The role of philosophers in decisions about how we live on the land: The significance of sustained, place-based inquiry

Background/Question/Methods

While all conservation professionals want our work to be meaningful to society, it is not always clear how we make that happen.  It is becoming more and more clear, however, that simply describing the world in the way that scientists so aptly do, while necessary, is not sufficient.  Conversely, it is clear that the abstract and isolated theorizing that philosophers do, while impressive in its own way, is also not sufficient.  Conservation is limited not only by what we know about the world but by how we value the world as well.  While we expend great effort on knowing the world, we expend little effort on the hard work of valuing the world appropriately.  Think of it this way for example, any position that attempts to prescribe a course of action (e.g., any policy, any gesture toward restoration, any idea about proper land use), will have to be defended, as a matter of logic, by two kinds of premises: factual or scientific premises, and value premises.  And, just as there are scientific experts, there are too values experts: philosophers and ethicists.  Moreover, many of our most important conservation ideas (e.g., carrying capacity, significant portion of range, natural regulation, etc.) and conservation targets (e.g., the preservation and restoration of ecosystem health, and even conservation itself) are not merely factual or scientific concepts.  They are, rather, blended concepts evoking both science and philosophy.  Hence, conservation might be best – even only – achieved when scientists and philosophers are collaborating fully and equally.

Results/Conclusions

Luckily, a few sustained ecology projects have embraced this form of collaboration.  The Isle Royale Wolf-Moose project, the longest continuous study of a predator-prey system in the world, includes a philosopher as part of the research team.  The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest Long Term Ecological Research site regularly involves philosophers in the work.  From these instances we learn a few lessons: that a focus on the problems of conservation, or a focus on understanding a given place, seem to be obvious ways to blend scientific and philosophical rigor and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations and begin to dissolve the artificial disciplinary boundaries we have created.