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<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>Coalition for Christian Colleges and Universities</B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>Global Stewardship Initiative</B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER>Copyright C 1996 Richard A. Baer, Jr.</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER>DRAFT COPY</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=+2>Secular Bias and Environmental Policy:
</FONT></B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=+2>Giving Christians a Place at the Table</FONT></B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER>by</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER>Richard A. Baer, Jr.</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>A. INTRODUCTION</B></P>
<P>In thinking about Christians and environmental policy, we must first
be clear about what, if anything, Christians have to contribute to this
important field. Second, we need think about why our contributions often
are neither welcomed nor even heard in the secular arena. Biblical "nature"
texts and the Christian doctrine of creation are by no means unimportant,
but I shall suggest that we have much to contribute to environmental thinking
in addition to these. As for the reception of Christian thinking by the
secular world, I shall try to show that the bias against religious, and
especially Christian, beliefs and values that is pervasive in the academy
and in much of government is epistemologically and politically unwarranted.
Secular beliefs and values are not prima facie more rational than religious
beliefs and values, and thus there are no good reasons to continue to grant
them a privileged in our public life. Nor are Christian views intrinsically
more personal and private than secular views and thus appropriate only for
the nonpublic realm.</P>
<P>It will be obvious to the reader that I have little to say about the
environmental views of postmodernists, radical feminists, nature worshipers,
deep ecologists, and others who all in various ways are heirs of romanticism.
I agree with some of their criticisms of Enlightenment rationalism and of
English Liberalism but not with the subjectivist and relativist features
of their thinking. And, of course, many specific beliefs that can be found
among these movements are directly antithetical to Christian beliefs--the
blurring of self and nature, the tendency to see nature as pervaded with
divinity, and others. But the main reason I largely ignore these positions
is that they have not been instrumental in marginalizing religious (especially
Christian) thinking and quarantining it with respect to the public square
in the way that more rationalistic philosophy and political theory have.</P>
<P></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>A. CHRISTIANS MUST GO BEYOND THE NATURE TEXTS</B></P>
<P>The Bible has a fair amount to say about what today we call "nature."
But nothing like the pervasive concern for the "environment" that
has become common in Western thought during the last half of the 20th century
can be found in the Bible or in other ancient texts. This is not surprising,
for throughout most of human history nature seemed clearly to have the upper
hand, and even though occasional writers mentioned environmental insults,<A
NAME="fnB0"></A><A HREF="#fn0">[1]</A> Yi-fu Tuan is probably correct that
historically most cultures exploited the environmental up to roughly the
limits of their technical capabilities.<A NAME="fnB1"></A>[2] They lacked
anything like our modern scientific understanding of ecology and the human
impact on nature, and generally by the time a given culture became aware
of how they were damaging the environment it was already too late to do
much about it.</P>
<P>As a part of our general rethinking of Christian theology in light of
modern environmental concerns, it has been fruitful to study the so-called
Biblical "nature" texts and the Biblical doctrine of creation
and to employ these in formulating a contemporary Christian environmental
ethic. Already in the late 1960's various Christian theologians and Biblical
scholars associated with the Faith-Man-Nature group were arguing that we
must reinterpret Christian thinking about nature in light of modern environmental
problems.<A NAME="fnB2"></A><A HREF="#fn2">[3]</A> In a 1971 piece entitled
"Ecology, Religion and the American Dream,"<A NAME="fnB3"></A><A
HREF="#fn3">[4]</A> I enunciated several important principles about how
we as Christians should think about ourselves and nature: (1) "The
World belongs to God. It does not belong to you. And it does not belong
to me." (2) "God likes the world he has created," and "nature
in its entirety has value for God." (3) "Creation as understood
in the Biblical tradition involves interrelationship and wholeness, not
incidentally, but fundamentally and necessarily." In a later piece
entitled "Higher Education, the Church, and Environmental Values,"<A
NAME="fnB4"></A>[<A HREF="#fn4">5</A>] I added a number of further principles:
(4) "Unless Western man discovers a new balance in his life between
work and play, production and praise, development and celebration, the useful
and the useless, he will find it impossible to reach a harmonious relationship
with himself, his fellows, and the world around him." (5) "The
healing of nature will come about only with the healing of persons and institutions."
(6) "Environmental solutions must always be undertaken within a framework
of social justice and concern for all elements of society." These principles
appear to me to be generally correct, although today, some two decades later,
I might want to modify them in some details. Still, it strikes me now, as
it did then, that it is just plain rude and impertinent to mess up God's
creation as we have done, treating it however we please for our own selfish
advantage.</P>
<P>Rather than elaborating on these principles, I would like to point to
some additional Biblical and theological themes that nicely illustrate the
powerful contributions Christians can make to our contemporary thinking
and acting relative to our natural environment.</P>
<P><u>1. Motivation and Empowerment</u></P>
<P>Over the past 25 years, secular moralists have written a great deal about
how we should think about and relate to our natural environment. Utilitarians,
deontologists, social contract theorists, deep ecologists, and others have
espoused a variety of positions on how humans should treat nature. Most
writers castigate what they see as the anthropocentrism of Western religion's
understanding of nature and agree with Aldo Leopold when he writes that
"a land ethic changes the role of <I>Homo sapiens</I> from conqueror
of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it."<A NAME="fnB5"></A><A
HREF="#fn5">[6]</A> In his provocative book <I>Respect for Nature</I>, Paul
Taylor makes the strong claim that when we accept a biocentric view of nature
we will understand that human beings are not inherently superior to animals
or even to plants. All deserve equal consideration. Even though his book
ends up with major confusion and inconsistency when he tries to draw out
the practical implications of such a bold claim, just the fact that he makes
it is significant.<A NAME="fnB6"></A><A HREF="#fn6">[7]</A> Writing as a
utilitarian, Peter Singer argues that a normal pig can be more valuable
than a brain damaged human and accuses Christians and others of being "speciesists"
because of our strong bias in favor of human over animal well being.<A
NAME="fnB7"></A>[<A HREF="#fn7">8</A>] Utilizing rights language, Tom Regan
reaches similar conclusions.<A NAME="fnB8"></A>[<A HREF="#fn8">9</A>] Other
authors see humans as a form of cancer on the earth, arguing that the planet
would be better off if we were not here at all. But in all of this writing
about how humans should treat nature, very little is said about the issues
of motivation and empowerment. By and large the Socratic position that knowledge
provides an adequate basis for virtuous action is simply assumed. Taylor,
Singer, Regan, and many, many others have little or nothing to say about
how humans might actually be empowered to live according to the ethical
insights they propound.</P>
<P>In sharp contrast to these secular thinkers, Christians have thought
a great deal about motivation and empowerment. As Christians we find that
we are able to live differently because we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit within us is a source of motivation and energy that makes
it possible to live sacrificially. We love--God, other people, nature--because
God first loved us. </P>
<P>Because we as Christians recognize that God alone is the ultimate source
of life, and because we believe that we need not and indeed cannot justify
or save ourselves, we are able, ideally, to escape from the powerful temptation
to exploit nature--more possessions, bigger houses, multiple cars, status
vacations in far away places--as a means of justifying ourselves, of securing
our own place in the sun. Over fifty years ago Reinhold Niebuhr made clear
in his watershed book <I>The Nature and Destiny of Man</I> the connections
between our failure to trust God and our exploitation of one another and
of nature. We are all mortal, finite beings he reminds us, and thus we are
insecure. But, in contrast to animals, our freedom and self-transcendence
make us aware of our insecurity, and this makes us anxious. Anxiety as such
is not sin but only the precondition of sin. Ideally, we can trust God to
meet our needs, to secure our lives against the radically contingent nature
of our existence. But we can also fail to trust God and attempt to secure
our own futures, usually at the expense of other life, both human and nonhuman.<A
NAME="fnB9"></A>[<A HREF="#fn9">10</A>]</P>
<P>I am not suggesting that motivation is everything. Historically, ignorance
of ecological realities has played a decisive role in environmental exploitation.
