Geraline Mae Z. RamonesA55 INTFILO

THE WORLD PHILOSOPHY DAY:

Environmental Philosophy Lecture

The World Philosophy Day is commemorated annually on the month of

November. It is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) action that gives activities such as philosophical debates, dialogues and

lectures which exhibits prominent philosophers; their works and ideas, book fairs, etc. It

is a time to honor the great philosophical ideas of various sages and their beliefs. It is a

moment for us, people to expose and share our thoughts and learn new ideas from the

sages and philosophers. Though this day is held nationwide, it is not considered as a

holiday rather a time for philosophical reflections. Philosophy is always at work. We can

always use it. It helps us sound judgments in our daily experiences. As we make and

sound judgments, we use philosophy tacitly. Indeed, it opened doors for new ideas,

emphasized critical thinking and independence throughout history. Thus, The World

Philosophy Day brings the students and the general public closer to Philosophy.

The theme for the lecture series was about the natural environment. It is about

Philosophy and Environmental Crisis. At first, it got me into questioning of how does

philosophy be involved in nature or the environment. Just before the first topic, the

introducer said that philosophy has got something to do with the environment. He

enumerated the three types of environmental crisis. First the physical type, which refers

to the problems of the environment like global warming, oil spills, deforestation and alike

that is dealt by the scientists. Next, the legal type, which talks about the many

environmental laws that regulate the first type and things which can attract investors,

which is dealt by the lawmakers. Lastly, the attitudinal type, which is about the religious

and cultural beliefs that the environment is for human purposes and this type influences

the legal type and the philosophers deal with it. From the introduction of the man itself, it

can be concluded that the philosophers assess our attitudes and dispositions toward the

environment.

Ma. Paz G. Luna, the first speaker of the lecture series is a member of the

organization PUSOD Inc. and Tanggol Kalikasan. She is the chairperson for the Working

Group on Wetland Policies. She resides in Lipa City, Batangas. Her first organization

PUSOD Inc. is a non-stock and non-profit organization who advocates environmental

care and protection and to showcase the natural environment of the country to others.

And her other organization, Tanggal Kalikasan (Defense of Nature) is also a non-

governmental organization is an environmental law office in the country. She started her

lecture with a pop quiz to wake up the minds of the audience. She focused on the World

Views, Ethics and the Environment. For the world views, she distinctively described the

two world view, which suits our points of view. First the Expansionist World View that

produced the consumer society and defines progress as satisfying of material wants and

sees endless material growth as necessary for human happiness and that human happiness

is possible because of an ever-advancing technology. Second is the Ecological World

View, which sees the Earth as a finite system, so other subsystems can exhibit endless

growth and that the very functioning of the natural, social and economic systems is vital

because human beings depend on it. Both of the world views can give good and positive

outcomes to human beings. Basically, the argument that underlies is that one sees the

earth just for material growth and advancement while the latter is more of the

environmental part. I must agree with the notion that progress is really a big thing for

countries since it is an indicator of how rich or poor a country can be and it gives the

identity of a country but the fact that material growth is the source of human happiness is

somehow questionable. It is not only about the material things which can make us happy,

abstract things like love, care, concern, and alike can make us also happy and that

technological advancements just make our lives faster and convenient. For the second

world view it is true that we humans get want we want from our environment. Nature,

economy and society make us continually live and grow. We live by and for nature. Next,

ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with morals and values and environmental

ethics asks about the relationships between humans and the world around us. It was

inculcated into us since then that God created the world for us so we can have a place to

live in. We were given the freedom to do everything we want to do. We get our needs and

luxuries from the world we live in. We dominated the world. We have this belief that we,

humans, are the masters of the world and the world must follow us. Honestly, we are

already forgetting what we should do in return. As we were given the values and rights

for our world, together with these are obligations. We must be stewards of God's creation.

We must be the partners of the world, not its masters. We must take good care of our

world because in the end we will be the ones who will be greatly affected of its outcomes.

