Values and Ethical Judgments by People
In this activity, we will explore how people connect to nature and the values that they possess. For HL Ethics we'll explore the ethical judgments that people make about our relationship with nature.
Teacher only boxHow humans connect to nature is often viewed from a Western perspective. This activity is designed to help us understand a more diverse set of life frames (living with or as nature).
This activity connects to TOK and Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the TOK concepts of Perspectives, Culture and Values.
Many cultures have oral histories which pass knowledge of the environment through storytelling.
We will be using the Visible Thinking Routine “Step Inside: Perceive, Know about, Care about”
I'd like to acknowledge the following people who suggested some of the video resources: Sue Monck, William Green, Sarah Urquhart, Martyn Steiner.
In this collection of videos, you will experience how different cultures talk about nature. We will use these resources to explore their values and life frames.
1) Watch at least two different videos. Generate a list of values that you think are lived through these peoples' ideas. Remember that values can be broad or specific.
Broad Values are general moral guiding principles and life goals (e.g. freedom, justice, responsibility, harmony with nature, harmony with Mother Earth, health, prosperity) informed by people's worldviews and beliefs.
Specific Values are judgements regarding nature's importance in particular situations. They can be grouped into instrumental, intrinsic and relational values.
Instrumental values relate to things that are a means to a desired end and tend to be associated with nature (e.g. as asset, capital, resources) and its contributions to people.
Intrinsic values relate to the values of nature expressed of any reference to people as valuers and include entities such as habitats or species that are worth protecting as ends in and of themselves.
Relational values refer to the meaningfulness of people-nature interactions, and interactions among people (including across generations) through nature (e.g., sense of place, spirituality, care, reciprocity).
The Honourable Harvest. (3.5 min)
The Land Owns Us (6 min)
Indigenous Peoples and Climate Action (2.5 min)
Reconciliation Begins With the Land (5.5 min)
We are Nature - TED-x (10 min)
How has our relationship with nature changed (BBC Four clip)
The Beautiful Connection between People and Country (6 min)
2) Observe this image. What does it suggest to you?
3) Watch these two videos about the Chipko and Bishnoi people of India.
4) HL: Ethical Judgments are derived from a worldview on the relationship between humans and nature (we've looked at life frames for this) and prioritised values. see HL.c Environmental Ethics.
Examine the ethical judgments two contrasting named cultures or societies we've explored might make about the construction of a new piece of infrastructure (e.g. a railway) through some undisturbed nature.
Choose one of the following sections about different cultures and their relationship with nature. Explore this further.
Chinese philosophies
If you are thinking a year ahead, sow seed
If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree
If you are thinking a hundred years ahead, educate the people
Chinese poet Kuan Tzu 500 BC
Unlike western philosophies which encourage individuality some Chinese philosophies treat individuals as an interrelated element in the whole universe so the self is encouraged to merge into the environment[1]. Confucianism values nature as the origin of all that sustains life itself from the basics of food, clothing, and shelter to innumerable sources of employment[2].
Useful Resources:
Buddhism
“Nature teaches humans to enjoy a simple life and encourages them to embrace happiness, which derives from peace of mind, making merit, helping others, and being at one with nature”.
The Buddhist work ethic and business and professional ethics [are], ideally, closely tied to respect for the environment. E. F. Schumacher's book "Small is Beautiful" describes this:
"While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is the Middle Way and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical wellbeing. The keynote of Buddhist economics is simplicity and non-violence. From an economist's point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern - amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfying results.
Bhutan is unique in its development of a measure of its wealth through GNH, Gross National Happiness. The government of Bhutan tries to measure their development, not purely through the production of wealth and consumption of goods, but also through a variety of factors contributing to the people's well-being. This is founded in the Buddhist beliefs integral to the country.
The King of Thailand has also proposed economic development along Buddhist lines with his proposed Sufficiency Economy. He thought Thailand should not aim to become an economic tiger but by creating a self-supporting economy, Thai citizens would have what they need to survive but not in excess, which would turn into waste.
Here are some interesting resources on Buddhism and the environment.
Buddhist Faith Statement on the Environment from the Interfaith Centre for Sustainable Development
Seeing true nature: Buddhism and the environment from the openDemocracy site.
UNEP on the Sufficiency Economy.
South Asia
There has been a long history of environmental protection in India with some ethnic groups espousing a vegetarian lifestyle and arguing against the killing of animals. In the 18th Century the Bishnoi villages protected their trees by sacrificing their lives. Over 300 died for this cause. This resulted in the long-term protection of the habitats in this region.
The Chipko Movement was an extension of this sentiment when in the 1970s and 1980s people practiced non-violent protest by hugging trees to prevent deforestation.
There is a good Read on the Chipko Movement in the Indian Express newspaper.
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi has become an integral part of India and his teachings are studied around the world. He was a strict vegetarian, part of his Gujarati upbringing, and he argued the case for self-sufficiency, where communities produced what they needed for a simple life. Although elements of modern India are far away from this ideal, there are many people in India, who do stick closely to this principle.
"Live simply so that others may simply live."
Indigenous Americans
"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors: we borrow it from our children.”
"Native Americans have long had an immediate relationship with their physical environments. At contact most lived in relatively small units close to the earth, cognizant of its rhythms and resources. They defined themselves by the land, by the sacred places that bounded and shaped their world. They recognized a unity in their physical and spiritual universes, the union of natural and supernatural. Their origin cycles, oral traditions, and cosmologies connected them with all animate and inanimate beings, past and present."
By living in small family units, Native Americans minimised their impact on their environment (see Tribal Societies).
Useful Resources:
Yale Climate Connections on Native Americans and a Changing Climate.
Resources on Native American and Indigenous Affairs
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s)', or 'Indigenous Australians'
"The hallmark of Aboriginal culture is 'oneness with nature'. In traditional Aboriginal belief systems, nature and landscape are comparable in importance to the bible in Christian culture. Prominent rocks, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, islands, beaches and other natural features - as well as sun, moon, visible stars and animals - have their own stories of creation and inter-connectedness. To the traditional Aborigine they are all sacred: environment is the essence of Australian Aboriginal godliness. Out of this deep reverence for nature Aborigines learned to live in remarkable harmony with the land and its animals."