Stewardship Versus Citizenship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 312

ethics and politics were based on the same moral character caused him to emphasize
moral education and write “The Land Ethic.”
There is also considerable technical, theoretical material that can be used in
developing environmental citizenship within a given society. The two major traditions
are liberal and civic republican citizenship. In addition, Andrew Dobson has argued
that a new tradition is needed, which he calls post-cosmopolitan citizenship. 21
It is also possible to tap into a wide variety of positions and perspectives on envi-
ronmental citizenship. 22 While it is possible to become as academic and theoretical
as needed, the success of environmental citizenship, like that of environmental
stewardship, will depend on its acceptance at a grass-roots level, where a more general
conception may work better.
If Passmore is correct that “A 'new ethic' will arise out of existing attitudes, or
not at all,” then trying to promote a view with as few drawbacks and handicaps as
possible is probably the best approach. Within Christianized Western society, envi-
ronmental stewardship probably has few handicaps, especially among Christians,
and perhaps among Jews and Muslims as well, who also have a conception of
stewardship within their religious traditions. Nevertheless, an alternative approach
for minorities not sharing in the main religious traditions would be appropriate. In
moving to non-Western societies, the handicaps of Judeo-Christian-Islamic stew-
ardship may be more problematic if stewardship in those countries comes to be
viewed as colonizing, imperialistic, or totalizing, as noted earlier in the paper. It is
true that crosscultural borrowing does occur, but it is unpredictable whether a
notion clearly attached to another culture will catch on, and successful borrowing
is usually not the norm.
The advantage of citizenship over stewardship is that it is religiously and cultur-
ally neutral. As a result, environmental citizenship can more likely be formed out
local conceptions of what citizenship is. There is an interest in developing an inter-
national environmental ethic. Whether such an ethic is possible and could ever be
created is debatable. All of the elements of such an ethic have to come from some-
where and when some of the elements are regarded as foreign intrusions, efforts will
be more diffi cult. Promoting environmental citizenship will probably not experi-
ence such problems since it can be presented as an extension of local conceptions of
citizenship.

20.5 Stewardship and Citizenship

Although so far I have been presenting stewardship and citizenship as confl icting
and competing approaches, it is important to note that there is a place for both:
instead of stewardship versus citizenship, we could talk in terms of stewardship and
citizenship. In countries where stewardship is a strongly established concept

21 See Dobson ( 2003 ).
22 See, for example, Dobson and Bell ( 2006 ).