Measures of love. (n_n)

The concept of love is applied to love of animals and to love of nature and this is found in many cultures. In Maori the word aroha is used to denote something broader than love, but including a oneness with nature and animals. In addition to history, literature and philosophy we can compare behavior to assess the love of the environment. Asia pollutes less per capita than America or Europe. This could reflect the imbalance between rich and poor countries in energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption, and use of raw materials. One North American consumes several hundred times the resources of most Africans. The right to personal enjoyment of a love of life is denied to many of the world’s population by economic and social structures because of a lack of love shown to neighbour.

Bioethics has origins in the relationships between animals and nature. In evolution it is assumed that selfishness is required for selection. Some animals exhibit non-selfish behaviour, called altruism. Some even give when there is no hope to receive any genetic benefit, helping unrelated individuals. We must therefore ask the question is altruism the basis for love? As Wright (1994) reviewed theories of evolution for a gene for brotherly love, we can also see advantages to survival if a community has love for each other in all social animals. However, there are limits to this love. Some of the examples of inter-species altruism are stories of dolphins saving drowning humans in the ocean, that are found throughout history and throughout the world. We can ask how much humans in different societies help other species.

Interestingly, however, the presence of resources and wealth may make our ethical attitudes more generous, not only to human beings in social welfare, but also to the environment and animals. We can see this by the growth of animal rights in richer countries. De Waal (1996) considered morality as a floating pyramid with the buoyancy of the concept determined by the resources available, but always with the order from top to bottom, self, family/clan, group/community, tribe/nation, all of humanity, all life forms. The exception however, is religious prescriptions against killing of animals, seen in Hindu or Buddhist countries, or Eastern countries where some parts of nature in religious temples or sanctuaries are preserved despite immediate human needs to harvest them. The concern for environmental protection seen in richer countries may partly be due to the luxury that money provides for giving people a long term view on life and transgenerational responsibility, once it becomes easy to look after one’s own life.

The concept of "do no harm" has a basis at a fundamental level - the level of being alive, and argues against hurting any living organism. If we are going to harm life, a departure from the ideal of doing no harm and love of life, it must be for a good motive. Destruction of nature and life by humans is caused by two human motives - necessity and desire. Basically, it is more ethically acceptable to cause harm if there is necessity for survival than if it is only desire. This distinction is required ever more as human desire continues to destroy the planet. What is a desire in one culture can be considered a need in another, as seen in the trends for private transportation system, cars and roads, and large houses. In these examples, some countries in Asia, e.g. Japan, Singapore, have some organized systems to encourage smaller cars and other countries, like China and India have reliance upon public transport, but this may not represent a specifically more organized society with less desire. The Indian and Chinese examples at least may be more a function of wealth and access. In all societies a large car has become a status symbol, despite the harm it brings upon the environment.

Love for the environment suggests we have an active motivation to protect the environment. We can see this in the protection given to national parks. Protected areas of plants and animals may also be protected without human access as wilderness areas, which can represent love for the environment although often they are justified in terms of human-centred benefits (medicinal drugs, flood protection, aesthetics, tourist industry). However, population densities differ so a simple comparison of proportion of land area or of the different types of land area, that are protected, would not be very useful. Also some countries, like India preserve small patches of biodiversity around temples while European churches may not preserve nature next to them, but have larger national parks. It is a challenge for research to see how practical measures to the environment could be measured and compared.