Ethical Arguments
Common sense moral thought suggests that destroying someone else's property is prima facie wrong, and those who recommend ecosabotage need to do the work of justifying such activity. The arguments in favor of ecosabotage fall roughly into two families: (i) consequentialist arguments, which appeal to the good environmental consequences of such actions, and (ii) ecodefense arguments, which appeal to a right of self-defense (or a right to assist other victims of an attack).
The consequentialist line of argument faces a number of obstacles:
1. One problem is that acts of ecosabotage may have a number of costs in addition to the damage done to property. For example, they may have a negative impact on the general public's perception of the environmental movement, thus making it more difficult to protect the environment using more conventional means. They may erode people's respect for the law, or for other people's property rights. They may provide encouragement to others (for example, abortion clinic bombers) who wish to use similar tactics to promote different causes. These bad consequences may be difficult to estimate, but they should figure in the overall cost/benefit analysis. (See, however, Young 2001 for some responses to these concerns.)
2. Would-be ecosaboteurs need to give some reason to think that ecosabotage is better than the alternative tactics (including, and perhaps especially, traditional civil disobedience).
3. The amount of property damage done needs to be proportional. Would-be ecosaboteurs need to be able to show that they have not destroyed property excessively—that is, that they have not done more damage than is necessary to create a sufficiently strong disincentive for individuals and corporations engaged in environmentally destructive activities.
4. Finally, one might think that the only way to address the problems just mentioned is to do a detailed cost/ benefit analysis. But proponents of ecosabotage must somehow accomplish this without revealing themselves or their plans to the authorities (Turner 2006).
In one important 2001 article on the ethics of eco-sabotage, Thomas Young suggests that the success of the consequentialist approach may depend on which version of consequentialism one endorses. He argues that rational preference utilitarianism is the moral theory that is likeliest to provide justification for particular acts of ecosabotage. This theory differs from other versions of consequentialism in two ways: First, it takes into account the desires and preferences of sentient nonhuman animals; second, it does not include irrational human preferences (such as, say, the desire to sell or to purchase a Hummer) in the calculation of costs and benefits.
As it happens, proponents of ecosabotage seldom try to justify their activities by appeal to consequentialist arguments. More common is the ecodefense argument, which appeals to the idea that environmental activists have a right to come to the defense of non-human nature. There are several versions of this argument. The ''unjust war'' version proceeds from the assumption that the human species is waging a war of conquest against nonhuman nature. According to this picture, nonhuman nature is an innocent victim of unjustified
Suspicious Fire in Woodinville, Washington, 2008.
Firefighters douse water on houses in this Seattle suburb, where four multi-million dollar homes were set aflame. An official at the scene reported finding a sign with the initials ELF, the initialism of environmental group Earth Liberation Front. The ELF is one ofa number ofactivist groups reported to employ ecosabotage methods to protect the environment. ap images.
human aggression, and activists are entitled to render assistance by making it more expensive for other humans to prosecute this war (see Turner 2005 for more discussion of this argument). The ''home invasion'' version begins with the idea that the wilderness is our home, and that wilderness is under attack by individuals and corporations. Just as we are entitled to defend our homes against intruders, activists are entitled to defend wilderness from economic development. The ''self-defense'' version is closely associated with deep ecology's idea that fulfillment requires one to identify with (or become one with) nonhuman nature. If activists come to identify with a natural area, they may reason that ecosabotage is literally a form of self-defense, or a defense of that with which they have become one. Finally, there is the ''biocentric'' version, which appeals to the idea (endorsed by some biocen-trists, especially deep ecologists) that every living thing has ''an equal right to live and blossom.'' On this version of the argument, the ecosaboteur is simply defending the rights of plants and nonhuman animals.
The ecodefense arguments have the merit of tapping into some widely shared intuitions about the right of self-defense, and about the right to intervene on behalf of innocent victims. Derek Turner (2006) argues that they also have the defect of proving too much—that is, that they would sanction destruction of other people's property in cases in which any reasonable person (including the most enthusiastic ecosaboteur) would think that we ought to respect one another's property. Philosophers have only begun to look seriously at the connections between these arguments and biocentric and ecocentric environmental thought.
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