Richard Sylvan
Published in The Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy 2 Vols
(ed) J. Baird Callicott. New York: Macmillan, 2009, Vol 2, pp. 298-299
by William Grey
RICHARD SYLVAN was a seminal thinker in environmental philosophy. He was also well known for his pioneering work in logic (especially relevant and paraconsistent logics), metaphysics, philosophy of language, semantics, epistemology, social philosophy, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and computation theory. His restless and active philosophical interests ranged widely within and between these branches of inquiry. This biographical note however will be limited to Sylvan's writings on environmental philosophy, which he believed – like every branch of inquiry which he considered – stood in need of radical revision.
Richard was born Francis Richard Routley at Levin, New Zealand, in 1935. He changed his name to Sylvan when he remarried in 1983. He studied at Victoria University, Wellington, and then Princeton, before taking positions successively at the University of Sydney, the University of New England and Monash University. From 1971 until his untimely death in 1996 he was a fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Sylvan is buried at his property 'Nameless', outside Gerringong in New South Wales, at the edge of one of the forests he cherished and overlooking the sea.
Sylvan was responsible, individually and in collaboration, for much of the development of environmental philosophy in Australasia. He was also responsible for provoking a lot of the remainder. This was done in a characteristically vigorous and provocative style. An example of his provocative style – and courageous choice of topics – is his 1982 paper 'In Defence of Cannibalism'. This was published in Sylvan's 'Green' Preprint Series of Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, one of several publication series which he edited. Many of his essays appeared in his preprint series, which were not widely circulated, and in consequence much of the prolific research resulting from his wide-ranging and off-beat intellectual curiosity is not widely known.
The content of 'In Defence of Cannibalism' is in fact less sensational than the title suggests. It addresses the ethics of killing, in particular killing humans, and the ethics of eating dead animals, including dead humans. Sylvan carefully and properly separated these questions. The title of the paper nevertheless generated alarm among some members of the philosophical community. Apparently some philosophers were concerned that Sylvan might be a Hannibal Lecter in the world of philosophy – and it is not difficult to suspect that Sylvan may have derived satisfaction from the unsettling effects generated by this thought.
Sylvan's research program ranged much more widely than the ambit of environmental philosophy as conceived by the majority of writers in this area. It was systematically linked with his (and others') work in metaphysics, semantics, logic, epistemology and value theory. He also connected it with work outside mainstream Australasian and Anglo-American philosophical inquiry as well as with work in other disciplines, including Taoism, Buddhism, nihilism, cosmology, demography, politics and economics. Sylvan also addressed environmental policy issues in his important monograph The Fight For the Forests (Routley and Routley 1973), written with distinguished environmental philosopher and his then partner Val Plumwood.
Sylvan's work in environmental philosophy goes back to the early 1970s, and his seminal paper 'Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?' (Routley 1973) remains a landmark in the discussion of anthropocentrism. The last man argument, first presented in that paper, remains an important locus of discussion about anthropocentrism. Another important paper written in collaboration with Plumwood (Routley and Routley 1980) elaborates the argument. Sylvan's critique of anthropocentrism, or human chauvinism, aligned him with central concerns of deep ecology, though he distanced himself from much of deep ecology (see Sylvan 1985). Sylvan went on to develop his own environmental philosophy which he called Deep Green Theory (DGT) in The Greening of Ethics (1994). At the time of his death he was working on a fuller explication of DGT, published posthumously as Metaphysics. From Radical to Deep Plurallism [sic] (1997). Sylvan developed his views in opposition to those of his university colleague John Passmore, who returned the favour in Man's Responsibility for Nature (1974) with his strenuous rejection of the need for radical revision in ethics to accommodate concern for the environment.
