canis lupus cosmopolis: wolves in a cosmopolitan … · 2008. 6. 4. · canis lupus cosmopolis:...

28
CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery in North America sparks heated controversy, both for and against. This paper explores how this subject is informed by cosmopolitan worldviews. These worldviews pull nature and culture into a common orbit of eth- ical meaning, with implications for the normative relationships that ought to pertain in landscapes shared by people and wolves. This theoretical outlook is illustrated using the controversy over wolves in the northeastern region of the United States. I conclude with a set of re ections on theorizing the cosmopolis, the interpretation of cosmopolitan landscapes, and living with cosmopolitan wolves. Keywords : cosmopolis, cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan worldviews, ethics, wolves Introduction What drives opposition to the recovery of predators like wolves? Perhaps the most visceral reason is fear—fear of personal injury, fear of the unknown, fear for the safety of family and friends. A col- league from Spain related her feelings at watching a pack of wolves pass by their campsite at night during a full moon. Her fear was palpable, and admittedly based on un attering cultural myths about wild canids. I could sense the chill as she told her story, and a story from William Bartram sprang to mind. An eighteenth century American naturalist, Bartram was exploring the wilds of Florida. One night he awoke to nd his sh spirited away by a wolf. He re ects on “the unexpected and unaccountable incident, which however pointed out to me an extraordinary deliverance or protection of my life, from the rapacious wolf that stole my sh from over my head.” (Bartram 1973, 156) How much easier and more eligible might it have been for him to have leaped upon my breast in the dead of sleep, and torn my throat, which would have instantly deprived me of life, and then gutted his stomach for the present with my warm blood, and dragged oV my body, which would have made a feast afterwards for him and his howling associates! I say, would not this have been a wiser step, than to have © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002 Worldviews 6,3 300-327 Also available online – www.brill.nl

Upload: others

Post on 26-Sep-2020

2 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW

William S Lynn

Abstract The subject of wolf recovery in North America sparks heated controversy both forand against This paper explores how this subject is informed by cosmopolitanworldviews These worldviews pull nature and culture into a common orbit of eth-ical meaning with implications for the normative relationships that ought to pertainin landscapes shared by people and wolves This theoretical outlook is illustratedusing the controversy over wolves in the northeastern region of the United StatesI conclude with a set of re ections on theorizing the cosmopolis the interpretationof cosmopolitan landscapes and living with cosmopolitan wolves

Keywords cosmopolis cosmopolitanism cosmopolitan worldviews ethics wolves

Introduction

What drives opposition to the recovery of predators like wolvesPerhaps the most visceral reason is fearmdashfear of personal injury fearof the unknown fear for the safety of family and friends A col-league from Spain related her feelings at watching a pack of wolvespass by their campsite at night during a full moon Her fear waspalpable and admittedly based on un attering cultural myths aboutwild canids I could sense the chill as she told her story and a storyfrom William Bartram sprang to mind An eighteenth century Americannaturalist Bartram was exploring the wilds of Florida One night heawoke to nd his sh spirited away by a wolf He re ects on ldquotheunexpected and unaccountable incident which however pointed outto me an extraordinary deliverance or protection of my life fromthe rapacious wolf that stole my sh from over my headrdquo (Bartram1973 156)

How much easier and more eligible might it have been for him tohave leaped upon my breast in the dead of sleep and torn my throatwhich would have instantly deprived me of life and then gutted hisstomach for the present with my warm blood and dragged oV my bodywhich would have made a feast afterwards for him and his howlingassociates I say would not this have been a wiser step than to have

copy Koninklijke Brill NV Leiden 2002 Worldviews 63 300-327Also available online ndash wwwbrillnl

made protracted and circular approaches and then after by chanceespying the sh over my head with the greatest of caution and silencerear up and take them oV the snags one by one then make oV withthem and that so cunningly as not to awaken me until he had fairlyaccomplished his purpose (Bartram 1973 157)

For my colleague her dread was counterbalanced by wonder andwe excitedly shared stories of encounters with wild animals Fearand dread is a normal and often appropriate human reaction espe-cially towards large carnivorous animals Having been chased by agrizzly bear charged by a moose and attacked by dogs I know thisfear I would never belittle another person for their own Nonethelessour fears about wolves are unwarranted from ecological and etho-logical evidence We know that wolves are neither beasts of wasteand desolation nor varmints villains and vermin They are simplywild beings enmeshed like ourselves in the tapestry of life Thiscommon sense insight took the dominant European cultures thou-sand of years to develop but it was something the indigenous peo-ples of North America (and elsewhere) understood long ago Unfetteredby the dualisms of natureculture or animalhuman their relation-ship with wolves was characterized by appreciation not denigrationMany early humans modeled themselves on wolf packs learning cul-tural and practical skills from a highly successful species and wolf-derived or wolf-like canids quickly became indispensable (perhapsgenerative) of human culture (see Corbett 1995 Cohen 1997 Dunlap1988 Hall 1978 Lopez 1978 Morell 1997 Tacon and Pardoe 2002)This is not to pretend that direct and violent con icts between peo-ple and wolves never or cannot occur Although we lack direct pre-historic evidence it would be unreasonable to suppose that con ictsover food family or territory never brought wolves and humans toblows In our day captive wolves socialized to the presence of humansare more likely to respond to perceived threats and infractions oftheir social order with often subtle but sometimes overt acts of phys-ical intimidation and aggression (see Klinghammer and Goodmann1985) This should be put in context as attacks by healthy wildwolves are extraordinarily rare and virtually never lethal (Linnell2002 McNay 2002) Still in spite of many years of observing andinteracting with wolves they still conjure moments of dread in mewhen in their moods or my ignorance I do something to whichthey respond with displeasure They remind me that while our speciesis dominant on earth by virtue of cognitive acuity complex social

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 301

organization advanced technology sheer numbers and a regrettabledisposition to species cleansing homo sapiens are pitiful beings in termsof natural strength agility and perception There is both humilityand wonder to be gained from this insight1

Fear aside what else may account for the resistance to wolf recov-ery Some say it re ects our ignorance of the role played by wolvesin the maintenance of ecological function and biodiversity Othersclaim it is economic self-interest extremist ideologies of individual-ism erroneous models of property rights or anti-government senti-ments Still others point to Euro-Americarsquos cultural prejudices againstpredators All these explanations have a share of the truth (see Busch1994 Dunlap 1988 Lopez 1978 MacIntyre 1996 Mighetto 1991Sharpe et al 2001) There is however an additional element that re-mains under-investigatedmdashthe moral discourse that underpins or under-cuts this resistance We should ask therefore what moral argumentsand sensibilities might account for the opposition to wolf restoration

To cut to the chase (a thoroughly wol sh metaphor) I believethat the opposition to wolves is partially rooted in worldviews thatmodel the relationship between nature and culture according to aldquonaturalrdquo moral order or ldquoharmonyrdquo This harmony might be thoughtof as ldquothe best arrangement possiblerdquo between the wild and thedomesticated These worldviews are a network of resonant ideasfeelings and experiences and do not form a coherent system of lin-ear argument and deductive conclusions Even so they have strongnormative implications that in uence the politics of wolves in strik-ing ways

A moral order uniting nature and humanity bears a striking resem-blance to a very old worldviewmdashthe cosmopolis2 It is the con-nections between wolves ethics and the cosmopolis that I mean toexplore in this essay I begin by discussing the idea of the cosmopolisNext I use the debate over wolf recovery in Vermont as a point ofdeparture to explore the cosmopolis of wolf opponents To facilitatefurther dialogue I conclude with a set of re ections on theorizingthe cosmopolis the interpretation of cosmopolitan landscapes andliving with cosmopolitan wolves To the best of my knowledge thisis the rst instance that the concept of the cosmopolis has beenspeci ed and deployed in this way Throughout this essay my inten-tions are suggestive not conclusive As a practical ethicist and herme-neuticist (see Bernstein 1991 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 Lynn 2003)

302 william s lynn

I resist totalizing discourse Rather than pretend my argument isde nitively nal I hope to earmark a new avenue of interdiscipli-nary interest for scholars working on animal ethics animal studiesand animal geographymdashthree arenas of interdisciplinary wisdom onwhich I (gratefully) depend

The Cosmopolis

The idea of the cosmopolis emerges in Stoic philosophy during theGreek and Roman Empires of the Mediterranean world We are notcertain of its provenance because the writings of the foundersmdashZenoof Citium (c 335-263 BCE) and Chrysippus of Soli (c 280-207)mdashare lost to us as are most of the texts from the early and middleStoamdashthe distinct periods of stoic thought (c 300-250 BCE) Discus-sions of early doctrines survive primarily in writings from the lateStoa (the rst through third century CE) This Stoa was rmly asso-ciated with Roman public philosophy as represented in the writingof Cicero (c 106-43 BCE) Seneca the Younger (c 1-65 CE) Epictetus(c 50-130 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (c 121-180) (see Becker 1999chapter 3 Honderich 1995 852-853)

Mulford Sibley notes that like many religious and philosophicalmovements of its time the latter Stoa was a response to the increas-ing cultural diversity and political integration of the Roman EmpireWhile this diversity and integration had less eVect on the culturalintegrity of the countryside it did transform the urban centres ofthe Roman Empire These centres became cities of the (Roman)world cosmo-poleis or ldquoworld-citiesrdquo re ecting the wider demo-graphics economics and politics of Roman life (Sibley 1977 115-116) The modern notion of a cosmopolitan as a ldquocitizen of theworldrdquo is rooted in this line of thinking Pheng Cheah oVers a par-ticularly helpful de nition

Cosmopolitanism is derived from Kosmo-polites a composite of the Greekwords for ldquoworldrdquo and ldquocitizenrdquo by way of the esprite cosmopolite ofRenaissance humanism It primarily designates an intellectual ethicsa universal humanism that transcends regional particularism Theregional particularism that is opposed here may be de ned territori-ally cultural linguistically or even racially but it is not de ned nation-ally as we now understand the term because in a Europe made up

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 303

of absolutist dynastic states the popular national state did not yet existNor indeed had the doctrine of nationalism been fully articulatedCosmopolitanism thus precedes the popular nation-state in history andnationalism in the history of ideas (Cheah and Robbins 1998 22)

