Ecological citizenship
Ricardo Cueva Fernández
Republicanism has only seldom been associated with ecologism. Its distinguishing features (Pettit, 1997; Skinner, 1998) are self-government through civic virtue and the correlative vivere libero. In the latter sense, however, the concept of freedom is non-domination rather than non-interference, and has therefore generally been identified with land-owning individuals whose status and livelihoods are not dependent on others. In appearance, and owing to this “patrimonial” viewpoint, it does not seem to find a place in recent environmental concerns.
Nevertheless, such an impossibility stems from a premature analysis that underestimates republicanism’s deep roots and malleability, especially regarding the notion of citizenship applied to addressing contemporary problems. Thus, several significant authors in ecologist literature have approached its premises, from different but rigorous positions. Here, it is advisable to refer specifically to two such authors who, from different backgrounds, reach similar conclusions.
The first is Andrew Dobson (2003), who follows on from the work of T. H. Marshall and his secondment of a package of rights and obligations for all those fully integrated in society. Dobson defines ecological citizenship as the “description of democratic community agents’ moral and political rights and responsibilities, defined in terms of duties toward other humans, bearing in mind the forms of commitment and human interaction that best uphold the long-term sustainability of nature“ (p. 153, emphasis added by the author). In this sense, Dobson not only highlights the unequal distribution of wealth on the planet, but also sovereignty over resources and the ensuing asymmetry in the distribution of world power. Globalisation, therefore, may demand some degree of cosmopolitism, as noted by peers, but Dobson prefers to advocate a more ambitious post-cosmopolitism. This leads him to place greater emphasis on duties than on rights (without overlooking these), and to refer to “responsibility space communities” (2003, p. 51). Thus, the duty toward the environment and sustainability would be shared, under the principle of “common, but differentiated, responsibility” (p. 53).
This would be the scope of the justice Dobson seeks to recreate, transcending generic moral obligations (p. 59). A possible formula would be “non-reciprocal but potentially unilateral citizens’ obligations“ (p. 78). In turn, these obligations would be founded on certain virtues that, nevertheless –and here Dobson shows a turn for innovation– would not be strictly “territorialised” (p. 114) and would depend on the ecological footprint (p. 137) left by any of these subjects. This ecological footprint would be an “indicator of temporal fractions of the metabolic relationship of goods and services produced by their natural environment”, thus becoming a real “accounting tool” (p. 137) and giving rise to debts of ”ecological space” (p. 138). Not everyone on the planet should be expected to make equal measures of compensation, therefore, but an assessment should be made to determine who causes the highest proportion of harm.
However, or perhaps precisely because of the above, Dobson insists that what he calls “ecological citizenship” is anthropocentric (p. 149). Indeed, although “it is useful to understand moral community in an ecocentric sense, the same does not apply to a community of citizens” (p. 152). Sustainability is different from justice, despite both being connected (1998, p. 262), and therefore “ecological citizenship arises from the material actions of human beings” (2003, p. 148). According to Dobson, such citizenship implies that extensive participation in political self-government serves to prevent the emergence of corruption, and most especially, that which contributes to the destruction of natural resources, (for example, through funding campaigns or candidates in favour of such destruction: Orr, 2003). Likewise, it takes a comprehensive view of the survival of the planet. Nevertheless, to Dobson it is clear that concern for justice is essential and that human beings are necessarily the point of departure for this reflection.
Patrick Curry is another author who, from several premises, attempts to bring republicanism back to the ecology equation. He promotes “eco-ethical” behaviour, and its adoption without delay, given the current urgency (Curry, 2011, p. 5). In this sense, the virtue ethic contributes to developing a series of behaviours that make up a “deep green way of life“ (p. 49). Curry firmly advocates a commitment to the ecosphere. This does not only mean that no ecological system (individual, population or community) can be studied in isolation regarding the environment in which it subsists, but also that the latter is “constitutive” of the former (2000, p. 1063). The traditional “common good” in Republicanism thus becomes the “ecological common good” of “all communities making up the republic of life on Earth” (2011, p. 181).
Stated briefly, and based on the work of McLaughlin (1993, p. 14), Curry gives an example of his proposal, pointing out that one is part of the environment of any animal, just as that animal is part one’s own (2000, p. 1064), emphasising the inter-relationship between the two. Insofar as the common good of any human group fully depends on the “integrity of the ecosystem” (with its organic beings, but also its abiotic component), it is indispensable to maintain a number of duties and practices inherent to active citizenship, whose aim is not only to keep the public sphere healthy, but the “natural world that hosts, supports and constitutes it” (Curry, 2000, p. 1067). In his opinion, this will be possible when we stop showing hostility toward life (2000, p. 1069), without trying to resolve conflicts resorting exclusively to an alleged principle regarding our community, but rather building an unlimited network of “indomitably complex, essentially contingent and ultimately mysterious communities” (Curry, 2000, p. 1070).
It is easy to observe what is common to these two positions and what separates them. They both take on the challenge posed by the current natural resources crisis and aim to avail of mechanisms or to identify solutions to meet it. However, while Dobson’s position prefers to work with the notion of citizenship firmly rooted in the former political tradition, albeit with some innovations, the stance taken by Curry advocates an enlargement that leads us to a level from which we recognise the “intrinsic value” of the (organic, among other) beings inhabiting the biosphere. Unfortunately, the latter case has elicited fewer institutional and normative proposals, and its programme of action is rather hazy. However, Dobson’s proposal likewise fails to answer a question that is strongly heard and that Curry does address: How can we stop destroying “nature” without refraining from “believing” in its intrinsic value? (2011, p. 60). Or, stated differently: How can we protect species and the environment without maintaining closer links with them both?
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