Bioethics,
Bio1ogy, and the Biosphere
The Report's editorial mandare is
both to examine issues of current
importante and to invite bioethics
to broaden the range of issues it
probes. Thus along with articles ex-
ploring the relationship between pa-
tients and doctors, or health policy,
or any of the myriad other familiar
concerns of ethics in medicine, from
time to time the Report has pub-
lished articles about public health,
animal experimentation, or "envi-
ronmental ethics" broadly construed.
The most recent was the special sup-
plement Nature, Polis, Ethics in the
November-December (1998) issue.
Some, of course, have argued that
"bio-ethics" ought always to encom-
pass concern for issues beyond the
bedside. When the biologist Van
Rensselaer Potter proposed the term
bioethics nearly thirry years ago, the
field he had in mirad lay at the inter-
section of ethics and the biological
sciences in general. In light especially
of Nature, Polis, Ethics's call for a
substantive "humans-nature ethics"
it seems appropriate, therefore, to in-
vite one of the earliest proponents of
a generous understanding of bio-
ethics to reflect on the character of
the field and the questions with
which it should grapple. Below Pot-
ter and colleague Peter Whitehouse
share their thoughts on this most
interdisciplinary of disciplines.
-B-JC, GK
HASTINGS CENTER REPORT january-February 1999
by VAN RENSSELAER POTTER
t was Aldo Leopold at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin who saw
the coming environmental crisis
as a failure of economic activiry to
proceed on an ethical basis. The
problem lay in the fact that there
simply was no environmental ethic.
Curt Meine, in his masterful bio-
graphy of Leopold, showed how
Leopold developed an environmen-
tal ethic after he reflected on the
ethics of his time as having devel-
oped in two stages.' In simple terms,
it all began with the relation berween
individuals. Leopold saw the second
stage as the reciprocal relation be-
tween individuals and society, sug-
gesting that the Golden Rule fries
to integrare the individual with soci-
ery, while democracy fries to inte-
grare social organization and the in-
dividual. Then carne the intellectual
leap: "There is as yet no ethic deal-
ing with man's relation to the land
and to the animals and plants which
grow upon it."'
But there was a catch twenty-two
to creating a land ethic: "Land, like
Odysseus' slave girls, is still property.
The land-relation is still strictly eco-
Van Rensselaer Pottcr, "Fragmented Ethics and
`Bridge Bioethics,"' Hastings Center Report 29,
no. 1 (1999): 38-40.
nomic, entailing privileges but not
obligations ."' Leopold realized that
the task of democracy, to say noth-
ing of governments in general,
would not be simple . He tried to
develop an ethic to supplement and
guide the relationship to land, "a
mode of guidance for meeting eco-
logical situations so new or intricate,
or involving such deferred reactions,
that the path of social expediency is
not discernible to the average indi-
vidual. " 4 This insight led me in turn
to the original conception of what
might now be called " bridge bio-
ethics":
If there are "rwo cultures" that
seem unable to speak to each
other-science and the humani-
ties-and if this is part of the
reason that the future seems in
doubt, then possibly we might
build a "bridge to the future" by
building the discipline of Bio-
ethics as a bridge between the two
cultures. s
s Chis understanding of bio-
ethics has been narrowly rede-
fined by medical ethicists, as it has
developed finto "global bioethics,"6
and as it has come to be envisioned as
"deep and global, Leopold's worry
about the "path of social expediency"
has become the leading problem as
we face the twenty-first century and
the third millenium. The economice
of land as properry is still a sticking
point, and the ethics specialties have
failed to deal with a problem that
calls upon environmental ethics, agri-
cultural ethics, and social ethics to
come to terms with each other as they
deal in turn with earth care, farm
care, and people tare. Social ethics
continue to be dominated by the
economic interesas of overprivileged
cohorts overriding underprivileged
cohorts in the matter of earth tare,
farm tare, and people care, because
Leopold's "average individual" across
the spectrum is unable or unwilling
to see beyond immediate self-interest
and envision "ecological situations so
new or intricate, or involving such
deferred reactions, that the path of
social expediency [for the long term]
is not discernible."
Signs of change are emerging,
however. Consider the Hastings Cen-
ter project Nature, Polis, Ethics, which
takes bioethics to mean more than
"ethics in medicine or health policy."s
By examining regional issues from an
ethical perspective, trying to consider
together the many values and moral
obligations pertaining to humans and
nature, and taking nature seriously as
a moral and civic regional concern, it
comes down squarely on the side of
Leopold.