Cheahrsquos foregrounding of the conceptual and temporal distinctionsbetween nationalism and cosmopolitanism signals its use in moderntimes Immanuel Kant generated a discussion of cosmopolitanismwhen he suggested that a cosmopolitan ethic could be instrumentalin fostering perpetual peace between European states through a freefederation of the same For Kant this was instrumental to the ulti-mate purpose of achieving a uni ed human race (Cheah and Robbins1998 59-76) Contemporary scholars have taken this usage on boardand cosmopolitanism is a core point of debate in global ethics andinternational aVairs Cheah and Robbins felicitously describe this asa debate over thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries of nationaland identity politics In this interpretation a cosmopolitan person isaware of and engaged with the well-being of the world beyond herlocale or nation This dialogue is especially concerned with theincreasing urbanization of societies the globalization of culture themulticulturalism of urban life and the post-national identities of agrowing community of ldquoglobal citizensrdquo Overall cosmopolitanism isregarded by some as an antidote to parochial national perspectivesand a justi cation for respecting diversity and pluralism within soci-ety (see Beauregard and Body-Gendrot 1999 Sandercock 1997Dower 1998 Tomlinson 1999)

As important as this modern discussion may be the cosmopolisis an idea far older and more complex than world-citizenship aloneimplies So let us return to the Stoic understanding of the cosmopolisthe root-stock that informsmdashbut is not identical tomdashcontemporarydebates over cosmopolitanism

The Stoics are credited with the three-fold division of philosophyinto ethics logic and metaphysics They made substantial contribu-tions to all these areas Spanning a wide geography and long his-tory it should come as no surprise that Stoicism was a diversephilosophy whose doctrines were in dispute Yet the core of Stoicismwas an ethics with the following features

Cosmic TelosmdashAccording to the Stoics an all-embracing orderfounded on reason pervades and uni es all parts of the cosmosThe cosmos is a rational being and there is a purpose for all

304 william s lynn

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 2: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

made protracted and circular approaches and then after by chanceespying the sh over my head with the greatest of caution and silencerear up and take them oV the snags one by one then make oV withthem and that so cunningly as not to awaken me until he had fairlyaccomplished his purpose (Bartram 1973 157)

For my colleague her dread was counterbalanced by wonder andwe excitedly shared stories of encounters with wild animals Fearand dread is a normal and often appropriate human reaction espe-cially towards large carnivorous animals Having been chased by agrizzly bear charged by a moose and attacked by dogs I know thisfear I would never belittle another person for their own Nonethelessour fears about wolves are unwarranted from ecological and etho-logical evidence We know that wolves are neither beasts of wasteand desolation nor varmints villains and vermin They are simplywild beings enmeshed like ourselves in the tapestry of life Thiscommon sense insight took the dominant European cultures thou-sand of years to develop but it was something the indigenous peo-ples of North America (and elsewhere) understood long ago Unfetteredby the dualisms of natureculture or animalhuman their relation-ship with wolves was characterized by appreciation not denigrationMany early humans modeled themselves on wolf packs learning cul-tural and practical skills from a highly successful species and wolf-derived or wolf-like canids quickly became indispensable (perhapsgenerative) of human culture (see Corbett 1995 Cohen 1997 Dunlap1988 Hall 1978 Lopez 1978 Morell 1997 Tacon and Pardoe 2002)This is not to pretend that direct and violent con icts between peo-ple and wolves never or cannot occur Although we lack direct pre-historic evidence it would be unreasonable to suppose that con ictsover food family or territory never brought wolves and humans toblows In our day captive wolves socialized to the presence of humansare more likely to respond to perceived threats and infractions oftheir social order with often subtle but sometimes overt acts of phys-ical intimidation and aggression (see Klinghammer and Goodmann1985) This should be put in context as attacks by healthy wildwolves are extraordinarily rare and virtually never lethal (Linnell2002 McNay 2002) Still in spite of many years of observing andinteracting with wolves they still conjure moments of dread in mewhen in their moods or my ignorance I do something to whichthey respond with displeasure They remind me that while our speciesis dominant on earth by virtue of cognitive acuity complex social

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 301

organization advanced technology sheer numbers and a regrettabledisposition to species cleansing homo sapiens are pitiful beings in termsof natural strength agility and perception There is both humilityand wonder to be gained from this insight1

Fear aside what else may account for the resistance to wolf recov-ery Some say it re ects our ignorance of the role played by wolvesin the maintenance of ecological function and biodiversity Othersclaim it is economic self-interest extremist ideologies of individual-ism erroneous models of property rights or anti-government senti-ments Still others point to Euro-Americarsquos cultural prejudices againstpredators All these explanations have a share of the truth (see Busch1994 Dunlap 1988 Lopez 1978 MacIntyre 1996 Mighetto 1991Sharpe et al 2001) There is however an additional element that re-mains under-investigatedmdashthe moral discourse that underpins or under-cuts this resistance We should ask therefore what moral argumentsand sensibilities might account for the opposition to wolf restoration

To cut to the chase (a thoroughly wol sh metaphor) I believethat the opposition to wolves is partially rooted in worldviews thatmodel the relationship between nature and culture according to aldquonaturalrdquo moral order or ldquoharmonyrdquo This harmony might be thoughtof as ldquothe best arrangement possiblerdquo between the wild and thedomesticated These worldviews are a network of resonant ideasfeelings and experiences and do not form a coherent system of lin-ear argument and deductive conclusions Even so they have strongnormative implications that in uence the politics of wolves in strik-ing ways

A moral order uniting nature and humanity bears a striking resem-blance to a very old worldviewmdashthe cosmopolis2 It is the con-nections between wolves ethics and the cosmopolis that I mean toexplore in this essay I begin by discussing the idea of the cosmopolisNext I use the debate over wolf recovery in Vermont as a point ofdeparture to explore the cosmopolis of wolf opponents To facilitatefurther dialogue I conclude with a set of re ections on theorizingthe cosmopolis the interpretation of cosmopolitan landscapes andliving with cosmopolitan wolves To the best of my knowledge thisis the rst instance that the concept of the cosmopolis has beenspeci ed and deployed in this way Throughout this essay my inten-tions are suggestive not conclusive As a practical ethicist and herme-neuticist (see Bernstein 1991 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 Lynn 2003)

302 william s lynn

I resist totalizing discourse Rather than pretend my argument isde nitively nal I hope to earmark a new avenue of interdiscipli-nary interest for scholars working on animal ethics animal studiesand animal geographymdashthree arenas of interdisciplinary wisdom onwhich I (gratefully) depend

The Cosmopolis

The idea of the cosmopolis emerges in Stoic philosophy during theGreek and Roman Empires of the Mediterranean world We are notcertain of its provenance because the writings of the foundersmdashZenoof Citium (c 335-263 BCE) and Chrysippus of Soli (c 280-207)mdashare lost to us as are most of the texts from the early and middleStoamdashthe distinct periods of stoic thought (c 300-250 BCE) Discus-sions of early doctrines survive primarily in writings from the lateStoa (the rst through third century CE) This Stoa was rmly asso-ciated with Roman public philosophy as represented in the writingof Cicero (c 106-43 BCE) Seneca the Younger (c 1-65 CE) Epictetus(c 50-130 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (c 121-180) (see Becker 1999chapter 3 Honderich 1995 852-853)

Mulford Sibley notes that like many religious and philosophicalmovements of its time the latter Stoa was a response to the increas-ing cultural diversity and political integration of the Roman EmpireWhile this diversity and integration had less eVect on the culturalintegrity of the countryside it did transform the urban centres ofthe Roman Empire These centres became cities of the (Roman)world cosmo-poleis or ldquoworld-citiesrdquo re ecting the wider demo-graphics economics and politics of Roman life (Sibley 1977 115-116) The modern notion of a cosmopolitan as a ldquocitizen of theworldrdquo is rooted in this line of thinking Pheng Cheah oVers a par-ticularly helpful de nition

Cosmopolitanism is derived from Kosmo-polites a composite of the Greekwords for ldquoworldrdquo and ldquocitizenrdquo by way of the esprite cosmopolite ofRenaissance humanism It primarily designates an intellectual ethicsa universal humanism that transcends regional particularism Theregional particularism that is opposed here may be de ned territori-ally cultural linguistically or even racially but it is not de ned nation-ally as we now understand the term because in a Europe made up

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 303

of absolutist dynastic states the popular national state did not yet existNor indeed had the doctrine of nationalism been fully articulatedCosmopolitanism thus precedes the popular nation-state in history andnationalism in the history of ideas (Cheah and Robbins 1998 22)

Cheahrsquos foregrounding of the conceptual and temporal distinctionsbetween nationalism and cosmopolitanism signals its use in moderntimes Immanuel Kant generated a discussion of cosmopolitanismwhen he suggested that a cosmopolitan ethic could be instrumentalin fostering perpetual peace between European states through a freefederation of the same For Kant this was instrumental to the ulti-mate purpose of achieving a uni ed human race (Cheah and Robbins1998 59-76) Contemporary scholars have taken this usage on boardand cosmopolitanism is a core point of debate in global ethics andinternational aVairs Cheah and Robbins felicitously describe this asa debate over thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries of nationaland identity politics In this interpretation a cosmopolitan person isaware of and engaged with the well-being of the world beyond herlocale or nation This dialogue is especially concerned with theincreasing urbanization of societies the globalization of culture themulticulturalism of urban life and the post-national identities of agrowing community of ldquoglobal citizensrdquo Overall cosmopolitanism isregarded by some as an antidote to parochial national perspectivesand a justi cation for respecting diversity and pluralism within soci-ety (see Beauregard and Body-Gendrot 1999 Sandercock 1997Dower 1998 Tomlinson 1999)

As important as this modern discussion may be the cosmopolisis an idea far older and more complex than world-citizenship aloneimplies So let us return to the Stoic understanding of the cosmopolisthe root-stock that informsmdashbut is not identical tomdashcontemporarydebates over cosmopolitanism

The Stoics are credited with the three-fold division of philosophyinto ethics logic and metaphysics They made substantial contribu-tions to all these areas Spanning a wide geography and long his-tory it should come as no surprise that Stoicism was a diversephilosophy whose doctrines were in dispute Yet the core of Stoicismwas an ethics with the following features

Cosmic TelosmdashAccording to the Stoics an all-embracing orderfounded on reason pervades and uni es all parts of the cosmosThe cosmos is a rational being and there is a purpose for all

304 william s lynn

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 3: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

organization advanced technology sheer numbers and a regrettabledisposition to species cleansing homo sapiens are pitiful beings in termsof natural strength agility and perception There is both humilityand wonder to be gained from this insight1

Fear aside what else may account for the resistance to wolf recov-ery Some say it re ects our ignorance of the role played by wolvesin the maintenance of ecological function and biodiversity Othersclaim it is economic self-interest extremist ideologies of individual-ism erroneous models of property rights or anti-government senti-ments Still others point to Euro-Americarsquos cultural prejudices againstpredators All these explanations have a share of the truth (see Busch1994 Dunlap 1988 Lopez 1978 MacIntyre 1996 Mighetto 1991Sharpe et al 2001) There is however an additional element that re-mains under-investigatedmdashthe moral discourse that underpins or under-cuts this resistance We should ask therefore what moral argumentsand sensibilities might account for the opposition to wolf restoration

