal cruelty often support the destruction of human lives, especially in their earliest stages. This misanthropic vision of dignity has many historical and philosophical roots that we will now examine.

Scientific materialism challenges human dignity by reducing humans to the level of things. It is a belief of the Enlightenment that empirical science is the font of all knowledge. Auguste Comte, the father of scientific positivism, challenged previously accepted knowledge from religion and metaphysics and considered them obsolete. Science became enthroned as arbitrator of all realities. It could never be challenged or suffer limits, ethical or otherwise. The worldview of scientism has banished the human soul because it is not an empirically verifiable fact. The materialistic conceptions of man and of nature had their beginnings in the mechanistic philosophy of Descartes. Thomas Hobbes carried this train of thought further by positing a material universe where there would be no difference between humans and animals. There is no place for the human soul in this universe, and human behavior could now be interpreted in terms of stimulus-response of “appetites and aversions.” ¹¹

The evolutionary theories of Darwin and his followers further propagated the materialistic stance by suggesting that humans are not substantially superior to animals. This notion was already present in the works of biologist E. Haeckel who popularized evolution theory in Germany and was instrumental in propagating ecological ideology along with Nazi social-eugenics theories. ¹² The world-renowned behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner once claimed that “‘animal’ is a pejorative term only because ‘man’ has been made spuriously honorific” and argued that humans are not very different from dogs and “like a dog he is within range of scientific analysis.” ¹³ Similarly, a group of scientists, including luminaries the likes of Francis Crick and E.O. Wilson signed this statement:

There are those who pose this same challenge not only at the biophysical level, but also at the moral-spiritual level. Darwin already anticipated this in The Descent of Man:

Accordingly, an understanding of the evolution of animal cultures can explain away complex human behaviors. Since scientists have observed certain structures of dominance and helping behaviors in apes, they theorized the existence of culture in animals. The existence of “chimpanzee justice” would require the need to “abandon the assumption that ethics is uniquely human.” ¹⁶ Among the more famous exponents of this evolution of morality is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. ¹⁷ He maintains that morality is the result of the evolution of simple animal behaviors to more complex human ones. It is a product of learning and convention similar to toilet training. Ethical behaviors evolved from social instincts through the process of natural selection. Thus, our concept of social justice may also modify with time through revisions and deeper understanding. Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have increasingly bought into the idea that human ethical behaviors are improved versions of animal ones. ¹⁸

In a similar vein, psychologists, neurophysiologists, and behavioral scientists have lately tried to explain human rationality and morality in terms of complicated mechanics. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, a vocal critic of the concept of human dignity, is of the opinion that the brain is a very complex computation machine, but a machine nonetheless. Morality is simply a function of the brain, and if one could rewire the brain, morality would change. So, for example, one could reprogram people to crave incest and to have a taste for eating dirt. ¹⁹

Perhaps these radical proponents of moral evolution have a hidden agenda to transgress well-established moral boundaries. If moral convictions are not derivable from substantial truths based on an unchanging human nature, then human dignity becomes a social construct. In this case, moral relativism is inevitable.

Transhumanism is the flip side of this coin of materialistic conception. Transhumanists campaign for self-directed evolution of humans by overcoming our present limitations with the latest scientific discoveries. Joseph Fletcher, one of the fathers of bioethics, says:

Apparently, when Fletcher wrote this in the 1970s, his predictions about technology were imprecise. Modern day transhumanists are more sophisticated and advocate the employment of the latest gizmos—artificial intelligence, cybernetics, nanotechnology, regenerative medicine, stem cells, cloning, hybrids, and chimeras, etc.—to reengineer the human race. Coincident with the great strides in genetic science, a chorus of scientists and bioethicists has petitioned for the end of restrictions placed upon cloning and embryonic stem-cell research. James Hughes, who teaches health policy at Trinity College in Hartford and directs the World Transhumanist Association, argues that these technologies will radically enhance human lives and expand the boundaries of human-ness. As an inevitable coda to evolution and scientific progress liberal democratic societies must, in his opinion, make these technologies available to everyone and respect their rights to use them on their bodies. ²¹ Gregory Pence, professor of philosophy in the Schools of Medicine and Arts/Humanities at the University of Alabama, has equally campaigned for human reproductive cloning while dismissing the qualms of so-called religionists as misguided, fatalistic, and out of place in the public debate. ²² Likewise, Gregory Stock, director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at UCLA, states, “The next frontier is our own selves.” ²³ Geneticist Lee Silver writes:

When Animals and Plants Have Rights …

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the creation narrative demonstrates the existence of a hierarchy of creatures. Humans are on the top of this ladder because they are created in the image and likeness of God. Gaudium et spes incisively affirms that, “Man is the only creature on earth which God willed for its own sake.” ²⁵ Unfortunately, this biblical understanding has been mislabeled by detractors—leftists, Marxists, and social ecologists—as anthropocentrism. ²⁶ For them, human beings are just a small part of nature without special dignity. In fact, as we will see, animals, plants, and nature can become bearers of dignity.

