105
Humans cannot be fully realised without recognition of their belonging to the
community of nature, and behaving accordingly, demonstrating respect for nature
through promoting harmonious relationships in this natural community.
Interdependence is a fact, and harmonious relationships with not merely persons,
but a variety of natural beings, as well, are to be sought as the way to
self-realisation.
Despite his seemingly low estimation of traditional African values as a source for
a promising environmental ethic, Callicott did recognise the potential of this strand
of African thought:
…far more vividly than in the modern Western worldview, individuality is not only counterbalanced by community identity but one’s unique individuality is defined in part by one’s
social relationships and expressed through social interaction…. In this notion of embedded
individuality – of individuality as a nexus of communal relationships – we may have the
germ of an African environmental ethic. Add to the intense sense of social embeddedness
an equally vivid sense of embeddedness in the biotic community, and anthropocentric
African communitarianism might then be transformed into a non-anthropocentric African
environmentalism (Callicott 1986, pp. 166–167).
Kevin Behrens rightly argues that Callicott somehow missed a ‘…vivid sense of
embeddedness in the biotic community’ in at least some African thought. He argues
that African communitarianism can embrace all of nature, and thus provide a promising African environmentalism, based on respect for nature, individual objects in
nature, and the nurturing of harmonious relationships and solidarity with other natural things (Behrens 2012, p. 70).
It is the sense of ‘embedded individualism’ within communitarianism that sets
African Relational Environmentalism apart from Western expressions of holism.
Leopold’s and Callicott’s ‘Land Ethic’ places final value in the community of
nature, or the ‘land’, understood broadly as the biospheric community. One of the
persistent challenges to holism is that if one accords ecosystems and nature final
value, respect for humans becomes secondary to the needs of the biosphere. Could
this not imply a moral imperative, for instance, to cull human beings in the interests
of the survival of the earth? Such conclusions are very counter-intuitive. Callicott
has made various attempts to counter this objection, claiming that morality itself has
developed in an evolutionary way, gradually extending the boundaries of the ‘community’ of moral considerability from family to clan, to tribe, to nation, to all persons, and ultimately to nature (Behrens 2012, p. 70).
As long as holists give primacy to the interests of the biosphere, it is hard to see
how they can overcome the problem that their view might be said to be misanthropic.
Where African eco relationalism differs is that it does not prioritise the biotic community over members of the community, or vice versa. Right actions are not those that
tend to promote the integrity and stability of the land, they are those that promote
harmonious relationships between us and other members of the community of nature.
One cannot promote harmonious relationships and completely ignore the interests of
the individuals involved in the relationships. Wiredu writes: ‘To adjust the interests of
the individual to those of the community is not to subjugate one to the other. The relationship is purely … symmetrical. We could just as easily have described it as the
African Eco-Philosophy and Its Implications for Ecological Integrity in Africa
Humans cannot be fully realised without recognition of their belonging to the
community of nature, and behaving accordingly, demonstrating respect for nature
through promoting harmonious relationships in this natural community.
Interdependence is a fact, and harmonious relationships with not merely persons,
but a variety of natural beings, as well, are to be sought as the way to
self-realisation.
Despite his seemingly low estimation of traditional African values as a source for
a promising environmental ethic, Callicott did recognise the potential of this strand
of African thought:
…far more vividly than in the modern Western worldview, individuality is not only counterbalanced by community identity but one’s unique individuality is defined in part by one’s
social relationships and expressed through social interaction…. In this notion of embedded
individuality – of individuality as a nexus of communal relationships – we may have the
germ of an African environmental ethic. Add to the intense sense of social embeddedness
an equally vivid sense of embeddedness in the biotic community, and anthropocentric
African communitarianism might then be transformed into a non-anthropocentric African
environmentalism (Callicott 1986, pp. 166–167).
Kevin Behrens rightly argues that Callicott somehow missed a ‘…vivid sense of
embeddedness in the biotic community’ in at least some African thought. He argues
that African communitarianism can embrace all of nature, and thus provide a promising African environmentalism, based on respect for nature, individual objects in
nature, and the nurturing of harmonious relationships and solidarity with other natural things (Behrens 2012, p. 70).
It is the sense of ‘embedded individualism’ within communitarianism that sets
African Relational Environmentalism apart from Western expressions of holism.
Leopold’s and Callicott’s ‘Land Ethic’ places final value in the community of
nature, or the ‘land’, understood broadly as the biospheric community. One of the
persistent challenges to holism is that if one accords ecosystems and nature final
value, respect for humans becomes secondary to the needs of the biosphere. Could
this not imply a moral imperative, for instance, to cull human beings in the interests
of the survival of the earth? Such conclusions are very counter-intuitive. Callicott
has made various attempts to counter this objection, claiming that morality itself has
developed in an evolutionary way, gradually extending the boundaries of the ‘community’ of moral considerability from family to clan, to tribe, to nation, to all persons, and ultimately to nature (Behrens 2012, p. 70).
As long as holists give primacy to the interests of the biosphere, it is hard to see
how they can overcome the problem that their view might be said to be misanthropic.
Where African eco relationalism differs is that it does not prioritise the biotic community over members of the community, or vice versa. Right actions are not those that
tend to promote the integrity and stability of the land, they are those that promote
harmonious relationships between us and other members of the community of nature.
One cannot promote harmonious relationships and completely ignore the interests of
the individuals involved in the relationships. Wiredu writes: ‘To adjust the interests of
the individual to those of the community is not to subjugate one to the other. The relationship is purely … symmetrical. We could just as easily have described it as the
African Eco-Philosophy and Its Implications for Ecological Integrity in Africa