DGT aims to clear the 'garbage' (Sylvan's description) from environmental philosophy and replace it with theoretical rigor. It is a pluralistic position which shares with deep ecology a rejection of the prevailing technocentric approach to the environment of industrial society. While it shares a number of features of Arne Naess's eight-point platform for deep ecology (Naess 1989), its focus and emphasis is different. A central theme is that many environmental items are valuable in themselves; that is, their value does not answer back to human values and human interests. In developing his rigorous alternative position, Sylvan introduces a number of distinctions marked by a plethora of unfortunate neologisms – "non-jective", "gre-een", "extranalities", "expiricism", "intraneous", "extitution". (After a while one starts to yearn for a bit of Hegelian or post-modernist precision and clarity.) For a critical evaluation of Sylvan's environmental philosophy see Grey (2000).
Sylvan's extensive, eclectic, detailed and ambitious reflections on environmental philosophy deserve to be better known. Although there are difficulties with the articulation of the principles of DGT, the thoughts of many people who have wrestled with problems in this area owe an enormous debt to Sylvan for the illumination, clarification and challenge which he provided.
Bibliography
Grey, William. 2000. A Critique of Deep Green Theory. In Beneath the Surface, ed. Eric Katz, Andrew Light and David Rothenberg, 43-58. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Naess, Arne. 1989. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Passmore, John. 1974. Man’s Responsibility for Nature. London, Duckworth.
Routley, Richard. 1973. Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic? Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy 1: 205-210 (Varna, Bulgaria).
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1973. The Fight for Forests. Canberra: Australian National University.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1978. Nuclear Energy and Obligations to the Future. Inquiry 21: 133-179.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1979. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism. In Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, ed. K.E. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre, 36-59. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1980. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics. In Environmental Philosophy, ed. D.S. Mannison, M. McRobbie and R. Routley, 96-189. Canberra: Australian National University.
Routley, Richard. 1982. In Defence of Cannibalism. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 2. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1985. 'A Critique of Deep Ecology.' Radical Philosophy 40 and 41: 2-12; 10-22. Also published as Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 12. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1986. Three Essays on Deeper Environmental Ethics. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 13. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1990. In Defence of Deep Environmental Ethics. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 18. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard and David Bennett. 1994. The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep Green Theory. Cambridge: The White Horse Press; Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press).
Sylvan, Richard. 1997. Metaphysics: From Radical to Deep Plurallism. [sic] Cambridge: The White Horse Press.
Richard was born Francis Richard Routley at Levin, New Zealand, in 1935. He changed his name to Sylvan when he remarried in 1983. He studied at Victoria University, Wellington, and then Princeton, before taking positions successively at the University of Sydney, the University of New England and Monash University. From 1971 until his untimely death in 1996 he was a fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Sylvan is buried at his property 'Nameless', outside Gerringong in New South Wales, at the edge of one of the forests he cherished and overlooking the sea.
Sylvan was responsible, individually and in collaboration, for much of the development of environmental philosophy in Australasia. He was also responsible for provoking a lot of the remainder. This was done in a characteristically vigorous and provocative style. An example of his provocative style – and courageous choice of topics – is his 1982 paper 'In Defence of Cannibalism'. This was published in Sylvan's 'Green' Preprint Series of Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, one of several publication series which he edited. Many of his essays appeared in his preprint series, which were not widely circulated, and in consequence much of the prolific research resulting from his wide-ranging and off-beat intellectual curiosity is not widely known.
The content of 'In Defence of Cannibalism' is in fact less sensational than the title suggests. It addresses the ethics of killing, in particular killing humans, and the ethics of eating dead animals, including dead humans. Sylvan carefully and properly separated these questions. The title of the paper nevertheless generated alarm among some members of the philosophical community. Apparently some philosophers were concerned that Sylvan might be a Hannibal Lecter in the world of philosophy – and it is not difficult to suspect that Sylvan may have derived satisfaction from the unsettling effects generated by this thought.