To cut to the chase (a thoroughly wol sh metaphor) I believethat the opposition to wolves is partially rooted in worldviews thatmodel the relationship between nature and culture according to aldquonaturalrdquo moral order or ldquoharmonyrdquo This harmony might be thoughtof as ldquothe best arrangement possiblerdquo between the wild and thedomesticated These worldviews are a network of resonant ideasfeelings and experiences and do not form a coherent system of lin-ear argument and deductive conclusions Even so they have strongnormative implications that in uence the politics of wolves in strik-ing ways

A moral order uniting nature and humanity bears a striking resem-blance to a very old worldviewmdashthe cosmopolis2 It is the con-nections between wolves ethics and the cosmopolis that I mean toexplore in this essay I begin by discussing the idea of the cosmopolisNext I use the debate over wolf recovery in Vermont as a point ofdeparture to explore the cosmopolis of wolf opponents To facilitatefurther dialogue I conclude with a set of re ections on theorizingthe cosmopolis the interpretation of cosmopolitan landscapes andliving with cosmopolitan wolves To the best of my knowledge thisis the rst instance that the concept of the cosmopolis has beenspeci ed and deployed in this way Throughout this essay my inten-tions are suggestive not conclusive As a practical ethicist and herme-neuticist (see Bernstein 1991 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 Lynn 2003)

302 william s lynn

I resist totalizing discourse Rather than pretend my argument isde nitively nal I hope to earmark a new avenue of interdiscipli-nary interest for scholars working on animal ethics animal studiesand animal geographymdashthree arenas of interdisciplinary wisdom onwhich I (gratefully) depend

The Cosmopolis

The idea of the cosmopolis emerges in Stoic philosophy during theGreek and Roman Empires of the Mediterranean world We are notcertain of its provenance because the writings of the foundersmdashZenoof Citium (c 335-263 BCE) and Chrysippus of Soli (c 280-207)mdashare lost to us as are most of the texts from the early and middleStoamdashthe distinct periods of stoic thought (c 300-250 BCE) Discus-sions of early doctrines survive primarily in writings from the lateStoa (the rst through third century CE) This Stoa was rmly asso-ciated with Roman public philosophy as represented in the writingof Cicero (c 106-43 BCE) Seneca the Younger (c 1-65 CE) Epictetus(c 50-130 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (c 121-180) (see Becker 1999chapter 3 Honderich 1995 852-853)

Mulford Sibley notes that like many religious and philosophicalmovements of its time the latter Stoa was a response to the increas-ing cultural diversity and political integration of the Roman EmpireWhile this diversity and integration had less eVect on the culturalintegrity of the countryside it did transform the urban centres ofthe Roman Empire These centres became cities of the (Roman)world cosmo-poleis or ldquoworld-citiesrdquo re ecting the wider demo-graphics economics and politics of Roman life (Sibley 1977 115-116) The modern notion of a cosmopolitan as a ldquocitizen of theworldrdquo is rooted in this line of thinking Pheng Cheah oVers a par-ticularly helpful de nition

Cosmopolitanism is derived from Kosmo-polites a composite of the Greekwords for ldquoworldrdquo and ldquocitizenrdquo by way of the esprite cosmopolite ofRenaissance humanism It primarily designates an intellectual ethicsa universal humanism that transcends regional particularism Theregional particularism that is opposed here may be de ned territori-ally cultural linguistically or even racially but it is not de ned nation-ally as we now understand the term because in a Europe made up

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 303

of absolutist dynastic states the popular national state did not yet existNor indeed had the doctrine of nationalism been fully articulatedCosmopolitanism thus precedes the popular nation-state in history andnationalism in the history of ideas (Cheah and Robbins 1998 22)

Cheahrsquos foregrounding of the conceptual and temporal distinctionsbetween nationalism and cosmopolitanism signals its use in moderntimes Immanuel Kant generated a discussion of cosmopolitanismwhen he suggested that a cosmopolitan ethic could be instrumentalin fostering perpetual peace between European states through a freefederation of the same For Kant this was instrumental to the ulti-mate purpose of achieving a uni ed human race (Cheah and Robbins1998 59-76) Contemporary scholars have taken this usage on boardand cosmopolitanism is a core point of debate in global ethics andinternational aVairs Cheah and Robbins felicitously describe this asa debate over thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries of nationaland identity politics In this interpretation a cosmopolitan person isaware of and engaged with the well-being of the world beyond herlocale or nation This dialogue is especially concerned with theincreasing urbanization of societies the globalization of culture themulticulturalism of urban life and the post-national identities of agrowing community of ldquoglobal citizensrdquo Overall cosmopolitanism isregarded by some as an antidote to parochial national perspectivesand a justi cation for respecting diversity and pluralism within soci-ety (see Beauregard and Body-Gendrot 1999 Sandercock 1997Dower 1998 Tomlinson 1999)

As important as this modern discussion may be the cosmopolisis an idea far older and more complex than world-citizenship aloneimplies So let us return to the Stoic understanding of the cosmopolisthe root-stock that informsmdashbut is not identical tomdashcontemporarydebates over cosmopolitanism

The Stoics are credited with the three-fold division of philosophyinto ethics logic and metaphysics They made substantial contribu-tions to all these areas Spanning a wide geography and long his-tory it should come as no surprise that Stoicism was a diversephilosophy whose doctrines were in dispute Yet the core of Stoicismwas an ethics with the following features

Cosmic TelosmdashAccording to the Stoics an all-embracing orderfounded on reason pervades and uni es all parts of the cosmosThe cosmos is a rational being and there is a purpose for all

304 william s lynn

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 4: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

I resist totalizing discourse Rather than pretend my argument isde nitively nal I hope to earmark a new avenue of interdiscipli-nary interest for scholars working on animal ethics animal studiesand animal geographymdashthree arenas of interdisciplinary wisdom onwhich I (gratefully) depend

The Cosmopolis

The idea of the cosmopolis emerges in Stoic philosophy during theGreek and Roman Empires of the Mediterranean world We are notcertain of its provenance because the writings of the foundersmdashZenoof Citium (c 335-263 BCE) and Chrysippus of Soli (c 280-207)mdashare lost to us as are most of the texts from the early and middleStoamdashthe distinct periods of stoic thought (c 300-250 BCE) Discus-sions of early doctrines survive primarily in writings from the lateStoa (the rst through third century CE) This Stoa was rmly asso-ciated with Roman public philosophy as represented in the writingof Cicero (c 106-43 BCE) Seneca the Younger (c 1-65 CE) Epictetus(c 50-130 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (c 121-180) (see Becker 1999chapter 3 Honderich 1995 852-853)

Mulford Sibley notes that like many religious and philosophicalmovements of its time the latter Stoa was a response to the increas-ing cultural diversity and political integration of the Roman EmpireWhile this diversity and integration had less eVect on the culturalintegrity of the countryside it did transform the urban centres ofthe Roman Empire These centres became cities of the (Roman)world cosmo-poleis or ldquoworld-citiesrdquo re ecting the wider demo-graphics economics and politics of Roman life (Sibley 1977 115-116) The modern notion of a cosmopolitan as a ldquocitizen of theworldrdquo is rooted in this line of thinking Pheng Cheah oVers a par-ticularly helpful de nition

Cosmopolitanism is derived from Kosmo-polites a composite of the Greekwords for ldquoworldrdquo and ldquocitizenrdquo by way of the esprite cosmopolite ofRenaissance humanism It primarily designates an intellectual ethicsa universal humanism that transcends regional particularism Theregional particularism that is opposed here may be de ned territori-ally cultural linguistically or even racially but it is not de ned nation-ally as we now understand the term because in a Europe made up

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 303

of absolutist dynastic states the popular national state did not yet existNor indeed had the doctrine of nationalism been fully articulatedCosmopolitanism thus precedes the popular nation-state in history andnationalism in the history of ideas (Cheah and Robbins 1998 22)

Cheahrsquos foregrounding of the conceptual and temporal distinctionsbetween nationalism and cosmopolitanism signals its use in moderntimes Immanuel Kant generated a discussion of cosmopolitanismwhen he suggested that a cosmopolitan ethic could be instrumentalin fostering perpetual peace between European states through a freefederation of the same For Kant this was instrumental to the ulti-mate purpose of achieving a uni ed human race (Cheah and Robbins1998 59-76) Contemporary scholars have taken this usage on boardand cosmopolitanism is a core point of debate in global ethics andinternational aVairs Cheah and Robbins felicitously describe this asa debate over thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries of nationaland identity politics In this interpretation a cosmopolitan person isaware of and engaged with the well-being of the world beyond herlocale or nation This dialogue is especially concerned with theincreasing urbanization of societies the globalization of culture themulticulturalism of urban life and the post-national identities of agrowing community of ldquoglobal citizensrdquo Overall cosmopolitanism isregarded by some as an antidote to parochial national perspectivesand a justi cation for respecting diversity and pluralism within soci-ety (see Beauregard and Body-Gendrot 1999 Sandercock 1997Dower 1998 Tomlinson 1999)

As important as this modern discussion may be the cosmopolisis an idea far older and more complex than world-citizenship aloneimplies So let us return to the Stoic understanding of the cosmopolisthe root-stock that informsmdashbut is not identical tomdashcontemporarydebates over cosmopolitanism

The Stoics are credited with the three-fold division of philosophyinto ethics logic and metaphysics They made substantial contribu-tions to all these areas Spanning a wide geography and long his-tory it should come as no surprise that Stoicism was a diversephilosophy whose doctrines were in dispute Yet the core of Stoicismwas an ethics with the following features

Cosmic TelosmdashAccording to the Stoics an all-embracing orderfounded on reason pervades and uni es all parts of the cosmosThe cosmos is a rational being and there is a purpose for all

304 william s lynn

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 5: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

of absolutist dynastic states the popular national state did not yet existNor indeed had the doctrine of nationalism been fully articulatedCosmopolitanism thus precedes the popular nation-state in history andnationalism in the history of ideas (Cheah and Robbins 1998 22)

Cheahrsquos foregrounding of the conceptual and temporal distinctionsbetween nationalism and cosmopolitanism signals its use in moderntimes Immanuel Kant generated a discussion of cosmopolitanismwhen he suggested that a cosmopolitan ethic could be instrumentalin fostering perpetual peace between European states through a freefederation of the same For Kant this was instrumental to the ulti-mate purpose of achieving a uni ed human race (Cheah and Robbins1998 59-76) Contemporary scholars have taken this usage on boardand cosmopolitanism is a core point of debate in global ethics andinternational aVairs Cheah and Robbins felicitously describe this asa debate over thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries of nationaland identity politics In this interpretation a cosmopolitan person isaware of and engaged with the well-being of the world beyond herlocale or nation This dialogue is especially concerned with theincreasing urbanization of societies the globalization of culture themulticulturalism of urban life and the post-national identities of agrowing community of ldquoglobal citizensrdquo Overall cosmopolitanism isregarded by some as an antidote to parochial national perspectivesand a justi cation for respecting diversity and pluralism within soci-ety (see Beauregard and Body-Gendrot 1999 Sandercock 1997Dower 1998 Tomlinson 1999)

