This paper1 is intended to form part of a more extended exploration of some key texts of Marx from the standpoint of the so-called ‘new’ social movements (though some of these pre-date the Marxist tradition itself!). Here, I shall be focussing on the early work of Marx – especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 – and with the concerns of two closely related recent radical movements in mind.

These movements are modem environmentalism and a spectrum of groupings which share concern about human mistreatment of (other) animals – animal welfare, rights and liberation groups, as well as the more specialist campaigns against vivisection, factory farming, the fur trade and so on. The value-orientation which underlies both movements, and which informs their critique of modem industrial societies, is radically at odds with a merely utilitarian, or instrumental relation to the rest of nature. Other animals may be sufficiently like human beings to be properly considered as moral subjects, and as the bearers of biographies. Ethical considerations must therefore enter into our dealings with them. It is evil to continue to treat them merely as instruments or resources to be exploited for specifically human purposes.

In the perspective of ‘deep’ ecology,2 this argument can be extended to the whole of nature, which is regarded as having an intrinsic value, independent of human purposes and requirements. Concern for the environment, on this view, is properly rooted not in a ‘speciesist’ enlightened self-interest (i.e. the recognition that short-term benefits from ruthless exploitation of the environment will be paid for in the longer term by the destruction of our own ‘life-support systems’) but rather in a respect for the independent value of the other species with which we share our planet, and, indeed, for the whole complex of physical and chemical conditions for their existence and wellbeing.

At first thought, it seems that there is much in common between this view of our relationship to the rest of nature and that of the early Marx. Both perspectives share a vision of humans as part of nature, and as dependent for their well-being on unceasing interaction with nature.

[…]

Notes

1. I would like to thank participants in the sociology seminar at Sussex University, the political philosophy seminar at the University of East Anglia, the third Conference on Realism and the Human Sciences, and the third year philosophy/sociology seminar at the University of Essex, as well as Jean Duncombe, Jean Grimshaw, Roy Edgley, Joe McCarney, Chris Arthur and Oriel Sullivan, for helpful criticisms of earlier  drafts of this paper.  Many of their comments have been incorporated into, or taken account of in this version of the argument. I would also like to thank S. Horigan for many stimulating conversations on issues related to the topic of  this paper.

2. The  distinction between ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’ ecology is generally attributed to Arne Naess. See A. Naess (1973) and also R. Sylvan (1985). Although I have treated the perspective of  ‘deep ecology’ as an  extension  of  moral  concern  about  the  well-being  of  (other) animals, the two positions are sometimes argued from different, and conflicting  premisses. There is an implicit  anthropocentrism in those advocacies of  ‘animal rights’, for example, which argue for the status of  animals as moral subjects on the basis of, and to the extent that they share, certain ‘human’  attributes. A ‘deep ecological’ perspective attributes intrinsic value independently of  any such likeness to humans. Although I avoid direct argumentation on these issues in the present paper it may prevent some misunderstandings if I briefly outline my position. It is that the beings and relations that constitute the system of  nature are properly assigned a value in virtue of their intrinsic character, independently of their utility, aesthetic appeal, or likeness to humans. However, I differ from some  ‘deep ecologists’ in holding that (contingently, of course) humans are the only kind of being capable of assigning value in this way. Having assigned value to the whole system of nature and its elements, the  further  questions  as  to what conduct is or is not morally acceptable with respect to particular beings or sub-systems may get a diversity of answers depending on the relations of those beings to human agents, and their diverse intrinsic characters. An animal which can feel pain and experience fear makes different moral demands upon us from a plant, which cannot. But this does not mean that the destruction of plants is a matter of absolute moral indifference, and nor does it mean that the moral value of (other) animals is equivalent to that of persons (as is held by some animal rights and liberation activists).