But today we know a great deal scientifically about what effects our actions
are likely to have on our natural environment, yet at the same time we find
it extremely difficult to simplify our lives and to consume and pollute
less. This is true of the educated as well as the uneducated, of the Christian
as well as the non-Christian. Indeed, as I claimed more than 25 years ago,
academics at our best universities (including ecologists and professors
of environmental studies) probably place at least 50% more strain on the
natural environment than the average American--mainly because our incomes
are much higher than average, and we spend these incomes on large houses,
summer homes, foreign travel, and other environmentally demanding activities.
As members of what Neuhaus and others have referred to as "the chattering
class," we like to look down our environmental noses at those slobs
who throw beer cans out of car windows. But in terms of stress on the environment,
that is penny ante compared with all our international travel, fine homes,
and far away vacations.</P>
<P>To be sure, up till now we Christians have not been exemplary by any
stretch of the imagination when it comes to embracing environmentally gentle
ways of living. Indeed, many Christians do not yet see an environmentally
gentle lifestyle as having anything much to do with their basic Christian
commitments, and thus much further learning is needed. But if we once understand
the importance of living more gently on the earth, we are part of a vital
tradition that can both motivate and empower us, for we know both that this
is God's good earth and that we need not try to justify ourselves through
the abundance of our possessions and through our ability to exploit one
another and nature.<A NAME="fnB10"></A>[<A HREF="#fn10">11</A>] As Christians,
we believe that the world and all that is in it is the deliberate, loving
creation of God. He values it for its own sake as well as for its instrumental
value to humans and to other creatures. And because he values nature, we,
if we want to honor and serve him rightly, will also value it. </P>
<P><u>2. Freedom, Human Fulfillment, and Vision</u></P>
<P>Christians also are heirs to a doctrine of freedom and human fulfillment
that stands in sharp contrast to liberal secular thinking with its focus
on the autonomous self and its identification of rational behavior with
self-interested behavior.<A NAME="fnB11"></A>[<A HREF="#fn11">12</A>] Rather
than understanding freedom and human fulfillment mainly in terms of the
ability to make decisions and choices, Christians see human flourishing
as that state of being that results from living in harmony with the will
of God. The Christian understanding of freedom has some similarities to
views of ancient philosophy. Plato believed that one found the right path
for himself by discovering the nature of things and by embracing the Good,
the Beautiful, and the True. Stoics taught that one ought to live "according
to nature," a nature that was understood in qualitative and not just
in quantitative terms. Like Christians after them, the classical philosophers
emphasized the virtues, especially justice, wisdom, self-control, piety,
and courage. For both Christian and classical philosopher alike, human fulfillment
is related to understanding and conforming one's life to reality. This classical
understanding is similar to the position propounded by some contemporary
environmentalists who speak of living according to or in harmony with nature.
We are told that we must honor and respect nature, refusing to violate its
rhythms and disturb its complex balances.</P>
<P>In sharp contrast to this classical view, modern political liberalism
has tended to see freedom in terms of the absence of external constraints.
Such phrases as "those wise constraints that make men free" sound
odd to most Westerners today. But it seems increasingly apparent that the
liberal emphasis on choice and self interest is not serving us or our environment
very well. Various writers accuse Christianity of being anthropocentric.
The charge is to some extent true, even though Christianity, rightly understood,
is theocentric. The charge of anthropocentrism, however, seems thoroughly
appropriate when applied to secular humanistic thinking with its emphasis
on autonomy, self-interest, and individual choice.</P>
<P>As Iris Murdoch points out, by seeing freedom mainly in terms of individual
decisions, we have largely missed the point that much, perhaps most, of
the moral life is less a matter of choice than of vision. How we see the
world determines how we treat it. The person who <I>sees</I> the world properly,
the one who is able to escape from fantasy and illusion, is well positioned
to <I>live</I> properly.<A NAME="fnB12"></A>[<A HREF="#fn12">13</A>] </P>
<P><u>3. Christians and Community</u></P>
<P>As Christians we are also well positioned to become responsible stewards
of God's good creation because we are part of a living, dynamic community,
the church of Jesus Christ, and also because we are not locked into the
bipolar focus of traditional liberalism on the all-embracing state and the
atomistic individual self. Sociologists generally concur that making lasting
lifestyle changes is difficult apart from community support. The church
at its best can provide such support, making it possible for us to sacrifice
for the common good as a part of our service to God, helping us see that
material possessions may work against the soul, and reminding us that "a
man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke
12:15). As members of the Body of Christ, Christians know the meaning of
forgiveness, reconciliation, mutual encouragement, and truthful speech--all
elements necessary for successful community. </P>
<P>With its emphasis on universal individual rights and its bipolar focus
on the individual autonomous self and the all-encompassing state, secular
liberalism tends to neglect the reality of and the important differences
among actual human communities. And it overlooks the fact that living communities
do not exist just on the basis of legal or even moral rights. Their well
being, as Wendell Berry so persuasively argues, depends on a broad range
of attitudes, informal sanctions, group pressures, etc.<A NAME="fnB13"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn13">14</A>] Taking an approach very different from my own, Max
Oelschlaeger concludes in his book <I>Caring for Creation</I>: "Assuming,
then, that the state, the corporation, and the university are incapable
of leading our culture toward [environmental] sustainability, we are left
with a single alternative: the church." He claims that "the church
remains the one institution where habits of the heart, the language of the
community, yet exist."<A NAME="fnB14"></A>[<A HREF="#fn14">15</A>]</P>
<P>Although many Christians have uncritically accepted liberalism's bipolar
focus on the autonomous individual and the all-embracing state, a growing
number of Christian theologians, sociologists, and political theorists embrace
a more differentiated view of society that stresses the importance of mediating
structures such as church, family, school, business and labor organization,
non profit public interest group, and others.<A NAME="fnB15"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn15">16</A>] Each of these structures is more than just the sum of its
individual members and should be viewed as having rights and obligations
of its own. Building on the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity and on the
work of Abraham Kuyper and others, James Skillen of the Center for Public
Justice, along with other writers in the reformed tradition, challenges
us to develop a distinctively Christian view of politics, one that does
not simply assume that government can solve all our social problems or that
society and the state are synonymous. </P>
<DL>
<DD>A Christian public philosophy will go beyond the liberal and conservative
variations of Liberalism. It will demand more than an updating of Aristotelian
Thomism or a return to Puritan theology. It will require more than an appeal
to American constitutionalism. It will begin with God's creation order
and the differentiating social nature of human creatures rather than with
imaginary autonomous individuals or with an undifferentiated ideal of human
community.<A NAME="fnB16"></A>[<A HREF="#fn16">17</A>]</DD>
</DL>
<P>It is my experience in secular academia that most of us as "individual
autonomous selves" may be able to talk the talk, but we have great
difficulty in walking the walk, i.e. actually changing the way we live in
environmentally significant ways. But, of course, we as Christians are also
not living up to our potential when it comes to environmental matters. Far
too many of us have embraced the view of some conservative economists that
environmental crisis is mainly a myth and that we need not concern ourselves
with world population growth and our high levels of material consumption.
And many of us are experiencing only glimmers of the true meaning of membership
in the Body of Christ. Our prayer needs to be that we will be more open
to learning how to live in environmentally benign ways and that we will
also come to experience more fully the true meaning of Christian community
with its tradition of making personal sacrifices for the well being of others
in obedience to Jesus Christ.</P>
<P>My experience of the 25 years since Earth Day One is that in spite of
much student idealism and talk about saving the environment, within a very
few years of graduation most students consume natural resources and pollute
the environment at a rate that generally equals or exceeds that of the public
at large. By and large this is also true in my own life. It is much harder
to live at a low level of consumption and pollution than I would have believed
to be the case 30 years ago. My wife suffers from advanced multiple sclerosis,
and my 93 year old father lives with us. Both need the help of a caregiver
more or less 24 hours a day. This means for me that time is at a premium,
and that I often act in such a manner that trades energy and resources for
time. I once thought air conditioning and large cars were unnecessary luxuries.
