An Ethic

“This is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.
Oh, sir, it will break bones—beware, beware!
No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man.” — Ahab and the Carpenter, Moby Dick “...by the fact that anyone loves another, he wills good to that other…” — St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” — Matthew 7:12

Long ago and far away someone asked me for my elevator pitch. Being simple–from agriculture, fishing boats and other low things, I didn’t know what an elevator pitch was. I thought it was another way of discussing ‘fighting a phonebooth,’ martial-speak for combat in tight quarters. Yah, it’s been a long, strange trip. Years later a pitch came to me. It’s a bad pitch, but I like it–“Vulnerably before the evidence and reasoned, cautionary inferences beyond, how do we do better?”

Let's unpack.

“Vulnerably before the evidence…” We accept that we don’t know. These matters–human health, ecology, material processes and energy consumption–are complex. Not knowing, we look to our best means of finding out. This is hard. It can be cognitively, emotionally and psychically bruising to learn a cherished idea ain’t so. Moreover, we are not experts in areas we make moves. I can’t tell you the contours of how various plastics affect your hormones, body, and world. I can tell you evidence is sufficient to act. I can’t tell you all that ails the bees. But I can recommend we return to basic biology. I may be wrong. The best I can say is that I approach the possibility vulnerably.

Accepting I don’t know is liberating! The true first step of the Scientific Method is three beautiful words–”I don’t know.” If we know all the following steps are unnecessary. Not knowing, we must get as clever as we can. We must keep in mind all the cognitive biases of our mind, all the ways we are prone to see the world as it is not. Admission of not knowing is implicit in observation, studying a topic, or asking a question. There is liberation in embracing “I don’t know.” We, as a people, seem really certain about a lot. That’s too bad. You don’t learn when you’re always right.

“...reasoned, cautionary inferences beyond…” Evidence doesn’t make decisions for you. Evidence describes the world. Those descriptions are incomplete. Evidence leaves nagging, unanswered questions. Evidence often opens ponderous new questions. Evidence doesn’t make choices concerning values. The evidence says that plastic and plasticizers are everywhere. Some are harmful, but most have unknown effects on human and ecological health. That evidence and the rueful history of plastic and plasticizer manufacturers–3M and DuPont foremost–leads us to make reasoned, cautionary decisions to not use plasticizers. We use specific plastics sparingly when they make other things (like reuse) possible. This is a reasoned application of caution. It’s simple; I don’t choose exposure to known harms for me, my loved ones, or my community. Because it’s a scary world of sickly unknowns! The Golden Rule is a great tool for pondering pollution. It considers what we know and what we don't. How would you have the other fella treat your child?

Ecological health is human health. What is bad for the earth is bad for you. It has always been this way. We may shuffle the direst effects on the poor and brown for a time, but ecology is a funny thing. It’s kinda like a karma exacted over generations…

“...how do we do better?” This one is simple, if open-ended. It’s mostly how we do better… vulnerably before the evidence.

I hear a lot of apathy. This or that packaging just doesn’t matter. For a piece of single use plastic this is true. But any thinking act, no matter how harried, is animated by something, presumably our understanding of the world and our place in it. I am not saying there are no small acts, or all acts are relative. I am saying that all thinking acts are borne of ethics–our understanding of the world and our place in it–and there are no insignificant ethics.

Throw away acts lead to more throw away acts. It all gets a wee bit nihilistic–it’s all meaningless anyway. Disposable ethics bleed. Disposable products must go somewhere. They’re disproportionately shuffled upon the poor and brown. A disposable ethic, in a roundabout but no less real way, leads to disposable people. You’d never accept your land being buried under the rubble of the consumer age. The Golden Rule would have you not accept it for any other.

Ethics, acknowledged or not, for good or ill, run human affairs and thus the earth.