Ecological Ethics and the Human Soul: Aquinas, Whitehead, and the Metaphysics of Creation

PART I. Created Goodness and Moral Worth: Thomas' Bifurcation

PA RT I Created Goodness and Moral Worth Thomas’ Bifurcation For Thomas, the world is suffused with goodness. It is good in each of its parts and especially as a whole. It is good literally to the very core of its being; it comes from the Good and is ordered to the Good. Further, all species of creatures are necessary, on Thomas’ account, for the perfection of the universe. This account seems to offer the promise of a much more robust ecological ethic than a thoroughgoing, mechanistic worldview would allow. For example, this understanding of the created order suggests that Thomas would morally oppose the wholesale destruction of species, rainforests, watersheds, and wetlands. Yet a robust ecological ethic does not find fertile soil in Thomas’ thought. His ethic accords strictly instrumental value to non-rational creation; any argument against the wholesale destruction of creation would have to find its rationale in the human good. This is not an accidental feature of Thomas’ ethic: his accounts of the human soul and of divine providence describe the relation between human beings and non-rational creatures in a way that cannot but instrumentalize such creatures. Although I will argue that Thomas’ ontology (which holds all creatures to be intrinsically good) and moral theory (which accords only instrumental value to non-rational creatures) are consistent and systematically 11 interwoven, one might also argue that a chasm exists between them. For Thomas, what makes a thing ontologically good is actuality or being, but what makes a thing worthy of direct moral consideration is the capacity to consciously relate to universals (and thus enjoy rational freedom, possess an immortal soul, know God, and so on). To be sure, this capacity means that whoever possesses it has greater actuality and greater ontological goodness than something that does not. Yet this sliding scale of ontological goodness gives way to a moral bifurcation, for reasons I will clarify. It is in this shift from a sliding scale of goodness to a bifurcated morality where a disjunction can be discerned. Interestingly, however, in the end, the bifurcation is, in fact, an ontological one. Despite the sliding scale of ontological goodness, ultimately an ontological divide separates human beings (with our immaterial subsistent souls) from other material creatures (who lack such souls). It is this divide that is reflected in the moral bifurcation of creation. Recent works in the Christian tradition on the relation between human beings and the rest of material creation elucidate the history of this divide. Anna Peterson, in particular, echoes certain themes in this portion of the book when she argues, “The soul links humans’ origins, capacities, and ultimate destiny to God and, thus, forever divides them from the ‘nonspiritual ’ part of creation. The soul performs the same function that other human qualities, notably conceptual thought and language, fulfill for secular thinkers: the soul is not just an added piece of equipment but a singular dimension that transforms the meaning of humanness.” Peterson traces both the history and the tensions of this understanding of the human soul, as separating people from the rest of material creation, to the Christian tradition . While the notion that differences among human beings imply superiority or inferiority has been broadly rejected, the notion that there is a qualitative difference between human beings and the rest of creation has been left intact. It is this separation that I seek to explore and critique, and to which I ultimately want to offer an alternative. As alluded to above, it is possible to distinguish two relevant strands in Thomas’ thought. On the one hand, he clearly states that all creatures are ontologically good in their very being and that all species are necessary for the perfection of the universe. On the other hand, he also clearly states that lower creatures are “ordered to”or “for the sake of” higher ones. These two features of Thomas’ thought have given rise to divergent assessments of the 12 Created Goodness and Moral Worth moral status he accords to non-rational creatures. A number of contemporary interpreters argue that Thomas’ ethic accords only instrumental value to non-rational creatures. Others, however, hold that his ethic is amenable to according moral worth to at least some non-rational creatures. One author has even attempted to show that, at least in some circumstances, Thomas’ ethic prescribes vegetarianism. Notably, modern interpreters of Thomas on the issue of ecological ethics , however much...