Who We Are Donnie Vincent

Aldo Leopold is another American environmentalist who was dominant in the development of modern environmental ethics. Aldo was more for holistic ethics regarding land. According to him, “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct.” He describes in his article that politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which free-for-all competition has been replaced by co-operative mechanism with an ethical content.” He thought that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. Also he believes that community should be

I never realized that deer hunting could save your life. Hunting every year and keeping the fridge stocked with meat can be a lifesaver for a family in a time of crisis who doesn’t have the time or materials for a garden. Tony then added, “I hunt and what I hunt I respect. I do not hunt for fun. I hunt for food. If I shoot it, I am going to eat it” (T.McNair, personal communication, October 20, 2017). His statements really opened my eyes to the mindset of a hunter. This was a man taking the life of an animal, yet doing it solely out of respect and for the insurance of his own survival. How could this be barbaric? I then asked, “Are there any life lessons to learn from hunting?” He replied, “The biggest of all is respect. I have taken plenty of deer in my life and each time I have the utmost respect for the animal” (T. McNair, personal communication, 2017). He explained to me all the lessons on respect he experienced in the woods. They made him a better man and showed him how he should treat others. Throughout my interview with Tony, I could tell he knows and utilizes all the amazing benefits that are to be gained from hunting. I enjoyed interviewing him and we exchanged hunting stories and laughed. It was clear to me hunting was actually very beneficial and not barbaric.

If everyone thought this way our wildlife, animals, nature, and environment would be in better the way you would want them to be treated. This saying is simply stating to people love to have nice things and when we get them we like to keep it that way. So in relation to Leopold we have a nice beautiful environment in which we should keep it that way. Think of our environment as a condition than what it is now. Aldo Leopold was right when he said “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and the beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”(Sand CountyAlmanac, pg. 224-225). It is important for people to reach and follow the values of Leopold explaining that beauty is not just scenery, stability does not mean unchanging for change is essential to nature and the natural world and integrity is wholeness, having all the parts. These three simple values will change our perspective of the

In the short essay “Why I Hunt” by Rick Bass, the writer gives the reader his personal perspective of what hunting is like for him. Rick Bass goes on to share the story of his family’s move from the hills of Fort Worth, Texas to the very remote Yaak Valley of Montana. The move to this area makes Bass want to hunt more since there is a better variety of prey, and due to everyone that has lived in what Bass calls “the Yaak”, has hunted their entire lives, he feels obligated to do it more than what he did when he lived in Texas (655). In “Why I Hunt, Bass argues that his love for hunting is an enjoyable hobby that develops his imagination and gets him in touch with nature, and that people should put down technology and try hunting. Bass uses imagery to show the beauty of hunting, and pathos to describe his emotions towards hunting.

First, the boy follows his father’s orders during the hunt. When they arrive at an ideal site for a camp, the boy “[helps] his father assemble their tent” (5). When his father hears a gunshot, they walk towards it and the boy obeys his father when he “[motions for the boy to be quiet” (21). His behaviours show his admiration and recognition of his father’s authority in hunting and as a rookie, views his father as his role model. He tries to imitate the adults’ actions to meet their expectations although he has little knowledge. When he is given his own gun, “he [is] proud of the gun, careful not to scuff it in the brush” (9), implying that he views this gun and the hunt as an act of bravery and his father who participates in this activity as a hero. As a result, he satisfies the adults expectations because he wants to be a good hunter like his father.

Aldo Leopold is on the forefather of modern environmentalism. His book, A Sand County Almanac, is based on the notion of viewing land as a community and as a commodity. In the chapter “The Land Ethic”, Leopold invokes a rethinking of our relationships to our world and is based on the principle that ethics are “a process in ecological evolution” (238). Leopold describes the stages of ethic evolving and explains that the rules for socializing were originally defined for human beings. These rules are expanded upon in the next stage of “Ethical Sequence” (237-238), describing how humans interact toward their community. The third stage is the ethics between humans and the land. Upon analyzing “The Land Ethic” I have come to the conclusion that in order to have respect and ethic for land, or anything, one must make a personal connection.

