Environmental Ethics

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For post-World War II America, scientist and writer Rachel Louise Carson (1907–1964), born in Springdale, Pennsylvania on May 27, popularized the idea that ethical discussions of science and technology should consider environmental concerns. Using the insights of ecology, Carson pointed out that humans and nature were inextricably, even physically connected; for example, they were subject to similar dangers from industrial chemicals in the environment. Therefore, Carsonargued, humans should try to respect rather than dominate nature. This argument culminated in her international bestseller, Silent Spring (1962), published shortly before her death from breast cancer on April 14.

Raised in a rural but rapidly industrializing area of Pennsylvania, Carson attended Pennsylvania Women's College (now Chatham College) from 1925 to 1929, where she majored in biology. From 1929 to 1934 she attended Johns Hopkins, graduating with a master of science in zoology. Due to the Depression, Carson could not afford to stay in school and earn her Ph.D. Instead she found a job as an editor and science writer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She worked there until 1952, when the international success of her second book, The Sea Around Us (1950), finally made it possible for her to quit and write full-time.

Carson's professional background gave her a strong grounding in the latest research from several different scientific disciplines. As well as editing the work of other scientists, her job was to synthesize and publicize scientific information for the public. In addition, before ecology became a well-known approach, Carson had embraced an ecological perspective. (Ecology is the science that studies the interactions of organisms in the natural world.) Her first book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), traced the many complex layers of marine ecosystems. During her employment, Carson also became concerned with the impact of various new postwar technologies on the wildlife and environment—among them, the pesticide dichlorodiphenylthrichloroethane (DDT), a wartime technology released into the consumer market in 1945.

As Carson's career as a writer began to gather momentum, so did her ideas about science, technology, and the environment. Repeatedly she emphasized the need to educate the public about science. She also challenged the idea that "science is something that belongs in a separate compartment of its own, apart from everyday life" (Brooks 1972, p. 128). Carson's developing critique of science targeted restricted circles of experts who isolated their knowledge of the natural world from the public. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea (1955), strove to make scientific information about the seashore accessible to the general reader. She also encouraged her readers to engage in firsthand experience with the environment to give them a reference point for evaluating scientific knowledge and discoveries.

The United States's development of the atomic bomb proved to be a crucial turning point in Carson's thinking about the interactions of humans and their environment, and the consequences of science and technology. As she remembered, the possibility of humans being able to destroy all life was so horrible that "I shut my mind—refused to acknowledge what I couldn't help seeing. But that does no good, and I have now opened my eyes and my mind. I may not like what I see, but it does no good to ignore it ..." (Lear 1997, p. 310). Instead Carson faced man's destruction of his environment. In particular she focused on synthetic chemical pesticides.

In Silent Spring Carson argued that science and technology had largely ignored the environmental consequences of pesticides in disturbing the balance of nature. This metaphor referred to the ecological interactions of species in the natural world, and Carson showed how pesticides interrupted these complicated relations. The widespread use of persistent synthetic chemical pesticides endangered birds, wildlife, domestic livestock, and even humans. Residues from DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, and other chemicals contaminated most water, soil, and vegetation. The federal government had not only failed to protect citizens from these dangers, but by carrying out aerial spraying attacks on the fire ant and the gypsy moth, it had committed some of the worst offenses. Chemical dangers even penetrated suburbia, where people intensively sprayed their homes and gardens. Carson discussed both the immediate consequences for human health and the possible long-term hazards, including genetic damage and cancer. In particular she blamed scientific experts (economic entomologists and agronomists, among others) who supported the chemical-based technologies of industrialized agriculture. For Carson agribusiness epitomized the industrial mindset of man dominating nature for the interests of private economic gain.

Silent Spring resulted in an enormous public uproar. The book raised issues that extended far past the debate on pesticides. Ultimately it questioned how modern, industrialized society related to the natural world. Pesticides were but symptoms of the underlying problem: the idea that humans should dominate and control nature. Carson wrote that the "control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man" (Carson 1962, p. 297). However, many readers disagreed. Criticizing Carson's idea of the balance of nature as too static, they argued instead that nature was inherently unbalanced. Man had to use pesticides and dominate nature in order to ensure his own survival. In fact Carson's understanding of the balance of nature was complicated: The phrase implied stasis, but she also portrayed nature as an active entity capable of great change.

Altogether Carson put forth an environmental ethic based on the physical, ecological connections that existed between humans and their environment. She insisted that science and technology be evaluated according to this ecological standard, where humans and nature merged as one. Moreover as part of the fabric of life, humans had no right to put the entire biotic community at risk. By popularizing ecological ideas, Carson treated her readers as capable of understanding and participating in scientific debates. She also redefined calculations of risk: Decisions on environmentally hazardous technologies should take into account public environmental values as much as scientific findings of harm. Moreover scientists and industries should bear the burden to prove their products safe, rather than the public having to prove them dangerous.

In Silent Spring, Carson set the foundation of the environmental movement that began in the late-twentieth century. The insight that humans and nature were ecologically linked gave people new ways to conceive of environmental issues. The environment existed not only in the wilderness and the national parks, but in the immediate, intimate surroundings of home, garden, workplace, and even the health of the physical body. Carson also sparked the ongoing public debate about how to best consider environmental issues in making ethical decisions about science and technology. She was especially significant for her grassroots appeal—making everyday people aware of their role in preserving their environment.

Agricultural Ethics;; Ddt;; Ecology;; Environmental Ethics;; Environmentalism;; Waste.

Brooks, Paul. (1972). The House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Brooks, Carson's editor, wrote this book after her death in order to shed some light on Carson's private life, her writing process, and the history of Silent Spring.

Carson, Rachel. (1962). Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Details the dangers of the first generation of synthetic chemical pesticides produced in the postwar era.

Lear, Linda. (1997). Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt and Co. The definitive biography on the life of Rachel Carson.

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