This kind of regional ethics vision
is expanded by one of the world's
most outstanding regional planners
in a recent summary of views that go
beyond both Leopold and the Hast-
ings Center project. In Tomorrow by
Design: A Regional Design Process for
Sustainability, Philip Lewis (like
Leopold, a professor at the Universiry
of Wisconsin) declares, "The Region-
al Design Process needs an ethical
foundation that integrales a land
ethic with a social ethic. . . . Aldo
Leopold articulated a land ethic ...
that is widely known and respected.
A further step is necessary to adopt
january-February 1999 HASTINGS CENTER REPORT
an ethic that integrales our relation-
ships with each other and the land
into a single system."9
The goals outlined by Strachan
Donnelley and colleagues in Nature,
Polis, Ethics are agreeably stated by
Lewis when he writes:
An acceptable social ethical stan-
dard is more often mea when we
have a life-support system that as-
sures us of the basis for life, beau-
tiful surroundings that enhance
our behavior, a sense of place that
provides comfort, and a rich and
diverse environment where we
have the freedom to be selective in
our choices. (p. 30)
But, Lewis cautions, "Even in pros-
perous nations, efforts to provide
housing, food, and health tare have
often failed to ensure adequate re-
sources for all.... Wars, slums, inad-
equate food, and health problems
can all be the by-producís of a failed
land ethic and diminish the opportu-
nities of any constructive social ethic"
(p. 30).
These problems also represent a
failure of contemporary professionals
to act as overprivileged citizens con-
cerned about the plight of the under-
privileged, who lack the "opportuni-
ties of any constructive social ethic."
Steven Brint, a sociologist at the
University of California (Riverside),
has documented the fact that pro-
found changes have taken place in
professional attitudes. He noted that
early in Chis century professional sta-
tus was defined as much by a sense
of ethical and public responsibiliry as
by specialized knowledge, but con-
cluded that today "professionals in-
creasingly define themselves strictly
in terms of their command of tech-
nical matters, by their marketable
knowledge and skills, while they are
relatively skeptical about moral cer-
tainties."10 He might have added that
they are skeptical about their involve-
ment in the "democratic ecological
citizenship" called for by J. Ronald
Engel."
We need to recruit all manner of
professionals in the effort to see eco-
logical citizenship as parí of a global
bioethic for sustainability in a hu-
mane world society. Joan Engel has
defined democratic ecological citizens
in terms of their most basic traits:
• concern that nature continue to
flourish and be an integral, val-
ued part of human experience,
• insight that local regions are
nested in a larger reality, and
• recognition of existing inequali-
ties of wealth and power with
intent to extend more fully and
equitably opportunities for peo-
ple to improve their lives in rela-
tion to nature.`
These estimable goals are quite in
harmony with what 1 have called
global bioethics and with Lewis's de-
sign for tmorrow. They are the traits
that are found , among others, in the
besa of our citizens . Democratic eco-
logical citizens are the people ad-
dressed by Aldo Leopold.
ut what about the professionals
decried by Brint? When Lewis
remarks that a failed land ethic can
be held responsibile for the failure to
develop a constructive social ethic, he
places a great burden on specialties
within ethics, each of which could be
raid to have failed to pick up the
burden of a constructive social ethic.
One specialiry that stands out in this
connection is the medical ethics that
has assumed the name "bioethics."
This specialry fails to deal with the
issues that bridge bioethics was de-
signed to cover.
Perhaps some fault líes with the
system: the academic system demands
that young scientists focus on their
profession. Perhaps among academics
it is only the emeritus professors who
can qualify as "ecological citizens."'
The problem with medical bioethics
has been discussed by K. Danner
Clouser in tercos of the narrow views
of the medical profession as the in-
evitable result of the medical school
environment:
The setting is, in fact, a kind of
conceptual ghetto, and seems to
reflect the setting of all profession-
al schools, not just medicine.
When the lame presuppositions,
purposes , and points of interest are
shared by a community, it is as
though they are locked into a
ghetto. Their view of themselves,
others , their relationships, goals
and desiderata are the same."
Here we see the reason for the fail-
ures of each of the ethics specialties
to act any differently from Leopold's
"average individual." They cannot
discern "the path of social expedien-
cy" in the face of situations "so new
or intricate, or involving such de-
ferred reactions," because ethics pro-
fessionals were nurtured in an intel-
lectual ghetto.