Perhaps the most notorious critic of human dignity and defender of animal rights is Princeton's ethics chair Peter Singer. He has spoken out strongly against biblical creationism and considers the idea that the human race is superior to any other non-human species an unwarranted “speciesism.” ²⁷ His 1975 book Animal Liberation, which sold over half a million copies, has become a manifesto for the animal rights movement. ²⁸ Singer resurrects Jeremy Bentham's dictum about animals: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?” ²⁹ Since it is the capacity for suffering and/or pleasure which entitles a being to equal consideration, preference rather than human dignity becomes the foundation of moral value. He considers speciesism as unacceptable a form of discrimination as racism or sexism. This leads him to the extreme conclusion that severely retarded humans behave less as “persons” than nonhuman animals. Singer also justifies “mutually satisfying activities” of a sexual nature between humans and animals when no cruelty is involved because “both humans and animals copulate and both have the same sex organs.” The taboo against bestiality merely reflects “our desire to differentiate ourselves, erotically and in every other way, from animals.” In keeping with this view, human beings are in reality animals or, more specifically, great apes. ³⁰

The exaltation of animal rights was already in place with UNESCO's Universal Declaration of Animal Rights in 1978. Since then, there has been strong lobbying at the United Nations for the adoption a declaration on great apes, which would award the status of personhood to these primates. ³¹ Recently, the socialists and green party of Spain are on the verge of granting “the rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture to great apes, and devolving humans into a ‘community of equals’ with chimpanzees and gorillas.” ³²

With animal rights gaining popularity, attention has also been turned to honoring plants with the status of dignity. In the spring of 2008, a national ethics commission in Switzerland proposed a constitutional amendment to establish the intrinsic dignity of individual plants based on the many similarities they share with humans at the molecular and cellular levels. For that reason, vegetation has inherent value; and it would be immoral to harm plants arbitrarily by, for instance, “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.” If Swiss scientists wish to experiment on genetically modified plants, they will need to converse with university ethicists on the finer points of plant dignity. Their written proposals to the government would require a detailed justification that these trials would not “disturb the vital functions or lifestyle” of the plants. ³³

As this ideology advances, rights and dignity are now extended to lower forms of life and nature itself. Ecuador has just bestowed constitutional rights on every virus, bacterium, insect, tree, and weed. Its ratified constitution now states, “Nature or Pachamama [the Goddess Earth], where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution.” ³⁴

In all this development, there is a general depreciation of human specificity in the hierarchy of creatures. If there is no such a thing as human exceptionalism, then they have no special dignity. In fact, according to the deep ecologists, humans are often the cause of all ills. Pollution, deforestation, climate changes, animal extinctions, and overpopulation, etc., are examples of human exploitation and abuse of nature. According to these alarmists, the earth is overpopulated and there are not sufficient resources for sustained development, resulting in disastrous ecological consequences. ³⁵ Indeed, the demographic doomsayers, modern eugenicists, and the deep ecologists are regular bedfellows. ³⁶ In light of this, the assertion of Alan Gregg is not surprising: “The world has cancer, and the cancer is man.” ³⁷

Conclusion

This essay has examined some of the negative aspects of the ecological movements that pose formidable challenges to human dignity. More often than not, these detractors have caricatured beyond recognition the Christian view of the environment as egoistic anthropocentrism. In truth, however, the book of Genesis and the documents of the different churches have always emphasized the role of humans as stewards of creation.

In reality, Christianity offers a balanced understanding of the proper relationship between humans and their environment. Human beings have dignity not only because they are bearers of the image of God, but because of the exalted state brought forth by Christ's redemption and their eschatological destiny. Redeemed humanity has the vocation as priest, prophet, and king to sanctify the cosmic temple of the world, to announce the need for radical solidarity and justice in the care of environment, and to be responsible stewards in the care of our home, the earth. While it is true that humans are partly responsible for many wounds inflicted on the environment, it is also true that they can be the solution to these problems once there is conversion. Thus, in place of a merely technological and material solution, moral or human ecology is the missing link. As Pope Benedict XVI recently reiterated in his encyclical Caritas in veritate: