Subject: Re: Environmental Ethics, Heidegger, was Re: WtP and justice
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 20:12:11 +0000


>Anthony:
>
>I said that those were TWO MEANINGS of care. You are
>treating both meanings
>as ontical, because when I tried to explain the ontological
>meaning of care
>thus: "There is no ontical structure which is UNcaring (even
>plunder must be
>a kind of care)," you replied, "Well if that is the case,
>then plundering is
>ethical, just as ethical as not plundering." So you are
>obviously still
>under the illusion that care = ethical, which is obviously a
>misinterpretation of Heidegger because plundering is also a
>care (since it
>is a dealing) but is UNethical!
>
>john here,
>
>No. If I was an ominscient narrator and using a word to
>describe an act having the form of dispossession, then I
>would use the word 'plunder' and using the word in this
>sense is meant to convey an act which is unethical. The
>deeper meaning of ethical is 'habit'. Therefore the word
>which describes an act of dispossession of another is
>plunder which is a form of theft.
>
>Heidegger does discuss uncaring by stating that care is also
>'besorgen' which is used to describe a lack of care. Thus
>where there is a lack of care (your assertion is that this
>is also care) there is in Heidegger's discussion a
>'tarrying' et cetera.
>
>"Even the pertinent modifications of not being concerned,
>neglecting, relaxing, refraining belong in principle to the
>same kind of being (care as active concern).." [Dasein as
>being in the world, History of the Concept of Time].

This is why you need to read more Heidegger, especially SuZ. Heidegger 
explicitly says that although tarrying can be described as a lack of care 
for the purposes of constrast (detached objectivity contrasted against 
involved care), even tarrying is in fact a care:

"Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies before EVERY factical 
attitude and situation of Dasein, and it does so existentially a priori; 
this means that it ALWAYS lies in them.... When we ascertain something 
present-at-hand by merely beholding it, THIS ACTIVITY HAS THE CHARACTER OF 
CARE JUST AS MUCH as does a 'political action' or taking rest and enjoying 
oneself. Theory and practice are possibilities of Being for an entity whose 
Being must be defined as care." (SuZ 193)

So when Heidegger speaks of a "lack" of care, this means something similar 
to when he calls the mode of presence a "lack" of involvement: not that 
involvement is absent, but that it is a "deprived" or more remote 
involvement. A literal lack of care is no less impossible than jumping out 
of our skin.

>However what you are supporting in my opinion is that
>'plundering' belongs to the same modifications of not being
>concerned. The error is that 'plundering' is a judgement not
>an simple act of concern. There are no judgements in the
>terms to describe the modifications of not being concerned
>such as 'neglecting', 'relaxing', 'refraining', et cetera.
>These acts are forms of 'being in the world.'

Even those forms of being in the world have the character of care, as 
Heidegger explicitly states in the passage I quote above.

>Being in the
>world is not 'being in' in the apparent sense of being
>enclosed by numerous realms of larger and larger spheres,
>but rather 'being alongside'. Even the phrase 'I am'
>indicates that. The word 'am' refers to a 'dwelling' as in
>'ambient' and in latin the term for environment is
>'ambiental'.
>
>The word which you use to equate 'concern' and 'care', the
>word plunder is a very good example of what is not an
>ontological interpretation. The ethical however refers to
>habits which arise from dwelling in an environment where a
>population adapts at an evolutionary scale. There are more
>failures than there are survivors, hence the are more
>fossils than there are living things. The evolutionary
>description of Dasein therefore is dominated by the extinct
>as fossils.
>
>The point is that in relation to environmental ethics,
>concern as active care represents at an evolutionary scale
>(as well as the smallest scale) adaptation in a world where
>entities dwell and reside alongside others. Of course there
>is also a 'hierarchical' sense or meaning to dwelling in the
>world. The survivors have the habit of dwelling with and
>alongside others because they are concerned.

ANY being-in-the-world is being-alongside, not just the "survivors." The 
"habit" (not a good term to illustrate what Heidegger means) of 
dwelling-with is part of the very constitution of Dasein, and therefore is 
not in some but not others.

>The academic subject of environmental ethics is therefore an
>ongoing critique of what it means to dwell in an
>environment. The highest respect for living things sui
>generis means that it is therefore 'necessary' in that it is
>necessary 'to take to heart' and 'to let go the Being of
>beings.'

You are using "respect" in an ontic sense, because ontologically, "respect" 
for living things in the sense of dwelling-with cannot be lost, since for 
Heidegger, ANY being-in-the-world is a dwelling-with, not only some. If you 
switch to an ontic sense of "respect," then you can speak of an ethics, but 
that is an ontic sense which then cannot be "justified" ontologically over 
some other way of being-in-the-world, since fundamental ontology underlies 
EVERY form of being-in-the-world.

Anthony Crifasi

>The abstract general term, Being, is therefore
>equivalent to general phenomenon common and intrinsic to
>beings of all types. Environmental ethics therefore
>critiques modifications of care and concern as they relate
>to most highly organized and largest scale organization
>which dwells, that is the Earth it's habits. We are not
>directly concerned with failed habits, or pathologies, but
>with the potential for future pathologies, evolutionary
>failures, and cul de sacs. We might be concerned about
>eliminating all small pox viruses from earth, a positive
>extinction for humans, but we have not been. For example
>both the US and the Soviet Union have kept active cultures
>of small pox viruses and have used them in preparation for
>biological warfare. Not only that but they have also
>genetically engineered these pathogens.
>
>The ontological structure and discussion of care in context
>with biological warfare is therefore interesting from the
>framework of environmental ethics. The potential exists for
>small pox to be used by the US and infecting the entire
>human population with the result that up to 99% of the
>world's population would succumb. Environmental ethics views
>perceived risks as falling under either castastrophic risk
>or non-catastrophic risks.
>
>The world's public, especially health authorities, were
>concered enough to vaccinate the majority of humans on
>earth, and this resulted in a 100% eradication of small pox.
>However this active form of concern to eliminate a potent
>human pathogen (no other species is affected by small pox)
>was undermined by 2 super/stupid powers who had a lack of
>concern for protection of human lifes, and therefore kept
>stores of small pox for the express use of killing enemies
>and disabling civilian populations.
>
>chao
>
>john foster


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