What is Deep Ecology?

schumachercollege.org.uk/learning-resources/what-is-deep-ecology

28 de setembro de 2007

by Stephan Harding
Stephan Harding is Co-ordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College.

In the 1960s, having read Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, Arne Naess was moved to
apply his formidable philosophical skills to understanding the ecological crisis and its
resolution. Since becoming the youngest ever professor of philosophy at the University of
Oslo whilst still in his twenties, Arne Naess has revealed his brilliance by studying and
writing extensively in many fields, including semantics, philosophy of science, and the
works of Spinoza and Gandhi. But he is much more than an academic. His approach to
ecology bears the stamp of his life’s experience as a philosopher in the truest sense – as a
lover of wisdom, and as a lover of mountains. A key influence in his long life has been his
deep relationship to Hallingskarvet mountain in central Norway, where, in 1937, he built
a simple cabin at the place called Tvergastein (crossed stones).

"Through deep experience, deep questioning and deep commitment emerges deep
ecology"

To understand what Arne Naess means by deep ecology it helps to imagine this place:
high up, totally isolated, with commanding views of landscape down below. There he lived
looking out on that vast, wild panorama, reading Gandhi or Spinoza and studying
Sanskrit. In this inhospitable retreat, under snow and ice for most of the year, where only
lichen and tiny alpine flowers grow, Arne Naess has spent a total of more than ten years,
watching, climbing, thinking, writing, and adoring the mountain. It is at Tvergastein, with
Arctic storms threatening to blow away his roof, that most of his important work in deep
ecology has been done.

The word ‘ecology’ originates from the science of biology, where it is used to refer to the
ways in which living things interact with each other and with their surroundings. For Arne
Naess, ecological science, concerned with facts and logic alone, cannot answer ethical
questions about how we should live. For this we need ecological wisdom. Deep ecology
seeks to develop this by focusing on deep experience, deep questioning and deep
commitment. These constitute an interconnected system. Each gives rise to and supports
the other, whilst the entire system is, what Naess would call, an ecosophy: an evolving but
consistent philosophy of being, thinking and acting in the world, that embodies ecological
wisdom and harmony.

Deep experience is often what gets a person started along a deep ecological path. Aldo
Leopold, in is book A Sand County Almanac, provides a striking example of this. For
Leopold, the experience was of sufficient intensity to trigger a total reorientation in his
life’s work as a wildlife manager and ecologist. In the 1920s, he had been appointed by the

1/6
US government to develop a rational, scientific policy for eradicating the wolf from the
entire United States. The justification for this intervention was that wolves competed with
sport hunters for deer, so that fewer wolves would mean more deer for the hunters.

As a wildlife manager of those times, Leopold adhered to the unquestioning belief that
humans were superior to the rest of nature, and were thus morally justified in
manipulating it as much as was required in order to maximise human welfare.

One morning, Leopold was out with some friends on a walk in the mountains. Being
hunters, they carried their rifles with them, in case they got a chance to kill some wolves.
It got around to lunch time and they sat down on a cliff overlooking a turbulent river.
Soon they saw what appeared to be some deer fording the torrent, but they soon realised
that it was a pack of wolves. They took up their rifles and began to shoot excitedly in to the
pack, but with little accuracy. Eventually an old wolf was down by the side of the river,
and Leopold rushed down to gloat at her death. What met him was a fierce green fire
dying in the wolf’s eyes. He writes in a chapter entitled Thinking Like a Mountain that:
“there was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the
mountain. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would
mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf
nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

Perhaps it is possible to understand what Leopold means when he says that the wolf
disagreed with such a view, but how could a lifeless, inert mountain possibly agree or
disagree with anything? What could Leopold have experienced in that pivotal moment in
his life? Clearly, he is using the word ‘mountain’ as a metaphor for the wild ecosystem in
which the incident took place, the ecosystem as an entirety, as a living presence, with its
deer, its wolves and other animals, its clouds, soils and streams. For the first time in his
life he felt completely at one with this wide, ecological reality. He felt that it had a power
to communicate its magnificence. He felt that it had its own life, its own history, and its
own trajectory into the future. He experienced the ecosystem as a great being, dignified
and valuable in itself. It must have been a moment of tremendous liberation and
expansion of consciousness, of joy and energy – a truly spiritual or religious experience.
His narrow, manipulative wildlife manager’s mind fell away. The mind which saw nature
as a dead machine, there for human use, vanished. In its place was the pristine
recognition of the vast being of living nature, of what we now call Gaia.

