Moral Ecology

One takeaway from the study of ecology is that the interdependence of species in an ecosystem can lead to counterintuitive outcomes from changes in populations. For example, we might intuitively expect a fall in predator populations to entail an increase in the population of their prey. And while this may be true in the short term, in the longer term the story is more complicated, and often includes a fall in prey populations as well. The outdated idea of a food chain can lead us to believe that predators sit atop a hierarchy, and all effects flow downward. In fact, predator and prey are both nodes in a more complicated food web, so that changes in the population of any species will have rippling effects across other species.

Another takeaway is that a diversity of species benefits an ecosystem. For example, the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone benefited numerous other species, from willow trees that had been overgrazed by the elk wolves prey on, to beavers (that use the willow to build dams), mice (that live in reinvigorated willow stands) foxes and raptors (that prey on mice and beavers), grizzly bears and ravens (that scavenge the leftovers of wolf kills), and arguably even the elk themselves (whose sick are thinned, and whose food supply and population is more stable).

What might we learn by applying a similar type of thinking to morality? As I’ve argued elsewhere, moral systems are an evolutionary strategy. But moral systems are diverse in the modern world, and so they evolve not only on their own, but in relation to and in dependence upon the moral systems around them.

A historical example might be having multiple religious communities living near each other. This may enable members of one faith to obtain services that they are prohibited to perform themselves, or to carry out services that they are prohibited to perform on their coreligionists. While these types of services are often derided, they have been an important part of development and social cohesion in many parts of the world, providing much needed slack in systems of rules that by their nature are generally not seen as flexible.

Another example might be holding different classes of people within a society to different standards. Many societies have had a warrior class, whose members were subject to different rules that were arguably moral in nature (e.g. various bushido codes that gave privilege and permission to their followers, but also put significant demands on them). Encouraging different sets of rules for these people may benefit the ‘ecosystem’ of the community, in that they maintain a disciplined class who perform a vital service.

The consequences of this view are strange and somewhat repugnant to the modern liberal idea of equality before the law, because they seem to suggest that, not only are different moral conclusions on the same action consistent, having differing moral systems may actually be beneficial to the community as a whole. It’s intuitively plausible that too uniform a moral system may introduce vulnerabilities. For example, consider guerrilla warfare, which often involves members of different moral systems: smaller groups can often find unexpected success by employing tactics that are unthinkable to their larger adversaries; because common knowledge dictates that one does not cross certain moral lines, they are caught off guard by forces that do.

A possible further direction of inquiry would be to determine if it is possible to find a meta-moral system that could govern a pluralistic society in this way, or if that project is always doomed to either wipe out all systems but one, or merge all the system into a single, vulnerable common code (David Friedman’s Legal Systems Very Different From Ours chapter on “Embedded and Polylegal Systems”). Alternatively, one might ask whether and where we should in general ignore this even if it’s true, as asserting the unique truth of a particular moral system is a necessary part of the dynamic that makes the ecosystem work, as wolves must eat elk as part of a healthy food web.

The difference between what could have or, should have been done to correlate existential and behavioral justifications with what is done and what was done on the basis of available choices of available options, has always presented a picture of insufficiency and the assumption of certain amount of involved risk.

As human memory is extended through artificial means, the gaps init are being filled by more substantial reasons to account for the lack of previous availability of options. that can imagine a more moralistically grounded intervention into ecological balance.

Memory plays a key part , I the attainment of such , for history inclines toward less concern with the availability of factors effecting a global interdependence.
Such factors as migration of species , could not be considered previous to noting a regional change within the waning species, because the only noticable change in migral habits were of insignificant members of society who lived off the land. Once that land was exhausted of needed basic survival benefits, the migration continued, and the effects of depletion we’re as much unrecognized by the the consumers, as was such significance afforded to them by the more stable social groups who were able to hold their ground , sometimes even against those who poached on their land.

The gap between the migratory groups and those who decided to settle , have become less acute because of recognition of the need for interdependence in terms of sharing ideas and products.

So the expectation for the future of a moral economy through functional requirements can more or less safely be assumed to be progressively affirmed.

Some isolated areas remain stead fast in their ultra regional identifiable moral objections, but they will eventually be replaced by more inclusive than regional recognition that their standards have become dysfunctional and counter productive.

Such unacknowledged need for interdependence caused the former causa belli to ferment and develop into outright conflict. The basic meta ecological formation had been unnatural disguised by regional counter productive factors formerly interpreted negatively.

As having no recognizable connection of ecological facts to ecological needs of correction.