As important as this modern discussion may be the cosmopolisis an idea far older and more complex than world-citizenship aloneimplies So let us return to the Stoic understanding of the cosmopolisthe root-stock that informsmdashbut is not identical tomdashcontemporarydebates over cosmopolitanism

The Stoics are credited with the three-fold division of philosophyinto ethics logic and metaphysics They made substantial contribu-tions to all these areas Spanning a wide geography and long his-tory it should come as no surprise that Stoicism was a diversephilosophy whose doctrines were in dispute Yet the core of Stoicismwas an ethics with the following features

Cosmic TelosmdashAccording to the Stoics an all-embracing orderfounded on reason pervades and uni es all parts of the cosmosThe cosmos is a rational being and there is a purpose for all

304 william s lynn

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 6: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

things and events There is thus a macrocosm of purpose in natureat both terrestrial and celestial scales as well as in the microcosmof humanityrsquos individual and collective lives

NaturalisticmdashThe fundamental principle of Stoic ethics was ldquofol-low naturerdquo While moderns might baulk at a potential con ationof facts with values the Stoics saw it diVerently Nature (looselytranslated here as cosmos) was regarded as the larger order ormacrocosm in which the microcosm of humanity was embeddedSince the two were uni ed it made sense to look to nature forinsight about society Beyond this just what ldquofollow naturerdquo meansis in some dispute There were likely several meanings primarilythat we should align our actions with the facts of the world aswell as with the larger purposes of a teleological cosmos

EudaimoniamdashStoic ethics was thoroughly eudaimonistic As opposedto pleasure power property and prestige it identi ed the goodlife with the ourishing of people according to the supreme virtueof reason Originally counseling apatheia or indiVerence to worldlymatters later Stoics softened this into a regime of character build-ing on the use of reason to improve personal and civic life

Practical ReasonmdashFor Stoics circumstances always conditionedthe ndings of moral reasoning The Stoics looked to context whendetermining what is good in life what is ethically justi able andwhat actions are incumbent for the ethical person This was nota form of situation ethics per se Rather they were particularisticin the sense of developing broad norms to be situationally applied(Becker 1998 chapters 1-4 Toulmin and Jonsen 1989 chapters 2-3)

The cosmopolis was both root and fruit of this ethics Although mak-ing a basic distinction between cosmos and polis that is betweennature and culture the Stoics believed the universal reason pulledcosmos and polis into a common orbit of ethical meaning It is thisthat served as the basis for an ethics that ldquofollowed naturerdquo Thenormative ldquologicrdquo of Stoic cosmopolitanism ran something like thisSince a moral order pervades nature and culture our conduct ashuman individuals and communities is at its best (eg ldquorightrdquo) whenwe act naturally that is when we act in accord with nature Seenin this way a cosmopolis is much more than a world city of trans-imperial culture and politics It is a worldview laden with moral val-ues that mutually constitute the realms of nature and culture (Toulmin1990 67-69) Stephen Toulmin (1990 68) puts it this way

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 305

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 7: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

We nd Stoic philosophers fusing the ldquonaturalrdquo and ldquosocialrdquo ordersinto a single unit Everything in the world (they argued) manifests invaried ways an ldquoorderrdquo which expresses the Reason that binds allthings together Social and natural regularities alike are aspects of thesame overall cosmo + polismdashie cosmopolis The practical idea that humanaVairs are in uenced by and proceed in step with heavenly aVairschanges into the philosophical idea that the structure of nature rein-forces a rational Social Order (Toulmin 1990 68)

Toulmin develops this idea at length in his celebrated book CosmopolisThe Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) Using the stoic conception asa metaphor for thinking about philosophies of science and societyToulmin explores how medieval and early modern sensibilities aboutpolitics and ethics were informed by contrasting cosmo-political out-looks These worldviews sought normative resonance between natureand culture or put another way a model of nature from which toconstruct the moral-political artifacts of society The shift from medie-val to early modern theories of science illustrates this nicely

In the medieval world of Christian Europe the model for societyand nature was the organism This was not however an organicismfounded on the beings and processes of nature Nature was a fallenrealm an unsuitable template for Godrsquos moral social and naturalorder It was a spiritual organism the body of Christ which wasthe master metaphor for nature and society with each plant animalperson and class having a role to ful ll Lacking a well-developedknowledge of evolution and ecology or human and physical geo-graphy scientists of the time (and well before) assumed a special cre-ation for the earth an anointed role for humankind and a grandpurpose or cosmic teleology to the universe All this resonated wellwith ancient doctrines of causation one of which emphasized cos-mic teleology and a concept of physical and spiritual ldquosubstancesrdquothat explained the qualities of matter and experience The Catholicscience of this age (then called natural philosophy) was constructedon these pillars (see Dampier 1984 Lindberg 1992 Livingstone 1992)

By the mid-1500s however many were cha ng under the Catholichierarchyrsquos commitment to its science Growing ranks of Europeanscholars were impressed by the ldquoexperimentalrdquo methods of physiol-ogy and medicine frustrated by the increasing disjunction betweenobservation experiment and Aristotelian physics and shocked bygeographical explorations revealing the Biblersquos omissions of ldquootherworldsrdquo with their distinct cultures ora and fauna Natural philoso-

306 william s lynn

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 8: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

phers were looking for a more adequate worldview one whose the-oretical and empirical rigour could accommodate new data andinsights ldquoExoticrdquo knowledge had implications for society and polit-ical philosophy as well some of which profoundly challenged ortho-dox viewpoints on the social and moral order This included thegrowth of deistic and heretical religions the rst stirrings of globaltrade and colonial adventures the increasing experience of moraland cultural diversity the rst owering of nationalism the emer-gence of absolute monarchy and social contract political philosophiesthe rise of commercial and labouring classes and the correspondingweight of towns or cities in the capitalist regime of accumulationThe Church and princely states sought to preserve their authorityby suppressing dissent theological and political dissent

Despite the Crusades excommunications the Inquisition and mis-sionary movements the ability of the Roman Church to enforce itsviews on science and society was nally ended by the Thirty YearsWars (1618-1648) Rooted in the religious struggle between Catholicismand Protestantism and abetted by dynastic and nationalistic con ictthis war devastated central Europe bankrupted the participatingstates of Western Europe and nourished an imperialistic form ofEuropean nationalism One consequence of this chaos was the dis-crediting of the medieval Roman Catholic worldview Prior to theProtestant Reformation and European nationalism Catholic theol-ogy and natural philosophy formed the conceptual framework forunderstanding the ldquocosmopolisrdquomdashthe ldquotruthsrdquo of Godrsquos creation andhis [sic] intentions for human life including morality culture andpolitics With the general ferment and unrest in Europe and in theface of ongoing devastation the old cosmopolis became untenableThis cleared the way for contending philosophies to re-weave andmake whole the European world

Modern science was one of these contenders Its vision of anordered comprehensible and mechanically engineered social andnatural world held forth a promise of stability for which manyEuropeans yearned The atomic and mechanistic metaphors of theday not only lent themselves to experiments of precise calculationand prediction but were consonant with the increasingly individu-alist and market-oriented polities emerging in Europe Thus scien-tists participated in the ongoing cultural project of reconstituting the intellectual edi ce of the modern cosmopolis by producing amechanistic philosophy and quantitative methodology that would

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 307

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 9: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

purportedly deliver certain causal and determinative knowledge forthe guidance of human aVairs (Toulmin chapters 2-4) As God hadengineered the Earth and the Universe to perfection before the expul-sion from Eden so too could Humanity engineer itself to (near) per-fection as it awaited redemption While many believed in this literallyincluding many scientists over time it really did not matter if the-ological faith wavered This cosmopolitan vision of human powerand ingenuity harnessing natural forces for the social weal was pow-erful medicine And because this project was so successful in empow-ering humanity over nature science became a model (some wouldsay the model) for valid knowledge and the belief in scientismmdashtheclaim that science provides the only true or useful knowledgemdashgainedwidespread adherence (see Sorell 1991 White 1968)

The understanding of cosmopolis I use in this essay is akin toToulminrsquos I retain the Stoic emphasis on the normative connectionsinterweaving the human and natural worlds and the cosmo-politicalimplications this has for how we think about science and society (fordetails see Toulmin 1990 the ldquoEpiloguerdquo) While I am sympatheticto the ethical system of the Stoics I do not adopt it Rather I amusing cosmopolis as a conceptual tool with which to examine thehumanwolf relationship afresh In so doing I use the word cos-mopolis to discuss a worldview where the realms of nature and cul-ture are interlaced by a common moral thread or put another wayto explore an ethics-laden discourse about humans and nature Thecosmopolis oVers a distinct vision of the intertwining moral valuesthat ought to characterize the relationship between the natural andcultural worlds and in this essay between wolves and human com-munities A cosmopolitan point-of-view re ects the moral vision of aparticular cosmopolis while multiple (and perhaps contesting) visionsof the cosmopolis would be cosmopoleis the plural form of cosmopo-lis A cosmopolitan wolf then is not a worldly and sophisticatedcanid Rather a cosmopolitan wolf is a wild canid Canis lupus viewedthrough the lens of this kind of natureculture discourse In addi-tion my use of the concept has descriptive explanatory and nor-mative dimensions As a description it helps specify and distinguishplural conceptions of nature and culture As an explanation it helpsone interpret the intentions reasons and actions of individuals andsociety towards wolves people and the natural world As a norma-tive vision it re ects various perspectives on how we ought to livein a more-than-human world Taken together a cosmopolitan world-

308 william s lynn

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 10: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

view serves both as a metatheory to guide human understanding ofour place in the natural world and as a signi er of particular instancesof such understandings3

The Opposition to Wolves in Vermont

Grey wolves were endemic to North America including New Englandand New York (together the Northeast) for over 10000 BP priorto colonization by Europeans Beginning in the 1600s the specieswas exterminated in the lower 48 states of the US in a little over400 years Wolves hung on despite the intense pressure of huntingand trapping in the wilds of Canada The last wolves of the Northeastwere oYcially shot and trapped in the Adirondack Mountains dur-ing the 1870s A hundred years later modest eVorts in the US atwolf recovery (primarily the protection of Minnesota Wolves fromextermination) began By the beginning of the new millennium wolveswere still missing from the vast majority of their previous rangeincluding the Northeast In the late 1990s a bitter debate beganover restoring wolves to the Northeast This debate was kindled asagencies of the federal government foresaw restoration possibilitiesin a network of highlands and watershedsmdashthe Adirondack Mountainsof New York the upper Hudson River Valley the Green Mountainsof Vermont the White Mountains of New Hampshire and theAllagash River Basin of Maine Environmental groups were activelypursuing reintroduction while property rights wise use and sports-men groups were adamantly resisting (see Brownlow 2000 Elder2000 Ferris et al 1999 International Wolf Center 1997 InternationalWolf Center 2001 Sharpe et al 2001)

