Этика отношения к земле: философские подходы.

A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his A Sand County Almanac (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. There he argues that there is a critical need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with human's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". Leopold offers an ecologically based land ethic that rejects strictly human centered views of the environment and focuses on the preservation of healthy, self renewing ecosystems. A Sand County Almanac was the first systematic presentation of a holistic or ecocentric approach to the environment. Although Leopold is credited with coining the term "land ethic", there are many philosophical theories that speak to how humans should treat the land. Some of the most prominent land ethics include those rooted in economics, utilitarianism, libertarianism, egalitarianism, and ecology.

This is a land ethic based wholly upon economic self interest.

Utilitarianism was most prominently defended by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Though there are many varieties of utilitarianism, generally it is the view that a morally right action is an action that produces the maximum good for people. Utilitarianism has often been used when deciding how to use land and it is closely connected with an economic based ethic. For example, it forms the foundation for industrial farming; an increase in yield, which would increase the number of people able to receive goods from farmed land, is judged from this view to be a good action or approach. In fact, a common argument in favor of industrial agriculture is that it is a good practice because it increases the benefits for humans; benefits such as food abundance and a drop in food prices. However, a utilitarian based land ethic is different from a purely economic one as it could be used to justify the limiting of a person's rights to make a profit. For example, in the case of the farmer planting crops on a slope, if the runoff of soil into the community creek led to the damage of several neighbor's properties, then the good of the individual farmer would be overridden by the damage caused to his neighbors. Thus, while a utilitarian based land ethic can be used to support economic activity, it can also be used to challenge this activity.

Another philosophical approach often used to guide actions when making (or not making) changes to the land is libertarianism. Roughly, libertarianism is the ethical view that agents own themselves and have particular moral rights, including the right to acquire the property. In a looser sense, libertarianism is commonly identified with the belief that each individual person has a right to a maximum amount of freedom or liberty when this freedom does not interfere with other people's freedom. A well known libertarian theorist is John Hospers. For right libertarians, property rights are natural rights. Thus, it would be acceptable for the above farmer to plant on a slope as long as this action does not limit the freedom of his or her neighbors. This view is closely connected to utilitarianism. Libertarians often use utilitarian arguments to support their own arguments. For example, in 1968, Garrett Hardin applied this philosophy to land issues when he argued that the only solution to the "Tragedy of the Commons" was to place soil and water resources into the hands of private citizens. Hardin supplied utilitarian justifications to support his argument. However, it can be argued that this leaves libertarian based land ethics open to the above critique lodged against economic based approaches. Even excepting this, the libertarian view has been challenged by the critique that numerous people making self interested decisions often cause large ecological disasters, such as the Dust Bowl disaster. Even so, libertarianism is a philosophical view commonly held within the United States and, especially, held by U. S. ranchers and farmers.

Egalitarian based land ethics are often developed as a response to libertarianism. This is because, while libertarianism ensures the maximum amount of human liberty, it does not require that people help others. It also leads to the uneven distribution of wealth. A well known egalitarian philosopher is John Rawls. When focusing on land use, egalitarianism evaluates its uneven distribution and the uneven distribution of the fruits of that land. However, there is also the question of negative rights when holding to an egalitarian based ethic. In other words, if it is recognized that a person has a right to something, then someone has the responsibility to supply this opportunity or item; whether that be an individual person or the government. Thus, an egalitarian based land ethic could provide a strong argument for the preservation of soil fertility and water because it links land and water with the right to food, the growth of human populations, and the decline of soil and water resources. Similar to egalitarian based land ethics, the above land ethics were also developed as alternatives to utilitarian and libertarian based approaches. Leopold's ethic is one of the most popular ecological approaches in the early 21st century. Other writers and theorists who hold this view include Wendell Berry (b. 1934), N. Scott Momaday, J. Baird Callicott, Paul B. Thompson, and Barbara Kingsolver.

In his classic essay, "The Land Ethic," published posthumously in A Sand County Almanac (1949), Leopold proposes that the next step in the evolution of ethics is the expansion of ethics to include nonhuman members of the biotic community, However, this interpretation has recently been challenged by Roberta Millstein, who has offered evidence that Darwin's influence on Leopold was not related to Darwin's views about moral sentiments, but rather to Darwin's views about interdependence in the struggle for existence.

Leopold's ecocentric land ethic is popular today with mainstream environmentalists for a number of reasons. Unlike more radical environmental approaches, such as deep ecology or biocentrism, it does not require huge sacrifices of human interests. Leopold does not, for example, believe that humans should stop eating or hunting, or experimenting on animals. Nor does he call for a massive reduction in the human population, or for permitting humans to interfere with nature only to satisfy vital human needs (regardless of economic or other human costs). As an environmental ethic, Leopold's land ethic is a comparatively moderate view that seeks to strike a balance between human interests and a healthy and biotically diverse natural environment. Many of the things mainstream environmentalists favor—preference for native plants and animals over invasive species, hunting or selective culling to control overpopulated species that are damaging to the environment, and a focus on preserving healthy, self regenerating natural ecosystems both for human benefit and for their own intrinsic value—jibe with Leopold's ecocentric land ethic. A related understanding has been framed as global land as a commons. In this view biodiversity and terrestrial carbon storage an element of climate change mitigation are global public goods. Hence, land should be governed on a global scale as a commons, requiring increased international cooperation on nature preservation.

Some critics fault Leopold for lack of clarity in spelling out exactly what the land ethic is and its specific implications for how humans should think about the environment. It is clear that Leopold did not intend his basic normative principle ("A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community") to be regarded as an ethical absolute. Thus construed, it would prohibit clearing land to build homes, schools, or farms, and generally require a "hands off" approach to nature that Leopold plainly did not favor. Presumably, therefore, his maxim should be seen as a general guideline for valuing natural ecosystems and striving to achieve what he terms a sustainable state of "harmony between men and land." But this is vague and, according to some critics, not terribly helpful. A second common criticism of Leopold is that he fails to state clearly why we should adopt the land ethic. He often cites examples of environmental damage (e. g., soil erosion, pollution, and deforestation) that result from traditional human centered, "conqueror" attitudes towards nature. But it is unclear why such examples support the land ethic specifically, as opposed to biocentrism or some other nature friendly environmental ethic. Leopold also frequently appeals to modern ecology, evolutionary theory, and other scientific discoveries to support his land ethic. Some critics have suggested that such appeals may involve an illicit move from facts to values. According to these critics, we rightly reject such holistic approaches in human affairs. Why, they ask, should we adopt them in our treatment of non human animals? Finally, some critics have questioned whether Leopold's land ethic might require unacceptable interferences with nature in order to protect current, but transient, ecological balances. If the fundamental environmental imperative is to preserve the integrity and stability of natural ecosystems, wouldn't this require frequent and costly human interventions to prevent naturally occurring changes to natural environments? In nature, the "stability and integrity" of ecosystems are disrupted or destroyed all the time by drought, fire, storms, pests, newly invasive predators, etc. Must humans act to prevent such ecological changes, and if so, at what cost? Why should we place such high value on current ecological balances? Why think it is our role to be nature's steward or policeman? According to these critics, Leopold's stress on preserving existing ecological balances is overly human centered and fails to treat nature with the respect it deserves.