Ecology is the latest buzzword euphemistic for “It wasn’t me, Ma!” Global capital colonialists (of the “crude, unthinking communism” sort Marx opposed… at first) lawwwwwv the LIVING economy they worship like an untamable beast that demands a steady supply of collateral damage. Evolution. Progress. Into the abyss.

Dependence Moral Ecology.
If one species depends on the other,
then there is more catastrophe when one is lost.

JW teach that god made the ecosystem to be able to heal itself if let alone.
They seem to think co-dependence is a good thing.
I see the opposite.

Historically we had this kind of pluralistic government-systems from the first empires onward, like the Persian empire where they more or less let people be if they paid their taxes. These “empire-values” were a kind of meta-value system in big enough entities that allowed for value sub-system to exist within and under the meta-system.

I would argue that these actually were the predecessor to liberal/cosmopolitan values, like non-discrimination and all the freedoms (of religion, of organisation, of etc etc), which are a kind of ‘negative values’ that originally functioned as meta-values (or empire values), in that they only allowed for other values-systems to co-exist within a super-structure but don’t really proscribe anything themselves (i.e. ‘not positive’).

The issue as I see it is that we have taken these meta-values as the main course, and have become intolerant of the value sub-system they were supposed to facilitate. Because they don’t really have a substance of their own, they ultimately lead to a kind of emptiness taken on their own.

There’s a larger story to be told here about how Abrahamic monotheistic religions incorporated those values, looked to convert universally and ultimately ended up in secular liberal humanism, but that probably would lead us a bit to far.

So in short, I think we already have examples of these kind of meta-moral systems that worked for a while… but then they did ultimately end up dominating and eating up the rest. Hard to tell if this is a feature of monotheistic religions specifically, or something that is baked into any kind meta-value project.

My take on this leans a bit more toward the pragmatic side of things…
A society that’s expanding its borders, whether through force of arms (historically far more common) or through immigration, cannot hope to do so easily by forcing the nations and tribes it gobbles up to change overnight. To do so would invite potentially decades of inserections and civil unrest from this acquired populace, which would in turn require yet more investment into its eventual conversion or integration into the dominant culture. It stands to reason the more successful strategy is to adopt a minimal demand for change, by allowing a great deal of diversity of perspectives with only a few mandatory convictions to establish a common ground. An obvious draw-back to this strategy is cultural drift among its members. People naturally prefer the company of the like-minded and will self-segregate into the sub-cultures that are allowed, which will drift further and further apart to the point of breaking.

Consequently this strategy may not be the most promising for a non-expanding society, for whom the priority is to optimise internal cooperation and function. You don’t want your districts or even counties to feel like different countries, eroding any sense of unity between the now very disparate people there… If you would like to have a mobile populous traversing from one part of the country to the other regularly and as needed, then making a push for a singular mono-culture or at least for a tighter cultural coherence might well become the optimal move for internal stability and prosperity… obviously such efforts will take a long time to accomplish peacefully and so only work for a society that is not in state of expansion where it’s acquiring large clusters of people that it needs to integrate quickly.

Umwelt man.

If the limits of my language are the limits of my world as a human how much more profound are my limits as a human?

I can “escape” the languages I speak but that just creates another sphere. I can’t meaningfully escape my humanity.

Nor should I. I should embrace my humanity.

Compassion man, compassion.

Every year I delve into Tolkien, like my parents. Moreso this year both because I’m watching the appendix show with my spouse and because my father passed. Lots of “products of his time” and such but one message he always stands by is that we become greater by expanding ourselves. The most powerful characters tend to be of mixed lineage.

They can see the world on multiple levels and thrive.

Yes I suppose a mono-culture is a more feasible strategy for non-expanding societies looking to consolidate rather than to expand. That and other factors like scale, distance and even geographical and climate features probably also play a role. It’s probably a lot harder to integrate a steppe culture with an agricultural culture for instance.

I’m wondering though if the way it went historically is likewise a consequence of these general factors guiding these processes of integration or des-integration, or if it was rather a fluke or freak-accident. Consider the way it generally went before with cultural integration in pagan pre-monotheistic culture. They would just add a god or something like that to the existing pantheon of gods, and then you’d have a plurality of values for people to choose from, where-in the newly integrated folks could find themselves without being outside of the culture. Abrahmic mono-theistic religions are different in that they deny these more specific pluralities, but want to push everything into this one-god that is absolute and universal and therefor also needs to be more abstract, general… empty. What’s up with that? Were there also some general forces pushing into that direction, or was it just the idiosyncrasity of some desert folks?

The Golden Rule is transcultural like math. Self=other.