Most of the attention given these debates has centred on vocaland potentially violent opposition in Adirondack State Park and anti-wolf legislation in New Hampshire and Maine For my purposes Iwant to focus on an alternative instance of this debatemdashthe legisla-tive hearings on a bill to prohibit wolves in the state of VermontAs a state with a ldquoprogressiverdquo environmental record the debateover wolves seemed less heated than in surrounding states It then ared up in January of 2000 when the chair of the Vermont HouseFisheries and Wildlife Committee State Representative Richard Helmof Castleton introduced a measure to prohibit the introduction ofwolves into Vermont by federal state or private agencies (Helm

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 309

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 11: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

2000) The proposed legislation was similar to successful state lawspassed in New Hampshire and Maine

The bill died in committee but not before Representative Helmheld hearings on its merits4 A parade of stakeholders lined up tooVer advice including the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources(ANR) hunting and trapping organizations Defenders of Wildlife(Defenders) the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and local citi-zens5 The ANR opposed the bill on the grounds that it was pre-mature and more information was necessary before any decisionsabout management should be made Defenders and the NWF agreedwith the ANR but reminded the committee of the important roleplayed by wolves in healthy ecosystems As part of their testimonythey proactively addressed arguments against wolf recovery in Vermontchalking up anti-wolf sentiment to a variety of well-known factorsmdashecological ignorance economic self-interest anti-government senti-ments and cultural myths about predators

What fascinated me however was the discourse of the huntingand trapping clubs6 Their testimony did underscore the critique ofenvironmentalists being littered with skewed conceptions of wolfethology and ecology Even so I believe I heard something distinctin their talkmdasha cosmopolitan worldview that ran in parallel withecologic economic and political claims This worldview portrayedhumans and wolves as having a ldquonaturalrdquo and normative relation-ship that ought to de ne their interactions Two features character-ize this relationship First wolves and humans should not share spacein a common landscape Where humans tread wolves should fearto follow Second the anthropogenic transformation of natural land-scapes is itself a ldquonaturalrdquo phenomenon as are the species extirpa-tions and extinctions it eventuates In the words of one wolf opponentldquowolves are out of placerdquo in humanized landscapes In the words ofanother opponent wolf recovery is an attempt to ldquoturn back theclockrdquo on the ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of Vermontrsquos landscape Throughopen discussion in the hearing the consequence of this line of think-ing was clari ed The recovery of wolves in the humanized land-scape of Vermontmdashhowever rugged and widely forestedmdashis a violationof the ldquonatural orderrdquo of things This violation occurs when wolvesare restored to landscapes where proximity and the lack of physicalbarriers create uid and overlapping territories that cannot be delin-eated or policed

310 william s lynn

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 12: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

The worldviews expressed by the opponents of wolf recovery wereby no means monolithic For some it was a matter of leaving wolveswhere ldquothey are meant to berdquo Designated wilderness areas in theUnited States and the ldquonation of Canadardquo (a howling wildernessone presumes) were mentioned as appropriate habitats Other oppo-nents allowed that if the wolf returned to Vermont ldquoon its ownrdquothen that might ldquoproverdquo that ldquowolves are meant to be hererdquo7 Thislater claim about recolonization is especially revealing It was fre-quently accompanied by laudatory stories of coyotes Coyotes werepraised for their adaptability in humanized landscapes and admiredfor their ability to ourish in spite of lethal animal control and habi-tat degradation A business analogy was employed at several pointsthe coyote being an ldquoentrepreneurrdquo one who takes advantage ofnew market niches (ie habitat) Unable to adapt to new nichesCanis lupus is a business failure and unks the acid test of survivingthe ldquonatural evolutionrdquo of the landscape The wolf is therefore eco-logically un t and as a consequence morally undeserving of a placein the spaces of human activity8

Cosmopolitan Reections

There is nothing so practical as good theory Theories help clarifyour understandings of the world and whether right or wrong serveas touchstones for dialogue As I said before I reject totalizing dis-courses and I will not try to forestall other insights by insisting ona comprehensive list of my own Instead I want to posit several the-oretical elements that deserve attention and hope these commentsprovide something of a road-map for others interested in the explor-ing the space(s) made(or not) for wolves in a ldquomore than humanworldrdquo (for a full bodied discussion on this wonderful phrase seePeterson 2002)

1 Theorizing the Cosmopolis

I say ldquotheorizingrdquo as opposed to ldquothe theory ofrdquo Why There aretwo reasons First I want to re-emphasize our ignorance of the cos-mopoleis that inform our relationship to wolves and nature and sec-ond I want to underscore a process of dialogue exploration and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 311

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 13: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

pluralism that I would like to see characterize our collective re ectionson the cosmopolis

We have much to learn about the worldviews that in uence ourrelationship to wolves wildlife and the rest of nature As can be seenfrom the Vermont illustration cosmopolitan worldviews involve acomplex play of mutually constituting beliefs and behaviours DiVerentemphases on landscape evolution species tness spatial separationand entrepreneurial skill were readily apparent in the discourse ofwolf opponents at the Vermont legislative hearings Whether theserepresent variations on a single cosmopolis or elements of multiplecosmopoleis is unknown We are equally ignorant about the cos-mopolis of wolf advocates Defenders of Wildlife is a case in point

As a leading environmental group advocating wolf recovery inNorth America Defenders asserts its identity as a ldquomoderate envi-ronmental grouprdquo making science-based arguments for protectingendangered species preserving biodiversity and moving forward withecological restoration It explicitly rejects animal-focused moral argu-ments as they smack of animal rights ldquoextremistsrdquo (Fascione 1999Fascione and Kendrot 2001) Nevertheless as based on extensive personal conversations the actual sensibilities of some Defenders employees and members are manifestly ethical The restoration ofwolves has been described to me in various waysmdashas restitution forpast harms to a member of the biotic community conserving a bio-logical heritage for our children and future generations the restora-tion of predatory functions that improve human animal and ecosystemhealth and an opportunity to begin living a more sustainable lifeAt root all of these reasons are laden with moral values as each isin some way concerned with the well-being of human and non-human others In cosmopolitan language we might say that themoral fabric of the cosmopolis was torn by habitat degradation andspecies extinction and the recovery of wolves whether through rein-troduction or recolonization is a necessary step towards reweavingthe moral order of nature and culture

Pursuing these inquiries will require an interdisciplinary eVort ofethicists scientists and citizens all of who should inform the politicsand practice of wolf recovery This is especially important with respectto wolves for our moral and civic dialogue about wolf recovery istoo narrowly drawn There are several reasons for this In the rstplace the research on wolves is dominated by biological and socio-economic analysis (eg Carbyn et al 1995) These provide valuable

312 william s lynn

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 14: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

information about wolf ecology economic costs and bene ts andhuman social preferences They do little to describe adjudicate orprescribe the moral dispositions people harbour (or ought to har-bour) towards wolves in the landscape

In the second place mainstream environmental philosophy is illequipped to apprehend the lived moral sensibilities represented bycosmopolitan worldviews With its emphasis on formal argumentswolves become vignettes to illustrate the axiological epistemologicaland ontological arguments that are often the real interest of philoso-phers (eg Hettinger and Throop 1999 Lynn 1998b) We mustinclude voices from outside the traditional halls of philosophy todeepen our inquiries and better apprehend the content context andconsequences of cosmopolitan worldviews The work on animal ethicsanimal geography and animal studies are sources of broader insightin this regard (eg Lutts 1999 Mack 1999 Midgley 1984 Noske1997 Lynn 1998a Lynn 2002 Philo and Wilbert 2000 Sax 2000)

The third reason is the skew to public dialogue imparted by thecurrent emphasis on ldquosound sciencerdquo In discussions of predator man-agement sound science looms large often as an implicit assumptionSound science is supposed to be the evidence-based theory-rich base-line for managing wolves Sound science provides the facts aboutwolf ecology and ethology facts that are then added to social pref-erences (say a desire for huntable deer) to produce policy In truthhowever wolves persisted quite well alongside humanity for over ahundred thousand years all without the ldquobene trdquo of wildlife man-agement It should be clear then that humanityrsquos troubled rela-tionship with wolves has little to do with sound science in the senseof empirical data quantitative models or management techniquesInstead our trouble with wolves is a deeply rooted ethical con ictover whether to coexist with wolves and other large predatorsResolving this con ict is a question of values not facts (even if thisputs the matter too strongly) and wolf recovery depends on a cul-ture of tolerance for other life forms and their ways-of-life not ascience of wildlife management9

Another aspect of theorizing the cosmopolis concerns the kind ofmoral theories deployed Here I am referring to the unfortunate divi-sion between formal and applied ethics Scholars frequently assumethat the moral dimension of public life is adequately mapped by theapplication of an abstract ethical system The method here is tooverlay onersquos chosen theory onto the wolf controversy trusting that

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 313

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 15: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

314 william s lynn

onersquos abstract deductions will produce the proper moral positionFor this to work we assume that the abstract ethic is suYcientlybroad and perspicuous to cover all contingencies or justi cationsFormal ethical systems are tremendously helpful as conceptual toolsand I do not want to gainsay their use Yet we should not mistakea priori ethical theories for an inquiry into the ethical self-under-standings that inform opposition or support for wolf recovery Seekingthe nascent moral discourses that lie outside the sphere of the acad-emy can be equally helpful This is especially true when they alertus to new con gurations of ideas and practices that are not wellrepresented in the standard conceptual toolbox yet constitute impor-tant points-of-view in public dialogue To my mind a better approachis a practical ethics that understands the situated nature of moral under-standing and is sensitized to the reciprocally informing ecology oftheoretical insights and empirical cases Theory should not be divorcedfrom context and practice Instead it should be well situated in thecircumstances of particular cases and adaptive to changes in con-text and knowledge over space and time (see Lynn 2003)

The debate over wolves is a case in point The opposition to wolfrecovery is certainly supported by a moral discourse about humansand wild animals in the landscape The normative language thatcharacterizes the public debate bears witness to this Neverthelessthis discourse should not be confused with an established system ofanimal or environmental ethics (eg animal rights weak anthro-pocentrism) The discourse of wolf opponents is not a well-honedand abstract conceptual system It does not depend on sharp axio-logical arguments about the moral standing of animals and as aresult of this slippage is not even necessarily anthropocentric Rathersuch axiological arguments are embedded in wider discourses ofnature and culture and make more or less sense to the degree thatthey resonate with other beliefs about how we ought to dwell onearth Cosmopolitan worldviews may oVer a vision of human moralresponsibility tofor nature that is at least in some respects alto-gether distinct from that found in standard conceptual toolbox Apractical ethics should help us unpack this worldview It would doso not through the development or application of an abstract the-ory but by bring a set of moral principles and concepts to bear ina situated manner to help reveal the moral issues at stake and provide guidance on what actions we should take And it would do this in conjunction with other traditions of scholarship (eg