But without central air conditioning my wife's life would be extremely precarious
and limited, for, like many victims of multiple sclerosis, she is extremely
heat sensitive. And trying to help a handicapped wife and an aged father
(with wheelchair and much other paraphernalia) get around in a subcompact
car is something I simply am not willing to do. Nonetheless, the ongoing
support of fellow church members and the kind of community support I experience
as a fellow in the Center for Public Justice and from people working within
other mediating structures has made it possible to live far more gently
in relation to the environment than probably would have been the case otherwise.</P>
<P><u>4. The Christian doctrines of Original Sin and Justification by Faith</u></P>
<P>The Christian doctrines of original sin and of justification by faith
also have importance for our thinking about environmental issues. Christians
believe that all humans are tainted by sin and that every area of our lives
is affected. Thus, we will always be wary of scapegoating--blaming all our
environmental problems on a market economy, government bureaucracies, the
military, or Western technology with its preoccupation with power and control.
The environmental horror stories that have come to light with the dissolution
of the Soviet Union have made it abundantly clear that environmental salvation
almost certainly does not depend on our switching from capitalist to socialist
economic structures, something not a few academics have argued for in the
past. Virtually all of us in the West--not just businessmen, the military,
or government bureaucrats--are complicit in environmental pollution and
overconsumption of resources. And the same pattern is repeating itself in
developing countries. </P>
<P>This realization that we are all environmental sinners need not make
us cynical about our stewardship responsibilities, but it ought to make
us--in the best Niebuhrian sense, realists. We must try to reform institutions--schools,
universities, and economic and political structures--but we must also be
willing to be changed ourselves. Niebuhr was prescient in pointing out that
in our anxiety and freedom we try to secure our own futures not just by
exploiting other people but also by exploiting nature. Our "lust for
power," he writes, "expresses itself in terms of man's conquest
of nature, in which the legitimate freedom and mastery of man in the world
of nature is corrupted into a mere exploitation of nature." "Greed,"
Niebuhr continues, "has . . . become the besetting sin of a bourgeois
culture." We are "constantly tempted to regard physical comfort
and security as life's final good and to hope for its attainment to a degree
which is beyond human possibilities."<A NAME="fnB17"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn17">18</A>] But as Christians who experience the meaning of being "crucified
with Christ," we can experience what it means to be set free from greed
and the need to justify ourselves.</P>
<P></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>B. CHRISTIANS DESERVE A PLACE AT THE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
TABLE</B></P>
<P>Obviously, neither the six principles I cited from my 1970 article nor
these four additional Christian themes are exhaustive nor will they automatically
or unambiguously provide us with specific environmental policies. They form
instead a setting or context within which we as Christians shape our environmental
thinking. They help us become a particular kind of people, motivating and
empowering us to live environmentally sound lives by making necessary sacrifices
and caring deeply about the well-being of both our fellow human beings and
nature. They will perhaps have their greatest impact in the field of environmental
education and will only indirectly impact actual environmental policy making.</P>
<P>But in spite of the power and insightfulness of these Christian beliefs
and values, the fact remains that most secular political theorists consider
them to be essentially private and inappropriate when introduced in public
deliberation and debate. In discussing world population pressures, for instance,
many academics assume that presenting secular reasons in favor of abortion
is entirely acceptable, whereas introducing religious reasons against abortion
is not acceptable. For at least ten years I attended a weekly seminar at
Cornell University sponsored by our program in Science, Technology, and
Society. This was a group of faculty and graduate students that met to discuss
a broad range of social issues in the context of science and technology.
We frequently focused on environmental questions. Perhaps every second or
third week I would comment on the issue at hand, drawing upon my knowledge
of Christian ethics and theology. The response I received was depressingly
constant. Almost never did anyone publicly agree with me or applaud my contribution.
Nor did anyone disagree with me. They simply ignored me. The analogy may
be crude, but it is apt: it was as if I had farted! And when someone farts
in public, people neither applaud nor boo. They simply try to ignore the
event altogether, pretending that it never happened.</P>
<P>I am not suggesting that quoting Scripture verses is a particularly helpful
way to be involved in public policy debates or in academic discussions,
nor is this what I attempted. On the other hand, why is it any less acceptable
to quote the Bible than to quote Marx, or Peter Singer, or some deep ecologist?
Prudentially, both Christians and non-Christians are well-advised in policy
discussions to appeal to reasons that are widely accepted. That is just
good common sense, namely appealing to the "common sense." But
citing Christian sources is no more parochial or sectarian than quoting
Peter Singer or Tom Regan on animal welfare issues, or referring to Aldo
Leopold or perhaps to a deep ecologist on questions concerning land use.
Interestingly, most academics do not resist references to Native American
or perhaps Buddhist or Taoist sources in the way they oppose Christian references.
This may well be because these sources are not genuine competitors in the
marketplace of ideas to the degree that Christian beliefs and values are.<A
NAME="fnB18"></A>[<A HREF="#fn18">19</A>]</P>
<P>Resistance to specifically religious (especially Christian) beliefs and
values in public discussion is seen in the writings of the majority of secular
philosophers and political theorists. They claim that we must forge a public
environmental ethic and fashion environmental policies in purely secular
terms and on the basis of purely secular reasons. People may be religious
if they so choose, but religion does not belong in public. It is essentially
personal and private. Some writers argue that citing religious sources is
inappropriate in any public policy discussion. Others are more permissive
and want to exclude religious contributions only in those cases where an
attempt is made to limit the basic freedoms of fellow citizens.<A NAME=
"fnB19"></A>[<A HREF="#fn19">20</A>] </P>
<P>One of the more extreme positions regarding religion and politics is
taken by political philosopher Robert Audi. His "principle of secular
rationale" states that "one should not advocate or support any
law or public policy that restricts human conduct unless one has, and is
willing to offer, adequate secular reason for this advocacy or support."<A
NAME="fnB20"></A>[<A HREF="#fn20">21</A>] Audi goes even further in his
"principle of secular motivation," which states that "one
should not advocate or promote any legal or public policy restrictions on
human conduct unless one not only has and is willing to offer, but is also
<I>motivated by</I> adequate secular reason, where this reason (or set of
reasons) is motivationally sufficient for the conduct in question."
Lest the reader harbor any wrong opinions of Audi's claims, he immediately
adds the comment that "this principle . . . is by no means extreme"!
His comment is particularly interesting in light of the dominant, and probably
essential, role that religious motivation played in the civil rights movement
of the fifties and sixties. </P>
<P>Bruce Ackerman also takes an extreme position regarding what is politically
permissible in a liberal state. Under the heading "Neutrality,"
he claims:</P>
<P>No reason is a good reason if it requires the power holder to assert:</P>
<DL>
<DD>(a) that his conception of the good is better than that asserted by
any of his fellow citizens, <I>or</I><BR CLEAR="ALL"><BR CLEAR="ALL"></DD>
<DD>(b) that, regardless of his conception of the good, he is intrinsically
superior to one or more of his fellow citizens.<A NAME="fnB21"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn21">22</A>]</DD>
</DL>
<P>The radical quality of Ackerman's position is evident in his comments
on specific issues. Regarding school choice, he writes: "Thus, Friedman's
plan legitimates a series of petty tyrannies in which like-minded parents
club together to force-feed their children without restraint."<A NAME=
"fnB22"></A>[<A HREF="#fn22">23</A>] "The truth is," he claims,
"that <I>any</I> system in which the elder generation uses its superior
power to 'educate' the young is coercive."<A NAME="fnB23"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn23">24</A>]</P>
<P>Neither Audi nor Ackerman, nor, for that matter, most writers who deal
with the subject of religion in public life, show much if any awareness
of the fact that secular views can <I>function</I> in ways that are virtually
identical to religious views. Starting with Durkheim and continuing to the
present day, many anthropologists and sociologists have argued that whatever
provides the basic myths, stories, narratives, and explanations of what
reality is like and how we ought to conduct our lives can function like
religion.<A NAME="fnB24"></A>[<A HREF="#fn24">25</A>] Thus, as even the
Supreme Court has recognized, it makes perfectly good sense to think of
secular humanistic beliefs and values as being essentially religious in
the way that they operate in a society or in the lives of individuals.<A
NAME="fnB25"></A>[<A HREF="#fn25">26</A>] And, of course, belief systems
like Buddhism and Taoism do not include belief in a god or gods, yet we
do not hesitate to think of them as religions. John Dewey thought of his
own secular, atheistic beliefs as essentially religious. In the very last
paragraph of his book <I>A Common Faith</I>, he writes: "Here are all
the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class,
or race. Such a faith has always been implicitly the common faith of mankind.
