Deep Ecology

Deep ecology is a radical environmental philosophy and political movement founded upon the holistic belief that all living things have an equal right to life, or have subjective or objective intrinsic values. It has two defining philosophical ideals. First, self-realization, which emphasizes a broadening and deepening of the self toward a sense of personal identity that allows each being's potential to be realized. Second, biological egalitarianism, the principle that humans have no more right to live than any other organism—all living things are equally valuable and deserve the same consideration. In accordance with these principles, deep ecology is considered a biocentric (living-centered), rather than an anthropocentric (human-centered), worldview.

The term deep ecology was coined by Norwegian professor of philosophy and accomplished mountaineer Arne Naess in his 1973 article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movements: A Summary”. Naess' earlier scholarly pursuits had focused on [Page 98]semantics, unraveling the logic of language and investigating the theoretical reasoning behind positivist science. His later writings on environmental philosophy were influenced heavily by the work of Baruch Spinoza, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Mahatma Gandhi, as well as Taoist, Buddhist, and Native American belief systems, particularly their emphasis on organic unity and their rejection of reductive binaries.

Naess articulated an “ecosophy” with two central pillars. The first was a sense of self that went beyond the individual to encompass the entire living world. Naess proposed a conceptual widening of the Self to include the Other, which would allow humans to appreciate the nonhuman world as a part of themselves. This philosophical acknowledgement forces us to recognize that to harm another species is to do harm unto ourselves. The second pillar was the belief that all organisms and entities are equal in intrinsic worth and part of an interrelated whole. Naess rejected the Enlightenment notion that living things can be ranked according to their relative value. He believed that the right to live is a universal right shared by all living things. No one species has more of a right to live or exist than any other.

Naess later expanded these foundational lessons into the eight points of the deep ecology platform:

• 1.
  The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
• 2.
  Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
• 3.
  Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
• 4.
  The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
• 5.
  Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
• 6.
  Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
• 7.
  The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life qualities (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
• 8.
  Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

Naess described his approach as “deep” because it was concerned with fundamental questions of humanity's role as part of the biosphere and demanded changes to all facets of human life. He dismissed other environmental worldviews—conservationists, ecosocialists, and environmental justice advocates—as “shallow” for adhering to a dualistic worldview in which the concerns and priorities of humans and nonhumans are considered separately. Deep ecologists Bill Devall and George Sessions contrasted the shallow and deep worldviews according to the following

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