“You have heard it said, but I say…” was the first revaluation around the Golden Rule (pivot of the Dao).

That’s how you get diversity in line with unity. The possibilities within the End are endless, like a sentient wild garden agreeing on a layout (permaculture?) and water rationing, weeding, and fertilization schedule.

Agriculture in general is an insult to the ecology, and rarely chimes with the requirements and patterns of nature.
Rather agriculture exploits natural processes to squeeze more food for humans out of the land.
But systems vary in this insult.
One of the finest and gentlest systems which work closely with nature and provides many great things for human life is pasture.
A pasture can not only provide meat, but also bone and hoof for fertilizer and other products such as glue, leather, wool.
It also provides a great natural system for recycling the grass and other herbs faeces naturally fertilis and nourish the soil providing food for insects.
Pastures are also very good for species diversity, and nourish many plants, some of which such as clover fix nitrogen from the atmosphere.

Pasture has the massive advantage of being 100% carbon neutral, despite the hysterical propaganda from the vegan community.
And as pasture is the only way to utilise the 2/3 of agricultural land which is Marginal, it makes it even more important to stop the morons from planet Vegan from their hysteria.

Meat predominantly comes from factory farming. Pasture is fine, but doesn’t get you the same quantities.

And that’s usually the issue with these smaller scale solutions, it’s hard to see how they work in a world with 8 billion people.

I’d say there’s no need to go full vegan, but we could do with a little less meat, maybe then pasture could make more sense.

Why have factory farming, when you can have local farming en masse… or has Bill Gates bought up all the arable land to grow vegetation alone?

Processed foods need to become yesteryear’s trend imo… they are more toxic than ever, due to the use of toxic-waste as food-additives. That’s moral(less) ecology right there! <

Yea… you heard me right!

Economy of scale is the short answer.

Artifical fertilizer via haber-bosch process combined with fossil fueled industrialised agriculture has skyrocketed our productivity. That enabled population growth to the levels we have now. But it also means we are kinda stuck to keep producing that much food, unless we are ok with mass famines. And it’s hard to be ok with mass famines, because typically that is the main driver for social unrest, wars etc etc… a lot of dead people.

Sadly all vegetable and grain production come from monoculture, which is 100% destructive of the ecology, dependant on chemical factories for pesticides and fertilizer, poisons the water supply, and produces food that humans are not well adapted to eat.
ANd with each generation more Vegans are continuing to destroy the world with the plough.

Luckilu 2/3 of agricultural land is only suitable for pasture.

eat meat: save the environment.

Unfortunately meat isn’t produced in pasture but in factory farms, and those animals are fed with, you guessed it, more monoculture crops.

eat nothing: save the environment

At this point, it’s bad either way.

Sorry I bothered partake in this thread… I knew better not to, and still I did.

I’m done, when men play naive about man-made conditions that we are all very-well aware of and knew it would come to this.

When will hindsight preclude foresight? …when man stops lieing?

You are dead wrong.
In the US it is 67%, but other places in the world the rate is much lower, and in some countries there is no factory farmed meat at all.
Eating grass fed meat, as I do, means zero impact in the environment.

The only exception to non meat farming being utterly destructive to the environment is permanent fruit farming such as apple and pear orchards. Sadly the annual yield is miniscule as fruit only ripens once a year. Having pugs truffling and eating windfalls helps make orchards more useful and once again they supply the best shit for the soil.

The main challenge would be to stop arable farming for grains, and lower th world population by encouraging small families and childlessness.

How can I be dead wrong if it’s 67% of production in the US.

In other countries they eat a lot less meat. That’s part of the point, that meat, and certainly pasture meat alone, can’t sustain less rich and more populous countries like China or India for example.

To be clear, I don’t have an issue with pasture meat per se, I just don’t think it would suffice.

And sure, in a less populated world a lot would be possible, but that’s not the world we find ourselves in today.

_
Many people are intolerant to plants, so a plant-based diet is not for them… or should they be forced to eat plants anyway?

Most land in the US is used to supply McDonalds with potatoes for fries. That land could be put to better use than farming nothing but potatoes for fries, no? Look to who is responsible for the state of current ‘ecological’ affairs and not to the scapegoats/consumer.

Let them eat cake fries?

It might come as a surprise to some people, but the US is not the entirety of the world, nor is it all that representative for the rest of the world.

You have a lot of land, not that big of a population, a good climate and a lot of natural resources… and add to that that you are still the most powerful nation economically and military to boot.

What maybe could work in the US doesn’t necessarily work in the rest of the world.

In a lot of countries you don’t have the luxury to not like plants.