by Ben O'Neill
I'll bet you forgot to buy a card and gift, didn't you? Boy, is your face red!
Did you even know it's International Mother Earth Day today, citizen? Socialist despot Evo Morales and his buddies at the United Nations sure do. You see, in April 2009, they passed a unanimous resolution to celebrate this important event every year.[1] In the accompanying speech, Morales explained to his colleagues that "Mother Earth was now having her rights recognized" and expressed his hope that the present century will be known as the "century of the rights of Mother Earth." He explained to the UN that its member states "now had the opportunity to begin laying out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth."[2]
And don't worry – you'll be pleased to know that they're making great progress toward this goal. This month, Morales and the Bolivian government will table a draft UN treaty recognizing and enunciating the rights of the Earth – ahem, excuse me, the rights of Mother Earth.[3] The issue will also be considered in an upcoming UN debate entitled "Nature Has Rights," where environmentalists from various activist groups will lend their support to the treaty and tell us why it's time we all recognize that Mother Earth has rights.
The proposed UN treaty will recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit." To prevent this exploitation, the draft treaty will "[grant] the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clear air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution."[4] In case it is not clear, let me stress that the treaty will recognize that the Earth has these rights – not you or me, citizen, but that big ball of minerals we are standing on.
The treaty will establish a "Ministry of Mother Earth" to hear the Earth's complaints against those who continue to dominate and exploit it – um, excuse me, dominate and exploit her. But don't worry; the building for the Ministry won't need to be quite as big as you might think. If you're concerned that the Earth will have trouble fitting into the complainant's chair, or the witness box, it's alright. You see, complaints will be voiced, not by the Earth itself, but by its human "representatives," consisting of environmental-activist groups and governments.
But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in celebration just yet citizen. Before we break out the Mother Earth Day hooch, party poppers, and giant foam-rubber hands, let me just take a moment to explain a few things about this Earth-rights doctrine that has been steadily working its way through the UN. Let's take a moment to consider the relationship between life and rights, the purpose of the present doctrine, and the role of government as "representative" of Mother Earth.
1. Living Entities and the Alleged Rights of "Mother Earth"
To understand rights, we need to know not only what their content is but also the kinds of entities to which they accrue. To know this, we need to know what the concept of rights is for, and how it is derived. Philosopher Ayn Rand explains that the concept of rights is a part of moral philosophy, its purpose being to provide moral guidance on how to treat others.[5] According to Rand, the notion of "rights" is a moral concept:
the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others – the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context – the link between ethics and politics.[6]
The purpose of ethics is to provide us with guidance on how to survive and prosper in our lives. Politics is that subset of ethics that deals with the use of force, and that studies the institutions of society with respect to the moral principles pertaining to the use of force. Rights, therefore, are the moral principles that tell us when the use of force is and is not morally right – they are the particular subset of objective moral principles that tell us who may use physical violence against whom, and when.
Since rights are a moral concept, it follows that they can only pertain to things that have some interests and will of their own. In particular, it is clear that moral obligations can only accrue to beings in need of moral guidance and are capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand and apply moral principles. Such beings must be conscious and must also be capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand moral principles and obey them – in short, they must be rational, conscious beings. If they are not, then they lack the means to understand and apply moral principles, and it is senseless to ascribe such principles to them.
Though this reasoning applies most clearly to moral obligations, rather than rights, we can actually say more than this. In fact, moral obligations are merely the obverse of rights: if A has a right to do X, and this right is enforceable against B, then it follows that B has a corresponding obligation not to forcibly interfere with A doing X. There can be no rights without corresponding moral obligations, and there can be no such thing as an entity having rights without corresponding moral obligations.[7] Since it is senseless to ascribe moral principles to beings that lack consciousness, it is therefore senseless to ascribe rights to these entities.
Since life is a necessary condition for consciousness, it is also a necessary condition for rights. But it is not a sufficient condition – there are plenty of living things that are either nonconscious, or are conscious but incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to accrue rights and their corresponding moral obligations.
Since nonconscious living entities like trees and other plants have no awareness of their own existence or anything else around them, they have no need for, or capacity to understand, moral principles. Though a tree is a living thing, it is not conscious.[8] It has no mind, and therefore has no awareness of its own existence – it has no thoughts, no desires, no fears, no feelings, no pain or pleasure. It acts automatically to preserve its own life and flourish, but it has no awareness of this, and no opinion on any matter associated with it.[9] It imposes itself on other entities automatically, with no awareness of either itself or others. When other entities impose themselves on it, it remains unaware of this fact, and has no opinion about their actions. A tree does not need moral guidance to help it grow, nor would it be aware of any moral instruction it was given. It has no use for rights, and as a nonconscious thing, it has no rights or obligations. If a tree is cut up for timber, or poisoned, or torn out of the ground, it has no awareness of this ever happening. It had no awareness of ever being alive, and no awareness of being killed. Nor can a tree ever be said to have violated the rights of others. If the roots of a tree invade my property, or strangle another tree to death, the tree is not violating rights; it is just being a tree.
By the same token, we can see that the Earth also has no rights. The Earth has no mind or awareness of its own existence. It has no awareness of the state it is in and no opinion on this state. It feels no pleasure or pain. It has no views, no desires, and no fears. The notion that "Mother Earth" would ever have cause to complain of its treatment at the hands of humans is pure mysticism – the ascription of feelings and desires to a nonconscious entity. (In fact, it is highly dubious even to classify the Earth as a living thing. It is an entity composed mostly of nonliving material, and covered, relatively sparsely, with living plant and animal life.[10] )
To suppose that such a thing as a big ball of minerals hurtling through space can be capable of holding rights is to completely misconstrue the nature and purpose of rights. Rights are moral prerogatives for conscious beings that are capable of sufficiently abstract thought to require, and comply with, abstract moral principles. Rights cannot be divorced from their corresponding obligations, and hence rights can only apply to beings that are capable of understanding and applying moral principles. Rights allow conscious rational beings to interact with one another in a way that is compatible with their own survival.
(The present essay is focused on the alleged rights of nonconscious entities, which is a simple case. Things get a bit trickier once we look at arguments for animal rights. Animals have minds, feel pleasure and pain, have desires and fears, and are capable of a very small amount of simple abstraction. They are incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to grasp moral principles, and hence they are incapable of complying with moral obligations. Their use of force against other living beings is neither moral nor immoral, and cannot be considered a rights violation.[11])
Read more:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/oneill4.1.1.html
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