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 16: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 315

anthropology wildlife management) that contribute their own dis-tinct and valuable insights

Finally two broader comments about the use and development oftheory itself First the most powerful theories are those that help usdescribe explain and evaluate the world Cosmopolitan theorists maywant to recover an understanding of ethics as indispensable to expla-nation in the human and social sciences Scholars frequently con-ceptualize ethics as radically diVerent from science Science we aretold seeks explanations for natural and social phenomena while ethicsseeks justications for our actions in the world Whereas science asksquestions such as ldquowhat existsrdquo and ldquowhat causes thatrdquo ethics asksquestions like ldquohow shall we liverdquo and ldquowhat ought I do in this sit-uationrdquo While this distinction is important it does play into a rigiddivision of facts from values In the real world justi cations fre-quently motivate actions and thus serve as (partial) explanations inhuman aVairs You cannot understand why some people or com-munities do as they do until you understand the full range of theirintentions motivations and presuppositions The ethical dimensionsof these understandings are crucial Moral norms frequently justifyand guide our actions (for good or ill) and are the basis for cri-tiques of oppression and injustice Ethics is thus a form of discur-sive power enabling people to change the world around them viaindividual and collective actionmdashpolitics law social protest personalentreaties In all these senses then ethics is an internal concern ofthe human and social sciences and essential to the cultural histor-ical and policy analysis of humans and wolves As lived ethics cos-mopolitan worldviews may have an under-appreciated impact on the understandings and actions of their adherents Addressing theseworldviews is therefore crucial when we seek to describe explain orevaluate the human relationship to wolves (see Bellah 1983 Bernstein1991 Lynn 2003)

Second there is a tendency amongst scholars to promote what Iterm imperialist theory one designed to colonize and control a eld ofstudy in large part by obliterating the concepts methods and insightsfrom other traditions of scholarship This is readily evident in ani-mal and environmental philosophy where partisans of the value par-adigms of anthropocentrism biocentrism ecocentrism animal rightsand animal welfare battle for theoretical supremacy (for examplessee Callicott 1989 Francione 1996 Pepper 1993 Petronivich 1999Regan 1983)10 This is not some ivory tower debate Animal and

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 17: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

environmental activists diVerentially adopt these theories and whendeployed in political contexts have counterproductive eVects Theymay score points in debate with other partisan views but overallthis disposition towards monolithic theory impoverishes our under-standing of the world and obstructs the dialogue necessary to dis-cuss joint issues common outlooks points of diVerence and possibilitiesfor common ground What we need is a theoretical venture thatwelcomes a plurality of insights methods and conceptual innova-tions I am arguing here for a modern cosmopolitan sensibility totheorizing the cosmopolismdashan awareness and openness to diverseinsights and experiences Theorizing the cosmopolis should be morethan describing explaining or critiquing a moral discourse aboutnature and culture It should embody sensibilities that provide analternative to imperialist theory and are necessary for a true inter-disciplinary endeavour

2 Cosmopolitan Landscapes

Let us return to the concrete geographic rami cations of cosmopolitanworldviews for the well-being of wolves DiVerent visions of thenatureculture relationship may naturalize the separation or inte-gration of wolves and humans For wolf opponents this moral ordermay mandate the separation of wolves and humans into distinct nat-ural and cultural landscapes Blending these landscapes constitutes aviolation of moral order a disharmony Conversely the worldviewof wolf advocates may also seek to ldquofollow naturerdquo but in this casefollowing nature means integrating wolves and humans into a com-mon landscape A landscape without its historic complement of wolvesviolates the natural order and awaits the restoration of a mixedcommunity of people and animals in nature (for an extensive dis-cussion of the meaning and implications of mixed communities seeMidgley 1984)

Suppose for clari cationrsquos sake the discourse of wolf opponentsre ects a particular cosmopolis that de nes in broadly moral termswhat wolf-human relations ought to be This discourse will havesigni cant rami cations for how wolf opponents regard the companyof wolves and any practical ethics of wolf recovery will have todirectly engage its presuppositions intentions and consequences Itmay operate in a parallel conceptual universe to ecologic economic

316 william s lynn

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 18: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

or political arguments and in the eyes of adherents trump non-con-forming claims about wolves Cogent pro-wolf arguments may fallon deaf ears de ected because they are incongruent with this cos-mopolitan vision It may also form a horizon of expectation settinglimits to how much humans ought to tolerate wolves in humanizedlandscapes As Toulmin notes

The beliefs that shape our historical foresight represent our ldquohori-zons of expectationrdquo Those horizons mark limits to the eld of actionin which at the moment we see it as possible or feasible to changehuman aVairs and so to decide which of our most cherished practi-cal goals can be realized in fact (Toulmin 1990 1)

Proposals to restore wolves into humanized landscapes might trans-gress perceived boundaries of ethically responsible compromise Inaddition a cosmopolitan worldview may shift debate towards a value-laden moral dialogue even if this works at cross-purposes with pol-icy perspectives that marginalize moral values (for examples of thismarginalization see Bailey 1984 Decker 1987 and Gilbert and Dodds1992) As narratives that help create and make sense of particularmoral judgments about good or bad wolf management visions ofthe cosmopolis form part of the content and context of the wolfdebate and are an indispensable point of dialogue in public policy

My own view is explicitly value-laden and informed by my train-ing as a geographer Cosmopolitan worldviews can help us appre-hend and critique the moral values informing the anthropogenicevolution of landscape Humans exercise a profound and troublingldquogeographic agencyrdquo over the globe which is to say we have anastonishing ability to modify the earth for good or ill (see Marsh1964 Turner 1990) The geographies we create and destroy revealthe moral landscapes of our lives as human agency has consequencesfor human and non-human well-being that are literally drawn onthe landscape (eg slums gated communities clear-cuts zoos) Weinterpret these tracings as we describe and explain land use and thecondition of the landrsquos inhabitants Yet description and explanationare not enough They are incomplete without tracing the normativeimplications for all landscapes are laden (for good or ill) with moralvalues All landscapes and especially the landscapes adapted forhuman use inevitably privilege some human and wild beings overothers Whether this is good or just in anthropogenic landscapes is a situated judgment that must take account of the intentions

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 317

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 19: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

circumstances and consequences of our actions11 As an act of appre-hension we focus on understanding the role and implications of val-ues for describing and explaining how a landscape came to be whosewell-being is served (or not) who is centred excluded or marginal-ized and what counts as a transgression in social and physical spaceAs an act of critique we focus on adjudicating those values thatprivilege some over others be they humans or wolves and envisiona landscape that promotes rather than detracts from the welfare ofthe community of life My overall point is that the cosmopolis canhelp us interpret why a landscape exists what kinds of values itembodies and what we ought to do in its context

3 Cosmopolitan Wolves

As a nal re ection I want to connect wolf recovery with the recov-ery of a deeper human identity I have been using the term ldquorecov-eryrdquo to mean two things The rst meaning is recovery as referringto the natural recolonization or the deliberate human reintroduc-tion of wolves to former habitats Wolves are recovering in theAmerican West in both respects and while one mode or the otherseems to matter little to the wolves it is signi cant to people hold-ing cosmopolitan perspectives about carnivores The second mean-ing is that the recovery of wolves involves more than the presenceof a migrating wolf or an occasional den Recovery should imply ahealthy breeding population one that is capable of persisting overtime and space These are widely shared positions in the literatureon wolves and involve little dispute

There is however a more controversial dimension to recoverythat is more problematic speci cally what constitutes success in wolfrecovery How much (recovery) is enough There is sharp dis-agreement here The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) de nerecovery according to a narrow interpretation of the EndangeredSpecies Act (USFWS 1992 2000) Environmentalists have taken amore expansive de nition to heart Defenders for example has focusedon the need for distinct population segments spatially distributed soas to promote genetic diversity and avoid catastrophic losses to dis-ease or disaster (Ferris et al 1999) Both positions are rooted in bio-logical criteria and legal arguments and neither addresses our moralresponsibilities for wolf recovery and what that might mean

318 william s lynn

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 20: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

When I refer to recovery I am not talking about a shallow visionof wolf recovery one where we simply prevent extinctions (the USFWSposition) or distribute wolves as representative samples of biodiver-sity (Defendersrsquo position) In either sense wolves become nothing morethan another commodity of human society incarcerated within thewalls of zoos relegated to ghettos called refuge and wilderness andhounded in the marginal spaces of the humanitatmdashthe spaces of humanhabitation Rather I advocate a deep vision of wolf recovery onewhere wolves (and other predators) roam freely alongside human set-tlement By recovery then I mean not only a healthy and breedingpopulation of wolves that arises through recolonization or reintro-duction but a population whose individuals are respected as co-res-idents in wild and humanized landscapes

To my mind a deep recovery of wolves is interlaced with therecovery of our animality which is to say our human identity as ani-mals in relationship to other animals The question of animalitylooms large in animal studies and informs how we conceptualizethe taxonomy of life (eg animals plants bacteria etc) the socialnature of other animals (eg cognitive and cultural ethology) andthe diVerence that make us human (eg linguisticality cultural com-plexity) (in all these regards see Creager 2002 Ingold 1988 Mack1999 Manning and Serpell 1994 Shepard 1996) Our status as ani-mals is not however a new question and mythologies of origin havealways sought to place human and other animals into a coherentpattern of creation This should come as no surprise as animals arethe most culturally and materially signi cant dimensions of our earthlyhome The rst prehistoric art was primarily about animals herd-ing preceded farming and companion animals remain our closestconnection with non-human nature

I want to be careful however not to imply that animals are sim-ply ordinary and familiar or that our joint humanityanimality isanything but multi-layered uid and distinct from other animalsThe reality is otherwise and the alterity of animal their ldquoothernessrdquomust be acknowledged from the start As anyone who watches kittybecome killer even those creatures we know so well can surprise usby their otherness This otherness also structures our experience ofanimals We fear some for their power and ferocity (eg wolves)gaze at others in awe for their beauty and prowess (eg cougars)feel a deep aVection for some (eg companion dogs) and may feeldispassion for still others (eg broiler hens) Our own virtues and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 319

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 21: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

vices must make us equally other if there are sapient non-humananimals who bother to think about such things It is perhaps becauseof this alterity that there is no relationship so fraught with the para-doxes of familiarity and strangeness care and disregard as that ofbetween people and animals