It remains to make it explicit and militant." Dewey's claim for the
universality of his faith is extravagant, but his comment about making it
explicit and militant is prescient, at least if we can judge on the basis
of public education in America over the past 30 years or so.</P>
<P>John Rawls takes a far more moderate position, one that in some respects
Christians will find attractive. He writes that "the limits imposed
by public reason do not apply to all political questions but only to those
involving what we may call 'constitutional essentials' and questions of
basic justice." These include fundamental questions such as "who
has the right to vote, or what religions are to be tolerated, or who is
to be assured fair equality of opportunity, or to hold property."<A
NAME="fnB26"></A>[<A HREF="#fn26">27</A>] The Supreme Court, Rawls notes,
ought to be the exemplar of public reason.<A NAME="fnB27"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn27">28</A>] Public reason is never justified in appealing to the particular
beliefs of what Rawls terms a "comprehensive doctrine," whether
this be religious or secular. When discussing constitutional essentials
and matters of basic justice we are rather "to appeal only to presently
accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and
the methods and conclusions of science when these are not controversial."<A
NAME="fnB28"></A>[<A HREF="#fn28">29</A>] Rawls specifically writes that
</P>
<DL>
<DD>the status of the natural world and our proper relation to it is not
a constitutional essential or a basic question of justice, as these questions
have been specified. It is a matter in regard to which citizens can vote
their nonpolitical values and try to convince other citizens accordingly.
The limits of public reason do not apply.<A NAME="fnB29"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn29">30</A>] </DD>
</DL>
<P>Rawls seems less than clear about whether these comments about voting
one's nonpolitical values and trying to convince other citizens accordingly
mean that in public policy discussions it is legitimate to refer to secular
and religious beliefs and values that are part of comprehensive doctrines.
In a number of places he seems to imply that all <I>public</I> discussion
should employ only public reason and that legislators, judges, and public
officials should also limit themselves to what can be said within the limits
of public reason. My own reading of Rawls suggests that the most consistent
position would be that when matters of basic justice and constitutional
essentials are not at stake then it would be permissible to introduce reasonable
religious and secular beliefs and values in the discussion.</P>
<P>It is important to note that Rawls treats secular philosophies in the
same way that he treats religious world views. Both are included in the
category "comprehensive doctrines." Thus, classical liberalism,
insofar as it is a comprehensive doctrine or worldview, falls under the
same restrictions as Christianity or Judaism or other "reasonable"
religions.<A NAME="fnB30"></A>[<A HREF="#fn30">31</A>] Because most environmental
issues do not fall within the category of what Rawls calls "constitutional
essentials and questions of basic justice," it is legitimate--if I
read Rawls correctly--to argue for or against many specific policies on
the basis of one's religious commitments. </P>
<P>Rawls sees "the Supreme Court as an Exemplar of Public Reason."<A
NAME="fnB31"></A>[<A HREF="#fn31">32</A>] One of its tasks is "to give
due and continuing effect to public reason by serving as its institutional
exemplar."<A NAME="fnB32"></A>[<A HREF="#fn32">33</A>] Rawls continues:</P>
<DL>
<DD>Citizens and legislators may properly vote their more comprehensive
views when constitutional essentials and basic justice are not at stake;
they need not justify by public reason why they vote as they do or make
their grounds consistent and fit them into a coherent constitutional view
over the whole range of their decisions. The role of the justices is to
do precisely that and in doing it they have no other reason and no other
values than the political.<A NAME="fnB33"></A>[<A HREF="#fn33">34</A>]
</DD>
</DL>
<P></P>
<P>He then notes that </P>
<DL>
<DD>[t]he justices cannot, of course, invoke their own personal morality,
nor the ideals and virtues of morality generally. Those they must view
as irrelevant. Equally, they cannot invoke their or other people's religious
or philosophical views."<A NAME="fnB34"></A>[<A HREF="#fn34">35</A>]</DD>
</DL>
<P></P>
<P>How should we as Christians respond to Audi, Ackerman, Rawls, and others
who want to limit or exclude religious reasons from the public square? First,
we must distinguish between radical views like those of Audi and Ackerman
and the more moderate position of Rawls. I believe that Christians should
strongly oppose the views of Audi and Ackerman that would largely exclude
Christians from the public square (unless they speak in secular terms).
These positions cannot in my judgment be justified politically or morally.
They either disenfranchise a large portion of the citizenry or else force
them to lead intellectually schizophrenic lives. </P>
<P>The views of philosophers like Audi and Ackerman seem to rest on the
Enlightenment conviction that secular reason is rational in a way that religious
reason is not. Secular reason, according to this way of thinking, is based
on evidence, common sense, science, and logic; it contrasts sharply with
religious reason, which is grounded in revelation, emotion, superstition,
and dogma. But I find this distinction epistemologically unconvincing. All
human knowledge programs, all human research enterprises, all human attempts
to understand the world in which we live and how we ought to conduct our
lives--all are limited and subject to error, and all rest on beliefs about
the nature of reality that may indeed be reasonable but are not compellingly
rational to those who start with different reasonable beliefs and assumptions.
Human thinking always starts with belief or assent and not with radical
doubt, and one of the main differences between, say, a Christian worldview
and most secular worldviews is that Christians generally are more up front
about the role of their basic beliefs.<A NAME="fnB35"></A>[<A HREF="#fn35">36</A>]
My considered judgment is that it simply is not possible to argue successfully
that secular reason as such is more objective, more rational, or more universal
than is religious reason as such.<A NAME="fnB36"></A>[<A HREF="#fn36">37</A>]
</P>
<P>Bentham's utilitarian calculus is accepted by a great many thinkers,
and in some situations by almost all of us, but how could one conceivably
demonstrate that his view is more universal and more reasonable than such
fundamental Christian convictions as the Golden Rule or the belief that
Christians should imitate their Lord in living lives of sacrifice and concern
for the well being of others? Beginning in the modern West, rights language
has over the past 100 years spread throughout much of the world, but it
is not the preferred language of most religious people, and if one asks
about what justifies or grounds moral rights (as over against legal or political
rights) the answers become at least as difficult and problematic as arguments
for the existence of God.</P>
<P>Far more Americans understand their lives at the deepest levels in theistic
terms than in purely secular terms. I am not a relativist or a postmodernist,
and I believe that some positions are more reasonable than others. But to
argue that secular moral and social views as a set are more reasonable or
more public than religious moral and social views as a set makes little
sense to me. Why would one think this to be so? Christianity is not a private
religion that is not open to people who are not Christians. The belief that
Jesus Christ is Lord is just as accessible to non-Christians as is the utilitarian
belief that society ought to make decisions on the basis of maximizing human
happiness or trying to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
Christians are able to give reasons in support of their belief that it is
reasonable to follow Jesus Christ no less so than secular philosophers are
able to give reasons in support of secular moral and political theories.</P>
<P>If secularists can put forward no convincing grounds for discriminating
against religiously grounded moral views concerning how we should think
about and treat our natural environment, then why should they try to insulate
the public square from such religious views.<A NAME="fnB37"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn37">38</A>] To be sure, when Christians are able to rely on widely accepted
secular grounds in favor of particular environmental policies it is usually
prudent to do so. But this is not different in principle from the situation
in which humanists and atheists find themselves. It would be foolish for
atheists to advertise their atheism when arguing for particular environmental
policies when there was no special need to do so. American socialists may
draw upon the insights of Lenin and Marx, but if these insights have become
widely accepted as part of our common understanding of the just society,
then what could they possibly gain by advertizing their atheistic parentage?