Notice that the experience was not looked for, expected or contrived. It happened
spontaneously. Something in the dying eyes of the wolf reached beyond Leopold’s training
and triggered a recognition of where he was. After this experience he saw the world
differently, and went on to develop a land ethic, in which he stated that humans are not a
superior species with the right to manage and control the rest of nature, but rather that
humans are ‘plain members of the biotic community’. He also penned his famous dictum:
“a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

2/6
Arne Naess emphasises the importance of such spontaneous experience. A key aspect of
these experiences is the perception of gestalts, or networks of relationships. We see that
there are no isolated objects, but that objects are nodes in a vast web of relationships.
When such deep experience occurs, we feel a strong sense of wide identification with what
we are sensing. This identification involves a heightened sense of empathy and an
expansion of our concern with non-human life. We realise how dependent we are on the
well-being of nature for our own physical and psychological well-being. As a consequence
there arises a natural inclination to protect non-human life. Obligation and coercion to do
so become unnecessary. We understand that other beings, ranging from microbes to
multicellular life-forms to ecosystems and watersheds, to Gaia as a whole, are engaged in
the process of unfolding their innate potentials. Naess calls this process self-realisation.
For us humans, self-realisation involves the development of wide identification in which
the sense of self is no longer limited by the personal ego, but instead encompasses greater
and greater wholes. Naess has called this expanded sense of self the ecological self. Since
all beings strive in their own ways for self-realisation, we recognise that all are endowed
with intrinsic value, irrespective of any economic or other utilitarian value they might
have for human ends. Our own human striving for self-realisation is on an equal footing
to the strivings of other beings. There is a fundamental equality between human and non-
human life in principle. This ecocentric perspective contrasts with the anthropocentric
view which ascribes intrinsic value only to humans, valuing nature only if it is useful to
our own species.

The new sense of belonging to an intelligent universe revealed by deep experience often
leads to deep questioning, which helps to elaborate a coherent framework for elucidating
fundamental beliefs, and for translating these beliefs into decisions, lifestyle and action.
The emphasis on action is important. It is action that distinguishes deep ecology from
other ecophilosophies. This is what makes deep ecology a movement as much as a
philosophy. By deep questioning, an individual is articulating a total view of life which can
guide his or her lifestyle choices.

In questioning society, one understands its underlying assumptions from an ecological

point of view. One looks at the collective psychological origins of the ecological crisis, and
the related crises of peace and social justice. One also looks deeply into the history of the
West to find the roots of our pernicious anthropocentrism as it has manifested in our
science, philosophy and economics. One tries to understand how the current drive for
globalisation of Western culture and of free trade leads to the devastation of both human
culture and nature.

This deep questioning of the fundamental assumptions of our culture contrasts markedly
with the mainstream shallow or reform approach. This tries to ensure the continuance of
business as usual by advocating the ‘greening’ of business and industry by incorporating a
range of measures such as pollution prevention and the protection of biodiversity due to
its monetary value as medicine or its ability to regulate climate. Although deep ecology
supporters often have no option but strategically to adopt a reform approach when
working with the mainstream, their own deep questioning of society goes on in the
background. This may subtly influence the people with whom they interact professionally.

3/6
For deep questioning, Arne Naess has developed the four-level system depicted a pyramid
diagram (he called it the apron diagram). In this there is an integrated movement from
the practical realm at Level 4 (at the base of the pyramid) to the religious/philosophical
realm at Level 1 (at the peak of the pyramid). Level 1 is concerned with uncovering a
person’s ultimate premises or norms, from which all actions and attitudes spring. This is
the level we reach if we keep asking ‘why?’ to everything a person says (rather like small
children do) beginning at the realm of everyday life. Eventually, if the process has gone
deep, we could make a statement which encapsulates our deepest intuitions about life
based on deep experiences of wide identification. For example, a friend, having been
asked the ‘why?’ question all day long, might finally be able to go no further than the
statement “Nature is Sacred!” The ultimate norm of Arne Naess’s own ecosophy is: ‘Self-
Realisation’. The deep experience which inspires Naess’s ecosophy is the sense of intrinsic
value in the unfolding of life’s potential. The statements end with an exclamation mark.
This denotes that we are dealing with norms – that is, with suggestions about how we
should think or act.

Ultimate norms always belong to the philosophical or religious realm. And, being
ultimate, they are not provable or derivable from other norms. Ultimate norms are not
absolutes. They are guidelines for making wise decisions through the process of
systematic reasoning from the most abstract realm of concrete consequences. Harold
Glasser gives a good example for this process. Imagine that your local organic farmer has
“Live Richly!” as her ultimate norm. If you ask her to derive an implication for this for
daily life, she might say something like: “To live richly for me means being simple in
means: that is, in my consumption of resources; but rich in ends, such as inherently
wholesome relationships and experiences.” Here there is not a norm, but is instead a
conjecture about what might flow from the ultimate norm for this particular individual.

Because of their tentative nature, Arne Naess calls such statements hypotheses. From this
hypothesis will flow a new norm, called a derived norm. Our farmer might phrase it as:
“Live Simply!” From this derived norm will flow another hypothesis. This new hypothesis
could be something like: “Efficient use of resources is a requirement for simplicity.” This
in turn will give rise to a new, lower-level norm, such as “Be Efficient!”, which leads to the
farmer deciding to recycle paper and other materials – a concrete consequence of the
deep questioning process.

