Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 30

some interests over others, in given circumstances and situations (that
is, rather than all species being treated the same or as having in essence
the same rights or worth).
Finally, I think it is important to comment on the ethical limitations
of approaches that reinforce rigid definitions and absolutist positions,
such as pronouncements that the Earth is more important than humans
or animals, or that any harm to animals is bad. This kind of moral
posturing tends to do two things. First, it locks people into protagonist
positions by declaring that there is no alternative to the position taken.
Everything is 'black or white'. There is thus no shading or uncertainty
when it comes to dealing with real-life situations requiring difficult
and practical moral choices.Yet, in the end, someone or something will
suffer the negative consequences of such sureties.
Second, taking such absolutist positions diminishes the centrality of
humans - including precisely those of us writing about and advocating
on behalf of these issues - in the greater scheme of things. Humans can
be conceived as both destroyer and protector of all that we value and
cherish. We are also the originators of the moral and ethical systems
by which we judge ourselves and our behaviour. We are also the main
protagonists acting upon what we believe is right and good. The goat,
the rose and the river do not exercise this kind of volition, this sort of
agency. This is what makes humans the most important participant in
shaping the world.
Arguably, the idea that humans come first is likewise an absolutist
statement. Actually, I suppose it is. It also happens to be one with which
I am largely in agreement. It is far too easy, especially as one traverses
the literature dealing with ecological justice and animal rights, to feel
that we should equate each notion of rights, each species and each
environmental concern as if they were all the same. Assuredly they all
should be discussed with equal regard when it comes to attention to
detail, logical argument and robustness of evidence. While it is important
that the different approaches of the eco-justice perspective be respected,
however, this should by no means compel us to necessarily agree with
all the propositions being put forward (even if this was possible, which
it is not, as evidenced by the disputes within as well as between the
approaches).
For my part, after contemplation of the issues and trusting in my
own 'gut feelings', I cannot subscribe to the view that human life is
contingent upon a flip of a coin, because it is worth no more and no
less than that of an animal (see Francione, 2008, and Chapter Five).
Humans are (more) important to me for a number of reasons, including
immediate species affinity through to the fact that it is humans who are