To do so would serve no useful purpose, unless most of those wrestling with
the issue at hand were themselves Marxists.</P>
<P>As we have seen, Rawls takes a far more moderate position than Audi and
Ackerman. Insofar as liberalism and other secular worldviews are what Rawls
terms "comprehensive doctrines," they occupy no privileged place
epistemologically. When questions of basic justice and constitutional essentials
are at stake, Rawls insists that we limit ourselves to public reason. One
problem with Rawls' position, however, is that in many tough cases--take
issues like abortion, euthanasia, animal rights/welfare, wilderness preservation,
and intergenerational responsibility--public reason seems too limited in
scope to help much. However strongly we may wish for it, there simply is
no generally accepted public reason that can provide definitive answers
to these complex issues.<A NAME="fnB38"></A>[<A HREF="#fn38">39</A>]</P>
<P>Virtually all Americans are committed to the concept of public reason
up to a certain point. We discovered long ago that avoiding theological
controversy by arguing for policy positions in a secular manner made good
sense. Indeed, it is difficult to visualize what a Presbyterian view of
soil conservation, a Jewish position on cleaning up toxic dumps, or a Catholic
method for saving the California condor might look like--even though both
Jews and Christians believe that God is Lord over all of life.<A NAME="fnB39"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn39">40</A>] On the other hand, phrases like a Catholic view on
abortion, an orthodox Jewish view of marriage, or an Evangelical Christian
view of extra-marital sex make perfectly good sense, and we use such expressions
frequently.</P>
<P>I would like to suggest a way for Christians to begin working for greater
fairness in the public square. My recommendation might at first sound like
overkill or suggest that I am being unduly sensitive, but it might just
possibly provide an effective way to begin to raise society's consciousness
about religious discrimination. My recommendation is this: We Christians
should challenge the way in which most academics, the media, and our courts
employ the term "sectarian" in relation to Christians and other
religious Americans. All of these groups, including even the U.S. Supreme
Court, commonly describe religious Americans and their institutions, beliefs,
and activities as "sectarian," while at the same time using the
term "nonsectarian" to refer to secular Americans and their institutions,
beliefs, and activities. For the Supreme Court, religious = sectarian and
secular = nonsectarian.<A NAME="fnB40"></A>[<A HREF="#fn40">41</A>] </P>
<P>This usage has become so commonplace that even most Christians hardly
give it a thought. But if one takes time to recall the history of the term
"sectarian," the employment of these formulas by public figures
becomes highly problematic. "Sectarian" is a mean-spirited term
with connotations like schismatic, unorthodox, parochial, narrow minded,
rigid, heretical, and biased. Historically, the term has been used to marginalize
and disenfranchise one's political and religious enemies and opponents.
Sociologists and other scholars may use the term with relatively little
bias (although even this is questionable), but when used by public figures,
its impact is generally discriminatory and prejudicial.</P>
<P>The evolution of the term's usage is instructive. Jefferson employed
it to refer to orthodox Christians in contrast to his own Unitarian-Deistic
beliefs. He argued that Calvinists based their beliefs on dogma, revelation,
and superstition, and he referred to them as parochial and sectarian. But
his own religious beliefs, he thought, were grounded in reason, science,
and common sense; they were universal and "nonsectarian." As McCarthy,
Skillen and others have pointed out, such a distinction today seems far
sooner self serving than self-evident, but it nonetheless deeply influenced
the place of religion in American public life.<A NAME="fnB41"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn41">42</A>]</P>
<P>It is important to note that while Jefferson used the term "sectarian"
to refer to the wrong kind of religion (and the term "nonsectarian"
to refer to the right kind of religion--i.e. his own Unitarian/Enlightenment
version of Christianity), today the term "sectarian" is applied
to religion in general and the term "non-sectarian" to the secular
in general. And a careful reading of Supreme Court decisions clearly shows
that where the formula "religious = sectarian" is employed the
context usually is pejorative, and where the formula "secular = nonsectarian"
is employed the context is generally positive.<A NAME="fnB42"></A>[<A HREF=
"#fn42">43</A>]</P>
<P>I find no good reasons for public figures today to continue to employ
the formula "religious = sectarian," and insofar as it prejudices
public discussion and debate there are many good reasons for abandoning
such usage except where the formula needs to be employed for the sake of
historical accuracy. It symbolizes the bigoted and unreasonable attitude
of all too many Americans today towards religion, especially Christianity.
By insisting--politely but firmly--that public officials, academia, and
the media abandon such prejudicial terminology, we will call attention to
the importance of rethinking the role religion might play in public life.</P>
<P></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>C. TRADITIONAL LIBERALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY</B></P>
<P>Traditional political liberals make a strong case that government ought
not to concern itself with particular concepts of the good life or the good
society but instead should limit itself to establishing just and fair procedures
and laws. Individuals, according to classical liberal thought, should be
left free to pursue the good, including the religious good, according to
their own consciences and beliefs. </P>
<P>Although this position is closely related to America's commitment to
freedom of religion, it presents unusual difficulties when it comes to how
we ought to deal with our natural environment, for issues such as our treatment
of animals, wilderness preservation, and responsibility to future generations
appear to have much more to do with competing visions of the good life than
with questions of basic social justice. </P>
<P>Take the case of animal welfare/animal rights. Harming a pig or a raccoon
or a whitetail deer in very few cases directly harms other people. It may
offend them, but in liberal theory my being offended does not provide sufficient
justification for the state to restrict someone else's freedom. Extending
concern to animals along the lines attempted by Peter Singer, Tom Regan,
Paul Taylor, and others depends on espousing a particular vision of the
good life, one that includes or provides the reasonable basis for what they
consider the proper treatment of animals.<A NAME="fnB43"></A>[<A HREF="#fn43">44</A>]
To try to get the state to pass laws to protect animals--perhaps pushing
all of us toward a vegetarian diet or prohibiting hunting and the use of
animals in medical research--is to want the state to restrict the freedom
of all citizens not on the basis of traditional considerations of justice
but on the basis of a vision of the good life shared by only certain citizens.
This is something liberals are not supposed to do. The question of whether
animals are morally considerable in roughly the same way humans are rests
ultimately on metaphysical and/or religious assessments of animal and human
nature (for instance, are only humans created in the image of God, and if
so, what significance does this fact have for our treatment of animals?).
Traditional liberal doctrines of justice give no standing to animals, and
thus we ought not try to limit other people's freedom by restricting their
treatment of animals.<A NAME="fnB44"></A>[<A HREF="#fn44">45</A>]</P>
<P>The question of intergenerational justice also raises troublesome problems
for traditional liberals. In discussing this issue, philosopher Derek Parfit
asks us to envision two scenarios for the future.<A NAME="fnB45"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn45">46</A>] In the first of these, the pollution scenario, we do
everything wrong, polluting our land, air, and water, and squandering our
natural resources. In the second scenario, the conservation scenario, we
do everything right with respect to our natural environment.</P>
<P>Parfit asks the question: If we today follow the pollution scenario rather
than the conservation scenario, will those who live, say, 100 years from
now, be able to claim that we violated their rights, and thereby acted unjustly
towards them. Parfit's answer is both counterintuitive and irritating to
most conservationists, but probably correct. In short, he says, "No,
they would not be justified in saying we had violated their rights."
</P>
<P>Parfit defends this conclusion as follows. If we today follow the conservation
scenario rather than the pollution scenario, an entirely different set of
people will be alive 100 years from now than would have been the case had
we followed the pollution scenario. This is because following the conservation
scenario would have had all kinds of subtle but important impacts on our
reproduction. Say, for instance, that we were to ride bicycles to and from
work, keep our houses cooler in winter and warmer in summer, grow our own
vegetables, take fewer and colder showers, eat less red meat, and so forth.