Sylvan's research program ranged much more widely than the ambit of environmental philosophy as conceived by the majority of writers in this area. It was systematically linked with his (and others') work in metaphysics, semantics, logic, epistemology and value theory. He also connected it with work outside mainstream Australasian and Anglo-American philosophical inquiry as well as with work in other disciplines, including Taoism, Buddhism, nihilism, cosmology, demography, politics and economics. Sylvan also addressed environmental policy issues in his important monograph The Fight For the Forests (Routley and Routley 1973), written with distinguished environmental philosopher and his then partner Val Plumwood.
Sylvan's work in environmental philosophy goes back to the early 1970s, and his seminal paper 'Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?' (Routley 1973) remains a landmark in the discussion of anthropocentrism. The last man argument, first presented in that paper, remains an important locus of discussion about anthropocentrism. Another important paper written in collaboration with Plumwood (Routley and Routley 1980) elaborates the argument. Sylvan's critique of anthropocentrism, or human chauvinism, aligned him with central concerns of deep ecology, though he distanced himself from much of deep ecology (see Sylvan 1985). Sylvan went on to develop his own environmental philosophy which he called Deep Green Theory (DGT) in The Greening of Ethics (1994). At the time of his death he was working on a fuller explication of DGT, published posthumously as Metaphysics. From Radical to Deep Plurallism [sic] (1997). Sylvan developed his views in opposition to those of his university colleague John Passmore, who returned the favour in Man's Responsibility for Nature (1974) with his strenuous rejection of the need for radical revision in ethics to accommodate concern for the environment.
DGT aims to clear the 'garbage' (Sylvan's description) from environmental philosophy and replace it with theoretical rigor. It is a pluralistic position which shares with deep ecology a rejection of the prevailing technocentric approach to the environment of industrial society. While it shares a number of features of Arne Naess's eight-point platform for deep ecology (Naess 1989), its focus and emphasis is different. A central theme is that many environmental items are valuable in themselves; that is, their value does not answer back to human values and human interests. In developing his rigorous alternative position, Sylvan introduces a number of distinctions marked by a plethora of unfortunate neologisms – "non-jective", "gre-een", "extranalities", "expiricism", "intraneous", "extitution". (After a while one starts to yearn for a bit of Hegelian or post-modernist precision and clarity.) For a critical evaluation of Sylvan's environmental philosophy see Grey (2000).
Sylvan's extensive, eclectic, detailed and ambitious reflections on environmental philosophy deserve to be better known. Although there are difficulties with the articulation of the principles of DGT, the thoughts of many people who have wrestled with problems in this area owe an enormous debt to Sylvan for the illumination, clarification and challenge which he provided.
Bibliography
Grey, William. 2000. A Critique of Deep Green Theory. In Beneath the Surface, ed. Eric Katz, Andrew Light and David Rothenberg, 43-58. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Naess, Arne. 1989. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Passmore, John. 1974. Man’s Responsibility for Nature. London, Duckworth.
Routley, Richard. 1973. Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic? Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy 1: 205-210 (Varna, Bulgaria).
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1973. The Fight for Forests. Canberra: Australian National University.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1978. Nuclear Energy and Obligations to the Future. Inquiry 21: 133-179.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1979. Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism. In Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, ed. K.E. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre, 36-59. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Routley, Richard and Val Routley. 1980. Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics. In Environmental Philosophy, ed. D.S. Mannison, M. McRobbie and R. Routley, 96-189. Canberra: Australian National University.
Routley, Richard. 1982. In Defence of Cannibalism. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 2. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1985. 'A Critique of Deep Ecology.' Radical Philosophy 40 and 41: 2-12; 10-22. Also published as Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 12. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1986. Three Essays on Deeper Environmental Ethics. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 13. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard. 1990. In Defence of Deep Environmental Ethics. Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy No. 18. Canberra: Australian National University.
Sylvan, Richard and David Bennett. 1994. The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep Green Theory. Cambridge: The White Horse Press; Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press).
Sylvan, Richard. 1997. Metaphysics: From Radical to Deep Plurallism. [sic] Cambridge: The White Horse Press.