How this alterity informs the understanding of our own human-ity is a subject we still struggle to understand Should we conceiveof animalhuman alterity in terms of (radical) diVerence as is donein human-focused social theory (see Harvey 1997 Young 1990) Ordo animals provide insight into another kind of alterity one in whichcontinuity is the basis for species identity Surely it is the later forthe philosophical dualisms that underwrote the strict separation ofhumans from other animals is crumbling and the evidence is pilingup for a continuum Scholars involved in animal studies and cogni-tive ethology make a powerful case for what we might call punctu-ated continuitymdashreal similarities combined with real diVerences thatare diVerentially con gured along a continuum of features and species(see BekoV et al 2002 BekoV 2002 GriYn 1992 Wynne 2001)

If then we can recognize in wolves as we so easily do in dogs(eg Thomas 1992 2000) a continuity of consciousness and well-being with ourselves what does that say about the moral bound-aries and connections that emerge from our joint animality Doesthe moral dimension of our identity as individuals societies or speciesmap over to wolves such that however ldquootherrdquo wolves may be (andthey are I assure you) they also have moral standing and signi cancein our hearts and minds How ought our moral identities be drawnin a world of wolves and other species so manifestly connectedmdashethically ethologically and ecologicallymdashto our own

This is not a subject I can settle here Speaking for myself mymoral identity means that I care not only for members of my ownspecies but also for a community of life including wolves As I wel-come the diVerences and diYculties of human diversity so too doI welcome the challenges of living with a diversity of animals includ-ing predators like wolves For me being fully human means livingin the presence of wolves They may be near or far but their pres-ence ought to be a precondition of a justi ably human way of lifeIt is in this sense that I also see Canis lupus as cosmopolitan wolveswild denizens of the world By virtue of overlapping identities peo-ple and wolves are drawn into a common orbit of ethical meaningand inhabit a common cosmopolis

320 william s lynn

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 22: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

How then do we realize more ethical landscapes How do wewelcome cosmopolitan wolves into the fabric of our lives We mightuse multiple criteria to help us take the measure of a landscapersquoshealthmdasheg biodiversity ecosystem health biophilia topophilia mul-ticulturalism justice sustainability etc Whatever criteria we choosecosmopolitan worldviews can help us envision and strive towards thewell-being for the entire community of lifemdashhuman and non-humanwild and domestic now and in the future here and at distant removeWhat then would it mean for people and wolves to coexist in sharedspace to inhabit a landscape together without the constant threat ofhuman depredation or habitat destruction The way forward is notentirely clear At a minimum it requires that we recognize the moralstanding of animals like wolves and aVord them signi cance in ourpublic policy on the basis of ethical as well as ecological and socialcriteria Too often it is only social (read economic) andor ecolog-ical criteria that are of signi cance in public policy As HolmesRolston notes animals like wolves cannot be citizens Unlike Homosapiens they are not zoon politikon the kind of creature capable of par-ticipating in political society Even so they are certainly residentsco-inhabitants of shared landscapes who ldquocount for the values theycarryrdquo (Rolston 1994 10) Their well-being in the landscape shouldcount in our moral and political deliberations which of necessityincludes environmental and wildlife policy planning and manage-ment Creating landscapes of well-being for wolves is one ethicalvision of the landscape a cosmopolitan vision that helps us criticallyre ect collectively deliberate and take moral responsibility for thepractical implications and tangible expressions of human agency onthe earth

William S Lynn PhD Research Scholar Center for Humans and NatureBeacon OYce 95 Liberty Street Beacon NY 12508 USA

Notes

1 I do not want to imply that our species does not have its own physical andcognitive glories It certainly does and aside from the more obvious aspects of rea-son empathy linguisticality and dexterity I want to make explicit my admirationfor the beauty and creativity embodied (quite literally) by those engaged in dancemusic and art There is something else too While we share emotional and

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 321

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 23: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

psychological dispositions with other animals that are the wellsprings of ethics weseem to be alone in making ethical norms and practice a fundamental element ofour society We may be as Mary Midgley has noted the distinctively ldquomoral pri-materdquo (see Midgley 1995 Waal 1997) This ability to care and to act on behalf ofothersmdasheven at great personal riskmdashis another virtue of our species

2 I realize that speaking of ldquodiscourserdquo or ldquoworldviewrdquo or ldquocosmopolisrdquo in thesingular can convey an impression of monolithic identity and erasure of diVerenceThis is not my intent as I fully realize that discourses are plural and contestedMy use of singular or plural forms denotes the scale and speci city of my com-ments At times I will speak of discourse in general at others I distinguish betweenparticular discourses Hence I shuttle between singular and plural forms dependingon the context of my remarks

3 For a more detailed exposition on this transition and its importance for thehumansocial sciences our understanding of qualitative methodology and the res-onance with a theory of practical ethics see my dissertation from which this extractwas adapted (Lynn 2000)

4 I testi ed at these hearings on the indispensable role of ethics and values inpolicy debates over land use planning and wildlife management the bene ts of anevaluative dimension in stakeholder negotiations and the necessity of inviting thefull range of stakeholders to the table I stressed that sidestepping an open-endedand deliberative public dialogue over wolf recovery will likely produce ldquoethics grid-lockrdquo over con icting moral visions and policy options In the end gridlock wouldonly undermine the legitimacy of legislative decisions Much of my time was spentanswering questions debunking claims about intractable con icts and advocatingfor win-win resolutions regarding the funding of feasibility studies and predator com-pensation funds

5 I hasten to add that our concept of a stakeholder should not be restricted toa human person community or corporation with an economic or social ldquostakerdquo inthe matter The word stakeholder employs a property metaphor and usefully con-veys the interest human beings have in the outcome of policy decisions regardingland-use and wildlife management We misuse the word however when we restrictthe beings who count to legal persons eg adult humans or corporations This cre-ates a concept frame with illicit presumptions of anthropocentrism and speciesismWe should instead assert a broader meaning to include people as well as animalsand landscapes and endeavour to ensure that the well-being of the entire commu-nity of life is duly cared for Community members may be a more adequate term

6 While this is a theoretically directed paper a brief note on method As a stu-dent of ethics and human geography I do not depend on statistical methods forempirical research Rather I engage in various degrees of immersion (eg partici-pant observation) open-ended interviews focus groups as well as textual and visualinterpretation and interdisciplinary dialogue These qualitative methods provide theinformation that conveys the content and meaning of moral discourse In the caseof the Vermont legislative hearings I took notes with an ear to the conceptsmetaphors illustrations and analogies that advocates and opponents of wolves usedin their presentations and discussions This is informed as well by conversations andpublic discussions I have had with advocates and opponents alike I have discussedthe ethics of wolf recovery at public conferences and seminars across North Americaso I am well placed to listen (and I hope truly hear) divergent views This descrip-tion of qualitative inquiry is deceptively simple For a formalization of this method-ology which I term ldquodiscursive case studyrdquo see my chapters 4-5 in my bookmanuscript (Lynn 2003 in process) For an extensive overview of qualitative inquirysee Denzin and Lincolnrsquos Handbook of Qualitative Research (2001)

7 This was an interesting rhetorical move because it implies a morally relevantdistinction between human restoration and natural recolonization

322 william s lynn

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 24: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

8 There is an interesting resonance here between colonialism ethnic cleansingand the social construction of nature on the one side and wildlife managementspecies-cleansing and speciesism on the other For good points-of-departure into thisemerging debate see the feminist critiques of Salleh (1990) Pluhar (1995) Noske(1997) and Plumwood (1993 2002) See too where I argue that racism sexism andspeciesism are not (mere) analogies but variants of anthropocentrism The mainpoint here is that racism sexism and ethnocentrism presuppose the ldquobeastializa-tionrdquo of people into non-human (or not quite fully human) others as the key ele-ment in its justi cation for prejudice and oppression This insight creates a muchstronger resonance between the oppressions people animals and nature than isheretofore drawn while expanding the possibilities for solidarity and mutual aidbetween animal environmental and social justice movements (Lynn 1998a Lynn1998b Lynn 2002)

9 The literature on ecosystems and adaptive management is a good place tobegin exploring the bene ts and drawbacks of ldquosound sciencerdquo as it is applied towolves in particular and biodiversity in general (the real focus of concern in thisliterature) For an introduction consult Grumbine (1996) Lee (1993) and Noss(1996) Note however that sound science means diVerent things to diVerent peo-ple For some it has to do with opposing the ldquojunkrdquo science of the anti-environ-mental movement for others it is about the rigour of science and for still othersit is how best to incorporate science into social policy Without diminishing theimportance of these issues there are two downsides to face The rst is that soundscience as rigour tends to ignore crucial distinctions between tangible and intan-gible phenomenon and associated qualitative and quantitative methodologies Itmay consequently diminish the role of ethics and values in social scienti c expla-nation as well as policy development (see Lynn 2003 chapters 4-6) Sound sciencein this sense can end up reinforcing an illicit notion of value-free science or value-neutral policy The second is the use of sound science to forestall actions on behalfof animals and the environment Conservative special interest and corporate lob-bies use the concept to delay or debunk common sense and precautionary approachesto the environment A brief search of ldquosound sciencerdquo on the web will more thandemonstrate this point

10 There are signi cant exceptions to this desultory state of aVairs See for exam-ple the work of Holmes Rolston (1994) and William Throop (2000) For one admit-tedly partial attempt to nd the resonances between value paradigms see Lynn(1998a 1998b) where I outline the value paradigm of geocentrism

11 The mere fact that a landscape has been adapted for a human purpose isno guarantee that the purpose was instrumentally desirable or ethically justi ablePost hoc judgment of land development does little to improve matters While landuse planning is suppose to ldquorationalizerdquo the development process its economisticoutlook is rarely the most suitable or least destructive paradigm to deploy (seeBeatley 1994) And community involvement is only as good as the community thatparticipates Such communities can be deeply problematic when they are fronts ordupes of corporate interests and local elites intent on manipulating the public processfor private ends

References

Bailey James A 1984 Principles of Wildlife Management New York John Wiley ampSons

Bartram William 1973 Travels through North and South Carolina Georgia East and WestFlorida Savannah Beehive Press Originally published in 1792

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 323

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 25: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

Beatley Timothy 1994 Ethical Land Use Principles of Policy and Planning BaltimoreJohn Hopkins University Press

Beauregard Robert A and Sophie Body-Gendrot ed 1999 The Urban MomentCosmopolitan Essays on the Late-20th-Century City Thousand Oaks Sage

Becker Lawrence C 1998 A New Stoicism Princeton Princeton University PressBekoV Mark Colin Allen and Gordon Burghardt eds 2002 The Cognitive Animal

Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition Cambridge MIT PressBekoV Mark 2002 Minding Animals Awareness Emotions and Heart New York Oxford