All of these particular actions would affect precisely when and under what
circumstances men and women have sexual intercourse, which in turn would
mean that different sperm would fertilize particular eggs (or sometimes
even different eggs). But since the genetic encoding of each person depends
entirely on which sperm fertilizes which egg, within a very few generations
the earth would come to be populated by a totally different set of people
than would have been the case had we followed the pollution scenario. If
we had followed the conservation scenario, most of the people who would
have resulted from our following the pollution scenario would never exist
have existed at all.</P>
<P>So unless people who are born under the pollution scenario could say
that their lives were so bad that they would have been better off never
to have been born at all, they simply would have no basis for claiming that
we had violated their rights. Their very existence depended on our having
followed the pollution scenario.</P>
<P>Does Parfit's example mean that we have no responsibilities to future
generations? Not at all! Rather, what it means is that we cannot argue for
such responsibility on the basis of traditional liberal thinking about rights.
Successful attempts to justify responsibility to future generations depend
on embracing particular visions of the good life and the good society. Public
policy which in good liberal fashion attempts to limit itself to fair procedures
and correct principles of justice may simply be unable to deal adequately
with the question of intergenerational responsibility.<A NAME="fnB46"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn46">47</A>]</P>
<P>In sharp contrast to the difficulties traditional liberals encounter
in trying to deal with intergenerational responsibility, Christians find
this issue surprisingly easy to resolve, at least in terms of determining
whether or not we do have such a responsibility. This is because God transcends
the generations, and he loves not just people now alive but also those who
have lived in the past and those who will live in the future. Also, insofar
as future people will become members of the church, the mystical body of
Jesus Christ, those who are now alive who are also members of the Body of
Christ would be acting irrationally if they failed to look after the interests
of future people, especially fellow Christians. "If one member [of
the Body of Christ] suffers," Paul reminds us, "all suffer together;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together."<A NAME="fnB47"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn47">48</A>]</P>
<P>Wilderness preservation is also problematic within a traditional liberal
context. Some preservations arguments can be made on the basis of preserving
genetic diversity in the hope someday of capitalizing on these agriculturally,
medically, and industrially. Wilderness also has value for recreation, maintaining
ecological balance, and so forth. But the driving force behind wilderness
preservation is the conviction that preserving wilderness helps us become
better people and a better society, and preserves for us an essential part
of the good life. Not a few individuals maintain an essentially religious
attitude toward nature and toward wilderness in particular, and it is this
attitude that most deeply motivates their preservation efforts. But such
religious (or metaphysical) attitudes and attendant beliefs fall within
the realm of what Rawls calls "comprehensive doctrines." They
fall outside of the domain of "public reason," and they do not
provide an adequate basis for wilderness preservation if government is permitted
to limit my freedom only to prevent injustice to others.</P>
<P>Rather than utilizing what are at best secondary arguments for preserving
wilderness such as wilderness as a treasury trove of possible medicines
and wilderness as preserving genetic diversity, would it not be better for
preservationists honestly to admit that they embrace a different vision
of the good life than non-preservationists? Christians and secularists might
find common ground in such an admission: Christians could favor wilderness
preservation on the basis of wanting to maintain exemplars of God's creative
activity, on the basis of the role wilderness plays in Biblical and Christian
tradition, and on the basis of preserving nature as a manifestation of the
power and glory of God. Non-Christian environmentalists could put forward
their own religious and secular reasons for wilderness preservation. Together
they might be politically strong enough to carry the day. And if not, then
both Christian and nonChristian preservationists could continue the dialogue
with those who do not find wilderness worth preserving, trying to persuade
them to join in the effort.<A NAME="fnB48"></A>[<A HREF="#fn48">49</A>]</P>
<P>It may well be that the long-term care of the environment will demand
that Americans become more comfortable about publicly discussing and debating
what constitutes the good life and the good society. Actually, most citizens
already publicly talk about the good without great discomfort; it is mainly
political philosophers and political scientists who want to limit conversation
to justice talk. But, as we have seen, justice talk will probably not be
adequate for dealing with some of the most important environmental problems
we face today. If politics is to be anything more than using state power
to force our preferences on each other, then when it comes to some very
important environmental policy issues we will have to find ways to engage
in civil, constructive dialogue about the nature of the good society.</P>
<P></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B>D. BEARING WITNESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY</B></P>
<P>Americans face a difficult dilemma. In a world where all people shared
the same fundamental assumptions and worldview commitments, the concept
of public reason would not be problematic. Talk about the good as well as
the just would fall within the category of public reason. But we do not
live in such a world. We do not even agree fully about what constitutes
justice, let alone what constitutes the good life and the good society.<A
NAME="fnB49"></A>[<A HREF="#fn49">50</A>] Where worldview commitments differ
substantially, limiting public discussion and debate to justice concerns
that fall within an overlapping consensus makes sense, but unfortunately
it does not permit us to deal with many of the urgent social (especially
environmental) problems we face. </P>
<P>In our highly pluralistic society, we are frequently able to reach agreement
on particular environmental policies and to do so without violating our
consciences. Often this means that we will have to compromise and accept
less than we wanted. But, as we have seen, some critical environmental issues
cannot be rationally resolved in terms of what Rawls calls our constitutional
essentials and considerations of basic justice.<A NAME="fnB50"></A>[<A
HREF="#fn50">51</A>] One option is to pretend that our shared assumptions
permit us to reach firm, rational, logical conclusions on a broader range
of issues than is actually the case. But such a procedure is fundamentally
dishonest. In the realm of constitutional interpretation, <I>Roe v. Wade</I>
is, in my judgment, an example of such "dishonesty" or "bad
faith."<A NAME="fnB51"></A>[<A HREF="#fn51">52</A>] The justices in
this landmark 1973 case rely neither on public reason nor on disciplined
constitutional interpretation. Indeed, I would be willing to argue that
in <I>Roe</I> the court was not really reading the constitution at all;
instead they were unabashedly imposing their own beliefs and values on the
rest of society. Such a move both silences genuine democratic political
discussion and debate and also destroys confidence in the rule of law.</P>
<P>When our plural beliefs do not permit us to reach firm policy conclusions
on environmental issues the worst thing we can do is to ignore each other
and drift into a kind of sullen silence. Nor should we uncomplainingly submit
to illegitimate attempts by the courts to enforce private values on the
public. In this situation of disagreement we might well call upon the Christian
concept of "bearing witness." In bearing witness to our beliefs
and values, we might or might not discover some further degree of overlapping
consensus. But even where consensus or compromise eludes us, we still might
end up with a better understanding of where others are coming from and where
they hope to go, and perhaps develop greater understanding and sympathy
for those individuals and groups that embrace views different from our own.
</P>
<P>The concept of bearing witness seems particularly appropriate for a pluralistic
society. Rather than insisting that our opponents or their positions are
rationally defective or unreasonable, we openly acknowledge both the plural
nature of our society and the fact that there remains a kind of mystery
about how and why we commit ourselves to ultimate beliefs and values. When
Peter, in answer to Jesus' question about who he is, replies, "You
are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus responds, "Blessed
are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,
but my Father who is in heaven." Peter's realization that Jesus was
the Messiah was the most fundamental component of his worldview. It was
the insight upon which rested his entire understanding of what it meant
to be a Christian. But Jesus makes clear that Peter did not come to this
deep knowledge on his own. It was given to him. There remains a mystery
about knowledge at the deepest levels. We never fully understand why or
how we come to our fundamental views about the nature of reality and about
how we ought to live. Because of this it seems far more appropriate to "bear
witness" to the truth as we have experienced it than to insist that
those who disagree with us are bad people or that their arguments are "rationally
defective."<A NAME="fnB52"></A>[<A HREF="#fn52">53</A>]</P>
<P>As Christians who believe in a God who comes to us as a babe in a manger
rather than with overwhelming force and who believe in fundamental freedom
of conscience, we ought always to show respect for those who differ with
us about particular environmental policies, even though at times we may
support legislation that will restrict the freedom of these individuals.