In 1970 and 1971 1 argued for
bridge bioethics precisely as a vision
that was intended to build a bridge
between "two cultures"-science and
humanities, or more specifically, bio-
logical knowledge and ethics (bio-
ethics)-and thereby to build a
bridge to the future. But as we face
the twenty-first century and the thid
millenium, bridge bioethics is called
upon to deal not with just two cul-
tures, but with a host of ethics spe-
cialties, to each of which it must say,
"Get out of the ghetto."
ow does each specialty within
ethics relate to the intertwined
social ethic and the land ethic in the
context of bridge bioethics?
Medical ethics is today deeply in-
volved in what is really a very par-
ochial problem, one that has been
complicated by "America s quest for
perfect health."15 Parochial because
America's quest ignores the health
problems of multitudes in some other
HASTINGS CENTER REPORT january-February 1999
parts of the world; it ought instead to
call for "human health as the global
bioethic" in the context of the sur-
vival and improvement of the human
race, not just a chosen few.16
An environmental ethic seeks the
preservation and restoration of the
natural landscape, planes, and ani-
mals; clean air; plentiful, nonpolluted
water; and large areas in the wild
state. It is the land ethic come of age.
The goals mesh with Nature, Polis,
Ethics's vision for the Chicago region,
but affect private ownership and cor-
porations seeking to maximize profit
in the short term. The environmental
ethic is confronted by the agricultural
ethic, which tends to demand more
land under cultivation in order to
cope with an ever increasing world
population.
Social ethics is on a constant colli-
sion course with the economic or
capitalist ethics coming from what
might be called the free market ghet-
to. The corporate drive for maximum
profit calls for continual growth, ex-
panding markets, a limitless cheap
labor supply, and sustained popula-
tion growth. Workers' rights, volun-
tary control of human reproduction,
regulation of the overprivileged class-
es and protection of the underprivi-
leged, world health, human dignity,
and justice all call upon a social ethic
that is informed by all the others.
Deeply into this morass, religious
ethics too often largely attempts only
to achieve harmony among sectarian
factions, with only a divided approach
to voluntary control of human repro-
duction and no attention to human
survival in a decent civilization en
this planet in the long term.
The key concept in bridge bio-
ethics is the "bridge to the future."
This is the test applied to regional
plans, the land ethic, solutions to the
population problem, and each of the
specialized ethics. Aldo Leopold
would be enthusiastic to see Paul
Heltne's list of the features of "eco-
logical regions," which Leopold
never attempted to explore. Biologi-
cal knowledge is the possible bridge
between the specialties that will en-
able them to come out of their isolat-
ed ghettos.
1. Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold: His Life and
Work (Madison, Wisconsin: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1988); Aldo Leopold, A
Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford
Univeriiry Press, 1987 [1949]).
2. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.
3. Van Rensselaer Potter, Bioethics, Bridge
to the Future (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren-
tice-Hall, Inc., 1971).
4. Van Rensselaer Potter, Global Bioethics:
Building on the Leopold Legacy (East Lans-
ing, Mich.: Michigan State Universiry Press,
1988), pp. 19-20.
5. Potter, Bioethics, p. vii.
6. Potter, Global Bioethics.
7. Van Rensselaer Potter and Peter J.
Whitehouse, "Deep and Global Bioethics
for a Livable Third Millenium," The Scien-
tist 12, no. 1 (1998): 9.
8. Strachan Donnelley, ed., "Nature,
Polis, Ethics: Chicago Regional Planning"
[Special Supplement], Hastings Center Re-
port 28, no. 6 (1998): S1-S41.
9. Philip H. Lewis, Tomorrow by Design:
A Regional Design Process for Sustainability
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), p.
23.
10. Steven Brint, In an Age of Experts:
The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics
and Public Life (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versiry Press, 1994).
11. J. Ronald Engel, "The Faith of De-
mocratic Ecological Citizenship," Hastings
CenterReport28, no. 6 (1998): S31-S41.
12. Joan Gibb Engel, "Who Are Democ-
ratic Ecological Citizens?" Hastings Center
Report 28, no. 6 (1998): S21-S30.
13. Van Rensselaer Potter, "Emeritus Pro-
fessors Can, Assistant Professors Mustn't"
[Editorial], FASEB Journal 7 (1993): 255-
56.
14. Quoted in Potter, Global Bioethics,
p. 79.
15. Daniel Callaban, False Hopes: Why
America's Questfor Perfect Health Is a Recipe
for Failure (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1998).
16. Potter, Global Bioethics, p. 154.
17. Paul Heltne, "Basic Concepts of
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology," Hast-
ings Center Report 28, no. 6 (1998): S12-
S22.