"Nature" Has No Rights Against the Powerful
I wrote previously about how President Correa of Ecuador, who gave rights to nature in his new constitution, was pushing a new mining law. The indigenous people objected, and relied on the constitutioanl rights of nature to protect their region from exploitation. Well, now riots have broken out and been forcibly dealt with. From the blog Upside Down World: A number of leaders have been arrested and other protesters were beaten and shot at by police. Campesino and indigenous protesters, who depend on clean water to farm and for drinking water, are demanding that the government shelve President Rafael Correa's proposed Mining Law, saying that it would be a social and environmental disaster. The rural blockades follow months of regular protests in Quito and other parts of the country.
Idealistic Leftists--ya gotta love them. This is the lesson: Nature rights, if literally applied, would put a complete end to human flourishing. That may be what the loony environmentalists want, but that isn't the way of the world. Nature will have rights when the powerful and the elites say it will have rights because it meets their ends, whether political, financial, or ideological. There will be times when it will be used as a powerful club to prevent human activity. But that will be because it serves a purpose for those on high. It was never meant to be a ready tool to protect the poor and indigenous people.
Protesters also argue that the law contradicts important provisions of the new constitution protecting water, the environment and indigenous peoples' rights. The document drew international attention for awarding legal rights to nature. The new constitution, approved by popular referendum in September, is the centerpiece of Correa's first term.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:25 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Those protesting the mining project are humans who want the water they need to use to remain clean. That is part of human thriving. If it's ok for them to be sacrificed, or to have to sacrifice, and suffer, "for the greater good," then they aren't equal to all other humans, and in are analogous to the victims of pre-Nuremberg experimentation, and to laboratory animals as well. That's not human exceptionalism. In fact they require the constitution granting rights to indigignous peoples (themselves) at the same time as it grants rights to nature in order to have as much of a chance to be equal to all other humans. The environment and non-human animals are not threats to us, nor is their having rights. I do have a question: Why would the powerful want to use this constitutional provision to stop human activity in certain areas, and what would be examples of that?
Ianthe:We see it now. Polar bears are listed as threatened, even though they have increased in number, not decreased, because it serves the nature religion-type hysteria held by the elites over global warming. As a result, Alaska is not going to be permitted to develop resources that would bring prosperity to its citizens and reduce energy prices for the rest of us. And all based on computer projections that haven't come true yet and probably never will.
I am not for or against the protestors over the mining. My point is that it is ludicrous to give nature rights coequal to people. When it suits the powerful, it won't matter, and when the powerful decide to use it as a club, they will.
Beyond that, if everything has rights--because basically that is what nature rights gives, then none of us do. Rights cease to be precious, just as currency loses value in inflation.
I'd say that, unfortunately, humans have rights for the same reason - a big argument against basing ethics solely on rights language. I have rights until someone more powerful than me takes them away or denies them. That isn't particular to nature - it is particular to rights.
Wesley: I see what you mean about its being used as a political weapon. Thanks for the example. I don't think we should bother the polar bears, though, or that other species don't hsve just as much right to exist as we do. I understand your theory about rights needing to be "precious," but I disagree. Rights are rights intrinsically, I believe, and not man-made; if they were the latter, then there would have been no basis for the civil rights movement, for example. One thing I find problematic about human exceptionalism is its defensive posture, as though humans had to defend themselves against other species and the rest of nature, of which we are part, and which is not a threat to us, and without which we could not even survive. ALL rights are precious, and they don't lose value because others have them. Unless, e.g., men's votes became less valuable since women got the right to vote, the civil rights of those who already had them under the law have become less valuable since the civil rights movement, etc. One can't arbitrarily choose a category of people or creatures and accord them rights; they either have them or they don't. Human exceptionalism arbitrarily assigns rights to humans only for reasons of self-interest and utilitarian purposes, just as has been done in other societies, and as has been done in the U.S. before the Civil War, but there would have been no basis for the freeing of the slaves if they had not already been entitled to the rights of which slavery had deprived them. It doesn't hurt us to acknowledge the rights of non-human life; in fact it elevates us; and the problem is not their having rights, but, as SHS keeps pointing out the humans with agendas who don't respect those rights per se, but merely allege their existence for their own purposes. We ought to get ourselves straightened out before we start talking about whether anyone or anything else has rights. We're not God, whatever or whoever God is, after all.
Doug: I think you hit the nail on the head re basing ethics on rights language. I wouldn't say not having rights, or their being taken away or denied, though: I'd say that when that is going on, the rights are being violated. Humans can make laws, but can't make justice, and can say the sky is yellow rather than blue all day long, but it's still blue, and laws not based on justice -- well, isn't that what human exceptionalism would say would be for the other animals, but not us?
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home