Within Aldo Leopold’s Thinking Like a Mountain and Annie Dillard’s Living Like a Weasel there is a communal theme, which incorporates the conflict between people and nature. Throughout Dillard’s piece, she uses comparisons between the life of humans and the life of a wild weasel while applying the theme of freedom of choice. After an unexpected encounter with a weasel, Dillard concludes that humans can learn from the wild freedom of weasel. She states, “...I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive” (Dillard 8). In Aldo Leopold’s writing, his overall motive is to communicate to the reader that we humans must not destroy the wilderness, as

As a result Leopold knew from his travels that one can learn from the mistakes of what happened to animals like the passenger pigeon throughout North America and the bear in Escudilla things that happen locally can have a non-local effect like causing the deer population to rise. Leopold has not yet sufficiently talked about his opinion on manage for me to know with certainty what he thinks about management, it does look as though he will talk more about that in part III. Right now I would not be surprised to see him in favor of protection for animals and plants, because of the way he talks of the Passenger Pigeon and its monument, also the way he talks of the Wisconsin marshlands and the efforts of government via the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during FDR’s administration to restore the

What exactly is land ethics? According to Leopold, “Land ethics expands the boundaries of ethics by including soils, waters, plants, and animals,” (Leopold, page 239). However, a land ethic cannot prevent the alteration, management, and the use of the resources stated above. Basically, Leopold states that land ethics change the role that we humans play from that of a land-conqueror to that of a citizen and member. In class, we learned that land ethics imply respect for the surrounding community. We as humans are important, and thus, have more responsibility to protect the environment.

Aldo Leopold and Schaeffer have both been key contributors to my beliefs and opinions and they have helped me shape my own personal land ethic. In Leopold’s essay titled The Land Ethic he makes several great points. Among these I have found the community concept, substitutes for a land ethic and the future outlook to be the most important. Leopold states, “All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts”(p.2). As humans we have a job and typically we show care for the things that we really like and enjoy. But a question we need to ask ourselves is who do we love and what do we care about? We live in community with everything around us including the plants, and all

He believed that wildlife needs to be preserved because it is so beautiful. He was hurt that so many people didn’t care and would just rip it apart and knew that he could change something about it. It is like watching somebody ruin something you love so much and you have to watch and know about it but not take action, but John Muir took action and tried to avoid letting anybody harm the beloved plants. (“About the Sierra Club.” Sierra Club, 12 May 2017, www.sierraclub.org/about.

People are more concerned about how to profit themselves from the land rather than how to conserve and protect the consequences the human will face in the long run. It is written in the book that “It defines no right or wrong, assigns no obligation, calls for no sacrifice, implies no change in the current philosophy of values. In respect of land use, it urges only enlightened self-interest” (244). It is purely in our hand to develop or shape the ethics beyond our own

Animal hunting is not only inhumane but can also lead to the extinction of many species. In the essay “Our Animal Rites”, Quindlen asserts that it is “pathetic to consider the firepower” the hunters use in order to “bring down one fair-sized deer” (33). In this quote, she explains that the use of firepower by human to kill innocent animals is unfair and heartrending. Furthermore, Quindlen describes that even though the bears are killed by the “smiling” and triumphant hunters after the “three bear days in the autumn,” the bears look “more dignified than they do” (33). This suggests that hunting animals is not entertaining but rather unacceptable and disgraceful. Furthermore, many species can become extinct due to excessive hunting. In an ecology class, I learned that the extinction rate of species each year is approximately two hundred to two thousand each year. This is an extremely high and alerting rate since there is only around two million species that has been scientifically identified on the planet. In these examples, it can be concluded that the hunting of innocent animals is atrocious and

8. It is often said that this ethic grew out of Leopold's understanding of "evolution" or "evolutionary theory". Give some evidence that supports this idea from your reading of the ethic. Evidence that supports the Land ethic growing out of Leopold’s understanding can be seen in the passage of the Land ethic that states: “Science has given us many doubts, but it has given us at least one certainty: the trend of evolution is to elaborate and diversify the biota.” And in the following passage: “When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other parts must adjust themselves to it.

In Aldo Leopold’s “Thinking Like a Mountain” he tells the reader the story of the first time he saw a wolf die. As well as how important predators are to the ecosystems and how, without the predators, the ecosystem will die. He claims that to think like a mountain you must think for the long term. He begins his passage with setting the scene for his story and hinting at the further depth of his he is about to recant by saying “Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself” (Leopold 12).