On the other hand, we should refuse to be marginalized by those who see
us as sectarians and as unfit to participate in the public realm unless
we disengage ourselves from what we truly believe and value. We have much
to contribute to the fields of environmental ethics, environmental education,
and environmental policy, and we should resist all attempts to keep us quarantined
in a cultural and political ghetto just because we think in religious rather
than secular terms.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Richard A. Baer, Jr. October 3, 1996</P>
<P>Department of Natural Resources</P>
<P>College of Agriculture and Life Sciences</P>
<P>Cornell University</P>
<P>Ithaca, NY 14853</P>
<P></P>
<P><A NAME="fn0"></A>[1]<TT>Plato, for instance, expressed concern for deforestation
in ancient Attica [reference to be filled in later]. </TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn1"></A>[2]<TT> Yi-fu Tuan, "Discrepancies Between Environmental
Attitudes and Behavior," <I>The Canadian Geographer</I>, (volume, year,
& pagination to be filled in later); see also Yi-fu Tuan, <I>Topophilia</I>,
New York: Columbia University Press, 1974 (2nd ed. 1990).</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn2"></A>[3]<TT>See <I>Christians and the Good Earth</I>, F/M/N
Papers, Number 1, Alexandria, Virginia: The Faith-Man-Nature Group, n.d.;
<I>A New Ethic for a New Earth</I>, ed. Glenn C. Stone, New York: The Friendship
Press, 1971; <I>Ethics for Environment: Three Religious Strategies</I> ed.
Dave Steffenson, Walter J. Herscher, and Robert S. Cook, Green Bay, Wisconsin:
U.W.G.B. Ecumenical Center, 1973. The driving force behind these books and
the several national conferences held in the late 1960s and early 1970s
was Phillip N. Joranson, a biologist and forester, who with great dedication
and energy brought together scientists, theologians, Biblical scholars,
and government agency personnel to talk about religion, ethics, and the
environment. Joranson typically stayed behind the scenes, giving credit
to others, even when he deserved most of it himself. That is one reason
why his name is not well known among those working in the field of environmental
ethics today. But he truly was a pioneer in the field and deserves our deepest
gratitude. See references to Joranson in Roderick Frazier Nash, <I>The Rights
of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics</I>, Madison, Wisconsin: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, pp. 102-104.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn3"></A>[4]<TT>Richard A. Baer, Jr., "Ecology, Religion
and the American Dream," <I>The American Ecclesiastical Review</I>
Vol. CLXV, No. 1 (September 1971, pp. 43-59.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn4"></A>[5]<TT>Richard A. Baer, Jr., "Higher Education,
the Church, and Environmental Values," <I>Natural Resources Journal</I>,
Vol. 17, No. 3 (July 1977).</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn5"></A>[6]<TT>Aldo Leopold, <I>A Sand County Almanac</I>,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 204.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn6"></A>[7]<TT>Paul W. Taylor, <I>Respect for Nature: A Theory
of Environmental Ethics</I>, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1986. See especially chapters 2 and 6.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn7"></A>[8]<TT>Peter Singer, <I>Animal Liberation</I>, New
York: New York Review, 2nd ed. 1990, pp. 1-23.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn8"></A>[9]<TT>Tom Regan, <I>The Case for Animal Rights</I>
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn9"></A>[10]<TT>Reinhold Niebuhr, <I>The Nature and Destiny
of Man</I>, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949, pp. 178-186.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn10"></A>[11]<TT>Secular philosophers not infrequently argue
that it is difficult for modern man to accept the Biblical doctrines of
creation and salvation. But it strikes me that what we believe makes a good
deal more sense than the view of those who see the world as simply the result
of chance mutations and natural selection and as utterly indifferent to
human concerns. Cornell Astronomer Carl Sagan, for instance, claims that
all teleological theories of life are simply religious fantasy and superstition,
for we are the product of blind, meaningless chance. The cosmos is utterly
indifferent to our hopes and dreams, yet, according to Sagan, we are obligated
to this cosmos to survive and flourish, and to respect and even revere the
world about us. I find such a view both odd and far less persuasive than
the existentially compelling Christian affirmation that we ought to love
God and respect what God values because he first loved us and provided this
wondrous creation for our use and enjoyment. See Carl Sagan, <I>Cosmos</I>,
New York: Random House, 1980; Richard A. Baer, Jr., "'Cosmos', Cosmologies,
and the Public Schools," <I>This World</I>, Number 5 (Spring/Summer
1983), pp. 5-17.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn11"></A>[12]<TT>I am here ignoring romantic and mystical views
of human freedom and fulfillment, views that emphasize intuition, emotion,
and the deliberate turning away from reason. In terms of the medieval distinction
between <I>ratio</I> and <I>intellectus</I>, such views focus almost exclusively
on <I>intellectus</I> and downplay <I>ratio</I>, the opposite of what was
characteristic of the Enlightenment. Christianity at its best tries to achieve
a balance between the two: human fulfillment does not come from suppressing
the one or the other but in submitting both to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn12"></A>[13]<TT>See discussion of Murdoch in Stanley Hauerwas,
<I>Vision and Virtue</I>, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1881, pp. 30-47.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn13"></A>[14]<TT> Wendell Berry, <I>Sex, Economy, Freedom,
& Community</I>, New York: Pantheon Books, 1993, pp. 117-173. One reason,
Berry suggests, that our society today has so much trouble with the relation
between the sexes is that we tend to view this issue mainly in terms of
rights rather than in terms of the multitude of informal arrangements that
have been typical of most actual communities throughout history. In <I>The
Unsettling of America</I> (New York: Avon Books, 1977) Berry draws parallels
between our treatment of our bodies and our treatment of the earth. Why
do we think we will be faithful to the land when we are not even faithful
in our marriages? See especially chapter seven, "The Body and the Earth,"
pp. 97-140.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn14"></A>[15]<TT>Max Oelschlaeger, <I>Caring for Creation:
An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis</I>, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994, pp. 199-200.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn15"></A>[16]<TT>See Richard John Neuhaus and Peter L. Berger,
To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy, Washington,
D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn16"></A>[17]<TT>James W. Skillen <I>The Scattered Voice</I>,
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Books, 1990, pp. 209-210.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn17"></A>[18]<TT>Niebuhr, I, 190-191.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn18"></A>[19]<TT>This is not unlike the alleged attitudes of
Victorians towards human sexuality. It was not uncommon to be fairly explicit
about the sexual practices of south Sea Islanders or African natives but
not of Europeans or Americans. I can remember as a child in the 1930s seeing
National Geographic color photos of bare-breasted, largely naked men and
women from far away places. But such a respectable magazine would never
have published similar photos of "civilized" Westerners!</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn19"></A>[20]<TT> Just what constitutes limiting another's
freedom, however, is frequently anything but obvious. Many environmental
regulations limit the freedom of citizens in various ways, and virtually
all increases in taxes needed to pay for environmental policies tend to
limit the freedom of some, even though they may increase the freedom of
others. For instance, many Christian parents today are forced by high taxes
to hire surrogate care for their children so that both parents can work
outside the home, even though these parents may place a high priority on
nurturing their own children. High taxes in this case result in a severe
curtailment of the parents' freedom. The refusal of states to pay tuition
for private schools is another case in point. High school taxes make it
economically impossible for many parents to choose a religious education
for their children, even though sending their children to government schools
violates their consciences at a deep level. Thus it is clear that trying
to distinguish between policies that limit people's freedom and policies
that do not do so is no easy task. As often as not, it muddies rather than
clarifies policy discussions.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn20"></A>[21]<TT>Robert Audi, "The Separation of Church
and State and the Obligations of Citizenship," <I>Philosophy and Public
Affairs</I>, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Summer 1989), p. 279.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn21"></A>[22]<TT>Bruce A. Ackerman, <I>Social Justice in the
Liberal State</I>, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, p. 11.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn22"></A>[23]<TT>Ackerman, p. 160.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn23"></A>[24]<TT>Ackerman, p. 162.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn24"></A>[25]<TT>See discussion in James Davison Hunter, <I>Culture
Wars: the Struggle to Define America</I>, New York: Basic Books, 1991, p.