University PressBellah Robert N Norma Haan Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan 1983 Social

Science as Moral Inquiry New York Columbia University PressBernstein Richard J 1991 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science Hermeneutics and

Praxis Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania PressBrownlow Alec 2000 ldquoA Wolf in the Garden Ideology and Change in the

Adirondack Landscaperdquo In Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations edited by C Philo and C Wilbert London Routledge

Busch Robert 1994 Wolf Songs The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves SanFrancisco Sierra Club Books

Callicott J Baird 1989 In Defense of the Land Ethic Essays in Environmental PhilosophyAlbany State University of New York Press

Carbyn L and S Fritts and D Seip eds 1995 Ecology and Conservation of Wolvesin a Changing World Edmonton Canadian Circumpolar Institute

Cheah Pheng and Bruce Robbins eds 1998 Cosmopolitics Thinking and Feeling Beyondthe Nation Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Cohn JeVrey 1997 ldquoHow Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogsrdquo BioScience 47(11)725-728

Corbett Laurie 1995 ldquoDingoes Expatriate Wolves or Native Dogsrdquo Nature Australia2 (Summer)

Crosby Alfred W 1986 Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 New York Cambridge University Press

Dampier William Cecil 1984 A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy andReligion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Decker Daniel J and Gary R GoV eds 1987 Valuing Wildlife Economic and SocialPerspectives Boulder Westview Press

Denzin Norman K and Yvonna S Lincoln ed 2000 Handbook of Qualitative ResearchSecond edition Thousand Oaks California Sage

Donnelley Strachan 1998 ldquoCivic Responsibility and the Future of the ChicagoRegionrdquo Nature Polis Ethics Chicago Regional Planning A Special Supplement ofthe Hastings Center Report 2-5

Dower Nigel 1998 ldquoWorld Ethicsrdquo In Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics edited by RuthChadwick et al New York Academic Press

Dunlap Thomas 1988 Saving Americarsquos Wildlife Ecology and the American Mind 1850-1990 Princeton Princeton University Press

Elder John ed 2000 The Return of the Wolf Reections on the Future of Wolves in theNortheast Hanover University Press of New England

Fascione Nina 1999 ldquoRemarks on Ethics Wolf Restoration and StakeholderNegotiationsrdquo Paper for Exploring Ethics and Values in Fisheries and Wildlifea conference sponsored by the Organization of Wildlife Planners NationalConservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service ShepherdstownWest Virginia 16-20 May 1999

Fascione Nina and Stephen R Kendrot 2001 ldquoFacilitating Citizen Participationin Adirondack Wolf Recoveryrdquo In Wolves and Human Communities Biology Politicsand Ethics edited by V A Sharpe S Donnelley and B Norton WashingtonDC Island Press

324 william s lynn

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 26: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

Ferris Robert Mark ShaVer Nina Fascione Heather Pellet and Michael Senatore1999 Places for Wolves A Blueprint for Restoration and Long-Term Recovery in the Lower48 States Washington DC Defenders of Wildlife

Francione Gary L 1996 Rain Without Thunder The Ideology of the Animal RightsMovement Philadelphia Temple University Press

Gilbert Frederick F and Donald G Dodds 1992 The Philosophy and Practice ofWildlife Management Second Edition Malabar FL Krieger Publishing

GriYn Donald R 1992 Animal Minds Chicago University of Chicago PressGrumbine R Edward 1996 ldquoRe ections on lsquoWhat is Ecosystem Managementrsquordquo

Conservation Biology 11 (1)41-47Hall Roberta L and Henry S Sharp ed 1978 Wolf and Man Evolution in Parallel

New York Academic PressHarvey David 1997 Justice Nature and the Geography of DiVerence Cambridge

BlackwellHelm Richard 2000 H690mdashAn Act Relating to a Prohibition Against Introduction

of Wolves into Vermont Montpelier VT Vermont House of RepresentativesHettinger Ned and Bill Throop 1999 ldquoRefocusing Ecocentrism De-emphasizing

Stability and Defending Wildnessrdquo Environmental Ethics 21 3-21Honderich Ted ed 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford Oxford

University PressInternational Wolf Center 1997 Wolves Around the World 1997 Update Ely Minnesota

International Wolf Centermdashmdash 2001 The Global Challenge of Living with Wolves Ely Minnesota International

Wolf CenterKlinghammer Erich and Patricia A Goodmann 1985 The Management and

Socialization of Captive Wolves (Canis lupus) at Wolf Park Ethology Series No2 Battle Ground IN North American Wildlife Park Foundation Inc

Lee Kai N 1993 Compass and Gyroscope Integrating Science and Politics for the EnvironmentCovela Island Press

Lindberg David C 1992 The Beginnings of Western Science The European ScienticTradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450Chicago University of Chicago Press

Linnell John D C et al 2002 The Fear of Wolves A Review of Wolf Attackson Humans Trondheim NINAmdashNorsk Institutt for Naturforskning A LargeCarnivore Initiative for Europe

Livingstone David N 1992 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of aContested Discipline Oxford Basil Blackwell

Lynn William S 1998a ldquoAnimals Ethics and Geographyrdquo In Wolch Jennifer andJody Emel eds Animal Geographies Place Politics and Identity in the Nature-CultureBorderlands London Verso 280-298

mdashmdash 1998b ldquoContested Moralities Animals and Moral Value in the DearSymanskiDebaterdquo Ethics Place and Environment 1 223-242

mdashmdash 2000 ldquoGeoethics Ethics Geography and Moral Understandingrdquo DoctoralDissertation Department of Geography University of Minnesota Minneapolis

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoWolves Along the Hudson The Ethics of Wolf Recovery in theHumanized Landscapesrdquo Paper for the Wolves Along the Hudson seminar VassarCollege Poughkeepsie NY USA 22 September

mdashmdash 2002 ldquoAnimals A More-Than-Human Worldrdquo In Patterned Ground Ecologiesand Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S Harrison S Pile and N ThriftLondon Reaktion Press forthcoming

mdashmdash 2003 Situated Ethics ldquoIn progressrdquo Draft chapters can be found at wwwprac-ticalethicsnet

Lopez Barry Holstun 1978 Of Wolves and Men New York ScribnersLutts Ralph H 1999 The Wild Animal Story Philadelphia Temple University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 325

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 27: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

Marsh George Perkins 1965 Man and Nature or Physical Geography as Modied byHuman Action Cambridge Belknap Press Originally published in 1864

McIntyre Rick ed 1996 War Against the Wolf Americarsquos Campaign to Exterminate theWolf Stillwater Voyageur Press

Mack Arien 1999 Humans and Other Animals Columbus Ohio State UniversityPress

McNay Mark E 2002 A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and CanadaJuneau Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Midgley Mary 1984 Animals and Why They Matter Athens University of GeorgiaPress

mdashmdash 1995 The Moral Primate Humans Freedom and Morality New York RoutledgeMighetto Lisa 1991 Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics Tucson University

of Arizona PressMorell Virginia 1997 ldquoThe Origin of Dogs Running with the Wolvesrdquo Science

276 (13 June) 1647-1648Naess Arne 1974 ldquoSelf-Realization in Mixed Communities of Humans Bears

Sheep and Wolvesrdquo Inquiry 22 231-241Noske Barbara 1997 Beyond Boundaries Humans and Animals Montreal Black Rose

PressNoss Reed and et al 1996 Special Section Conservation Biology Values and

Advocacy Conservation Biology 10 (3)904-920Pepper David 1993 Eco-Socialism From Deep Ecology to Social Justice London RoutledgePeterson Anna L 2001 Being Human Ethics Environment and Our Place in the World

Berkeley University of California PressPetrinovich Lewis 1999 Darwinian Dominion Animal Welfare and Human Interests

Cambridge MIT PressPhilo Chris and Chris Wilbert eds 2000 Animal Spaces Beastly Places New Geographies

of Human-Animal Relations London RoutledgePlumwood Val 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature New York Routledgemdashmdash 2002 Environmental Culture The Ecological Crisis of Reason New York RoutledgeRegan Tom 1983 The Case for Animal Rights Berkeley University of California

PressRolston Holmes III 1994 Conserving Natural Value New York Columbia University

PressSandercock Leonie 1997 Towards Cosmopolis Planning for Multicultural Cities Boulder

John Wiley amp SonsSalleh Ariel 1990 Living with Nature Reciprocity or Control In Ethics of Environment

and Development Global Challenge International Response edited by J R Engel and J G Engel Tucson University of Arizona Press

Sax Boria 2000 Animals in the Third Reich Pets Scapegoats and the Holocaust NewYork Continuum

Sharpe Virginia A Strachan Donnelley and Bryan Norton eds 2001 Wolves andHuman Communities Biology Politics and Ethics Washington DC Island Press

Sheppard Eric and William S Lynn 2002 ldquoCities Imagining Cosmopolisrdquo InPatterned Ground Ecologies and Geographies of Nature and Culture edited by S HarrisonS Pile and N Thrift London Reaktion Press forthcoming

Sibley Mulford Q 1970 Political Ideas and Ideologies A History of Political ThoughtNew York Harper amp Row

mdashmdash 1977 Nature and Civilization Some Implications for Politics Itasca F E PeacockSorell Tom 1991 Scientism Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science London RoutledgeTacon Paul S C and Colin Pardoe 2002 Dogs Make Us Human Nature Australia

Autumn 53-61Thomas Elizabeth Marshall 1993 The Hidden Life of Dogs New York Houghton

MiZin

326 william s lynn

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327

Page 28: CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN … · 2008. 6. 4. · CANIS LUPUS COSMOPOLIS: WOLVES IN A COSMOPOLITAN WORLDVIEW William S. Lynn Abstract The subject of wolf recovery

mdashmdash 2000 The Social Lives of Dogs New York Houghton MiZinThroop William ed 2000 Environmental Restoration Ethics Theory and Practice New

York Humanity BooksTomlinson John 1999 Globalization and Culture Chicago University of Chicago

PressToulmin Stephen and Albert R Jonsen 1988 The Abuse of Casuistry A History of

Moral Reasoning Berkeley University of California PressToulmin Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity New York Free

PressUS Fish and Wildlife Service 1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf Revised

1992 ed Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife Servicemdashmdash 2000 Proposal to ReclassifyDelist the Grey Wolf In Federal Register 13 July

2000 Washington DC US Fish and Wildlife ServiceWaal Frans de 1997 Good Natured The Origins of Right and Wrong Cambridge

Harvard University PressWhite Lynn 1968 The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis In Machina Ex

Deo Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture edited by L White Boston MITPress

Wynne Clive 2001 Animal Cognition The Mental Lives of Animals New York PalgraveYoung Iris Marion 1990 Justice and the Politics of DiVerence Princeton Princeton

University Press

wolves in a cosmopolitan worldview 327