Someone else, a young stockbroker from the City of London, might have the same
ultimate norm as our organic farmer, but in his case the derivational process ends up in a
totally different concrete consequence. From the ultimate norm he derives the hypothesis:
“Lavishness is the key to richness,” which eventually leads down to the concrete
consequence of conspicuous consumption.

Glasser’s example neatly shows how the same verbal expression of an ultimate norm can
lead to vastly different ecological outcomes. However, he points out that ultimate norms
which lead to ecologically harmonious action always incorporate the sense of wider
identification. Ultimate norms can be very diverse. For example, a Buddhist and a

4/6
Christian would disagree about the existence of God, but both would want to protect and
nurture life. Thus there is a need for a set of basic views which can be broadly accepted by
deep ecology supporters with widely divergent ultimate norms.

For this reason Arne Naess and George Sessions devised the deep ecology platform, also
known as the eight points of the deep ecology movement. They constitute Level 2 of the
apron or pyramid, and are meant to act as a sort of filter for the deep questioning process.
If you can largely agree with the platform statements, you fall within the umbrella of ‘the
deep ecology movement’ and you can place yourself within the ranks of its supporters.
The platform is not meant to be a rigid set of doctrinaire statements, but rather a set of
discussion points, open to modification by people who broadly accept them. In fact, the
version given here was modified from the original by participants attending a deep
ecology course held at Schumacher College in 1995. Some deep ecology supporters regard
the platform as the outline of a comprehensive ecosophy in its own right. Here Level 1
statements of wide identification are represented by the first three points, which
incorporate the ultimate norm “Intrinsic Value!” Points 4 to 7 are seen as a bridge
between the ultimate norm and personal lifestyles, with point 8 relating specifically to
concrete actions in the world.

The Deep Ecology Platform

1. All life has value in itself, independent of its usefulness to humans.
2. Richness and diversity contribute to life’s well-being and have value in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs
in a responsible way.
4. The impact of humans in the world is excessive and rapidly getting worse.
5. Human lifestyles and population are key elements of this impact.
6. The diversity of life, including cultures, can flourish only with reduced human impact.
7. Basic ideological, political, economic and technological structures must therefore
change.
8. Those who accept the forgoing points have an obligation to participate in implementing
the necessary changes and to do so peacefully and democratically.

This version of the Deep Ecology Platform has been formulated by those attending the
Deep Ecology course at Schumacher College, May 1995.

At level 3 one has moved from consideration of general principles at Level 2 to an

exploration of one’s own situation. What options are there for changing lifestyle and for
activism in ways consistent with the upper levels of the pyramid or apron? Our organic
farmer was at Level 3 when exploring the options for recycling in her area. Perhaps our
young stockbroker, having had a deep experience of wide identification whilst spending
time alone in the bush during an otherwise hedonistic African safari holiday, makes a firm
resolve to change his job. On returning to London, his Level 3 activity is to look around
for ways of making a living consistent with his new insight and his range of skills. He
contacts people, asks lots of questions, hesitates, but finally decides to act. Now he is at
Level 4, and when he finally settles into his new job as an ethical investment adviser using

5/6
only public transport and his bicycle to visit his clients, he has completed the process by
creating a lifestyle in which everyday decisions and actions relate directly to the ultimate
level of his ecosophy.

Many different lifestyles and modes of action are possible at Level 4. Some people, like the
social ecologists, will naturally try to focus on remedying the way in which injustice
amongst humans leads to ecological breakdown. Others, the ecofeminists, will try to
counter the contribution of gender imbalances to the ecological crisis. Others, the
conservation biologists, will focus on ways of documenting and preventing the extinction
of species which invariably follows from human-induced fragmentation of pristine nature.
Yet others will oppose the negative impacts of free trade and globalisation on nature and
culture. Arne Naess stresses that the frontier is long within the deep ecology movement,
and that we must understand and support approaches which are different from our own.
This radical pluralism is thus an essential component of the deep ecology movement.
When dealing with people who are not working along the long frontier of ecological action
and who seek to undermine and undo such work, Arne Naess stresses the importance of
Gandhi’s method of non-violence, in which a key point is not to lose respect for the
fundamental humanity of one’s opponent.

Finally, we come to deep commitment, which is the result of combining deep experience
with deep questioning. When an ecological world view is well developed, people act from
their whole personality, giving rise to tremendous energy and commitment. Such actions
are peaceful and democratic and will lead towards ecological sustainability. Uncovering
the ecological self gives rise to joy, which gives rise to involvement, which in turn leads to
wider identification, and hence to greater commitment. This lead to ‘extending care to
humans and deepening care for non-humans’.

Stephan Harding is Co-ordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College

and is a regular contributor to the college short courses. He is the resident ecologist,
giving talks on Gaia Theory and deep ecology to most course groups, and helping students
wishing to undertake credits projects. He also works with Gaian scientist James Lovelock
on Gaian computer modelling.

6/6