131.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn25"></A>[26]<TT>See <I>Torcaso v. Watkins</I>, 367 U.S. 488
at 495 in footnote; also <I>Schempp</I>, 374 U.S. 203 at 313, where Justice
Stewart, dissenting, refers to "a religion of secularism."</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn26"></A>[27]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 214.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn27"></A>[28]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 216.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn28"></A>[29]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 224.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn29"></A>[30]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 246.
It should be noted, however, that Rawls places more restrictive limits on
judges, legislators, and public officials. They should limit their arguments
to what can be established by public reason. But this seems highly unrealistic
to me, mainly because some of the toughest environmental policy issues we
face today (how we should treat animals, wilderness preservation, and intergenerational
justice are good examples) simply cannot be resolved one way or another
on the basis of Rawls' limited concept of public reason. </TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn30"></A>[31]<TT>See Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, pp.
58-66 for a discussion of what he means by "reasonable comprehensive
doctrines."</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn31"></A>[32]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 231.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn32"></A>[33]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 235.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn33"></A>[34]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 235.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn34"></A>[35]<TT>Rawls, <I>Political Liberalism</I>, p. 236.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn35"></A>[36]<TT>The very learning of language and thus the
ability to think as a human being depends on a prior commitment on the part
of those who nurture the child to tell the truth, at least most of the time.
Descartes may have thought that he was radical in his doubt, but had he
been genuinely radical he would have had to doubt the grammatical efficacy
and the word meanings of the Latin and French in which he did his doubting--in
which case he would have been totally paralyzed as far as further thinking
was concerned.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn36"></A>[37]<TT>See discussions in Alasdair MacIntyre, <I>Whose
Justice? Which Rationality?</I>, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1988; Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., <I>The Irony of Liberal Reason</I>,
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981; Jeffrey Stout, <I>Ethics
After Babel: the Languages of Morals and Their Discontents</I>, Boston:
Beacon Press, 1888.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn37"></A>[38]<TT>The position that religion is particularly
likely to produce dissension, conflict, and oppression is not convincing,
especially considering the political events of the past 75 years. Secular
philosophies and atheistic states like the Soviet Union and China have degraded
and destroyed human life on a scale that makes religious strife and oppression
in our own (or any other) century seem trivial by comparison.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn38"></A>[39]<TT>Rawls' attempt in <I>Political Liberalism</I>
(p. 243, n. 32) to ground a pro-choice position on abortion in public reason
strikes me (and most colleagues with whom I have discussed the issue) as
remarkably unsuccessful. Indeed one of the problems with Rawls writing is
that he gives very few examples, and when he does give an example, as in
the case of abortion, it turns out to be far from convincing.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn39"></A>[40]<TT>On the other hand, it also is hard to visualize
what a humanist view of harbor dredging, a Kantian view of running the post
office, or a Marxist view of building superhighways might look like. The
oddness of such attributions seems to be more closely related to the nature
of the activity than to whether it is religious or secular.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn40"></A>[41]<TT>See Richard A. Baer, Jr., "The Supreme
Court's Discriminatory Use of the Term 'Sectarian'," <I>The Journal
of Law and Politics</I>, Vol. Vi, No. 3 (Spring 1990), pp. 449-468.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn41"></A>[42]<TT>See Rockne McCarthy, Donald Oppewal, Walfred
Peterson, and Gordon Spykman, <I>Society State, & Schools: A Case for
Structural and Confessional Pluralism</I>, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981, pp. 81-86; Rockne M.McCarthy, James
W. Skillen, and William A. Harper, <I>Disestablishment a Second Time: Genuine
Pluralism for American Schools</I>, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Christian University
Press, 1982, pp. 15-29.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn42"></A>[43]<TT>Baer, <I>Supreme Court</I>, p. 452-454.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn43"></A>[44]<TT> See Peter Singer, <I>Animal Liberation</I>,
New York: New York Review, 2nd ed. 1990; Tom Regan, <I>The Case for Animal
Rights</I>, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1983;
Paul W. Taylor, <I>Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics</I>,
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn44"></A>[45]<TT>Obviously we have already limited people's
freedom to a degree by passing laws regarding the torture and other ill-treatment
of animals. Such laws can be justified in part by the argument that ill-treatment
of animals might predispose individuals to the ill-treatment of humans.
Of course, the ill-treatment of another person's animals can be prohibited
on the basis of property rights. The modern animal rights movement wants
to extend basic moral considerability to sentient animals, thus including
them in the realm of moral considerability, heretofore limited almost entirely
to human beings. Kant saw our duties towards animals entirely in terms of
indirect duties towards humans (See Immanuel Kant, "Duties to Animals
and Spirits," in <I>Lectures on Ethics</I>, trans. Louis Infield, New
York: Harper and Row, 1963, pp. 239-41.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn45"></A>[46]<TT> Derek Parfit, "Energy Policy and the
Further Future: the Identity Problem," in <I>Energy and the Future</I>,
ed. Douglas MacLean and Peter G. Brown, Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield,
1983, pp. 166-179.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn46"></A>[47]<TT>I am not at all convinced that Rawls' "just
savings principle," which he presents in <I>A Theory of Justice</I>
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1971, pp. 284-293) resolves this difficulty, but the issue is too complicated
to discuss here. Rawls himself recognizes the problem of extending his principles
to the treatment of animals and of nature more generally. See note 30 above.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn47"></A>[48]<TT>I Corinthians 12:26.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn48"></A>[49]<TT>Insofar as some of those most deeply committed
to wilderness preservation view nature in essentially religious terms, one
might argue that for government to set aside wilderness areas at public
expense gives aid to religion, something which some strict separationists
strongly oppose on the basis of their understanding of the religion clause
of the First Amendment. If we applied this line of judicial argument as
strictly in the case of wilderness as the Supreme Court has done in education,
then it would seem that government ought not to be in the wilderness preservation
business at all. I find such a position extreme, however, whether in relation
to wilderness or education.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn49"></A>[50]<TT>It is important to note that the kind of one-sided
emphasis most liberal political philosophers place upon justice and their
hesitancy to talk about traditional virtues like courage, honesty, public
spiritedness, generosity, and love is anything but neutral. In their overall
view of life, Christians generally view justice as a secondary virtue at
best. In some cases trying to achieve a higher degree of justice, especially
within the context of mediating structures like family, church, and school,
might well lower the overall quality of life. Insofar as some government
initiatives pertaining to sexual harassment and affirmative action have
become excessively legalistic in their attempt to achieve more justice,
it is arguable that the overall quality of life in colleges and universities,
and perhaps also in businesses, government agencies, and elsewhere, has
been degraded. And it is not always clear that excessive regulation is even
beneficial to the victims of injustice.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn50"></A>[51]<TT>I find Rawls hard to follow on the question
of how his concept of basic justice fits together with what he calls "constitutional
essentials." He sometimes writes about them as if they were fully in
agreement with each other, a position which I find unsatisfactory, in part
because it quite overlooks the historical give and take that has contributed
to both the initial formation of the constitution and its subsequent amendments.</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn51"></A>[52]<TT> <I>Roe v. Wade</I>, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
</TT></P>
<P><A NAME="fn52"></A>[53]<TT>Albert Einstein, in claiming that his most
important ideas were "given" to him, seems to have recognized
and accepted this element of mystery in the quest for understanding. Too
many philosophers and moralists today too quickly speak of reason "compelling"
the reader to accept this or that conclusion. But what they generally do
not make nearly as clear is the extent to which their arguments rely on
hidden or poorly defended assumptions. In their thinking about how we should
treat animals, Peter Singer and Tom Regan both rely on the belief, widespread
in the Western world, that people are of equal inherent value (Regan) and
deserve equal moral consideration (Singer) in spite of the fact that humans
are clearly unequal in many observable respects--people are more or less
intelligent, stronger or weaker physically, possess or do not possess genes
that predispose to diabetes, etc. In passing, Singer and Regan note that
the belief in equality has something to do with the Biblical view that human
beings possess a soul or were created in the image of God. Thus they cannot
help but understand that in its origin the belief in human equality was
much more than just a moral ideal, which is what they claim it is today.
It was rather based on the judgment that what was most essentially human
and that which most clearly separated us from animals was indeed the same
in all human beings. </TT>
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