It is like, you live, you die since the world is not stable so we must use what we have

properly and not abuse for us to avoid negative effects in the future. Biodiversity is

necessary for us to achieve sustainable development. We can attain sustainable

development by seeking proper care of our ecology aspect, practicing non violence,

social justice and emphasizing grassroots democracy. She also mentioned about

Ecofeminism, which she described as a pluralistic, non-hierarchical relationship oriented

philosophy that suggests how we, humans can reconceived our relationships in ways we

cannot dominated the world or nature. From her lecture, I was awakened by the truth that

in our world we are facing various crises like water crisis, food crisis, toxic proliferation,

health crisis, economic crisis and the continuous loss of biodiversity. In our own country

we are facing issues like abuse of nature, malfunctioning of government units, corruption,

unequal distribution of natural resources, globalization and culture fights, which until

now are rampant and unfortunately unsolved. Thinking of which, our world is really

threatened. It is a wake up call for us to do something. Despite of these huge issues, I

believe it is not yet too late. There is still something we can do. There is always hope. We

can respond to these issues individually, through organizations, community and society.

We can help diminish the issues through sustainable agriculture, renewable energy,

family planning and insurance of productive and skilled workers, environment care,

habitat preservation and evaluation of innovations. Participation of all is needed for us to

save a place for all of us. We could all take part. It is important to discover, disclose,

connect and co-create to attain the infinite path of development yet saving the world as

well.

Moving on, the next speaker, Dr. Jeane C. Peracullo is a philosophy teacher

whose expertise is on the feminism and sexual ethics. She discussed about Animal

Liberation and Rights: Should we be vegetarians? Actually, as I saw her topic flashed on

the screen, I had these fore thoughts that what I could possibly see were photos of

animals being slaughtered for us to convince just to eat veggies but I was sort of wrong

because in her lecture she mentioned famous people whose views are on moral

consideration for animals. Vegetarian movement is not a new thing for me. I had always

heard of these people who just prefer eating vegetables and not eat meat or animals. They

say that being a vegetarian is a way of relating to animals since for them animals are not

natural resources for humans to consume rather they are also significant others. I know

their belief and I must respect what they believe. I am not a vegetarian, I eat meat, I hate

vegetables but I know I can still relate to animals I have pets which I take care and feed

always. I think it is up to the person on how he or she can relate to animals. The speaker

mentioned Peter Singer and his view toward animal liberation. For him, if a being suffers,

there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration

and that no matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its

suffering be counted equally with the suffering of any other being. On the other hand,

Jeremy Bentham said that the question is not “can they reason?” nor “can they talk?” but

“can they suffer?” Both Peter Singer and Jeremy Bentham arouse my consciousness that

indeed animal suffering is another issue for us address. We have been blind, deaf and

mute with regards to animal suffering. We forgot that animals are also species which have

lives that we should also take care of. We have been cruel to animals. We have thought

that animals forward the best key interests that animals are satisfaction for our human

interest and desires as well. Tom Regan said that if we humans have human rights so as

animals to have animal rights. We must treat animals as equal as men. A person named

Carol Adams compared woman to animals that women are regarded as pieces of meat and

flesh in a patriarchal society and for that attractive human female bodies are equal footed

to attractive flesh which makes appetite good. What these people want is to appeal to

rights that biodiversity must be abundant so nature can function efficiently. In our own

ways we can help address animal cruelty, you can choose to be a complete vegetarian or a

contextual selective vegetarian. I believe that we can still eat meat for like health

purposes but mostly to just intake vegetables so as to preserve the lives of the animals.

The philosophers mentioned in the second lecture want us to realize that we should

consider the ethical reflections and those animals do not only exist to be our foods. We

must do everything to alleviate the circumstances be it animals or humans.

For the third lecture, the topic was Towards Environmentalism's Death, which was

presided by Dante Luis P. Leoncini who is also a philosophy teacher whose expertise is

mostly on the Greek philosophy. From the title of his lecture, I can infer that his lecture is

a negative one. His lecture suddenly jumped to the conclusion that the environment can

be considered as deceased due to the various and bad issues rampantly happening.

Environmentalism refers to the discourses and discussions resulting from the reflections

on the environment most especially its preservation. It was ironic to see one of his slides

flashing, Our dream for today: Environmentalism's quick death. It was some sort of

sarcastic to see that because who would dream of letting nature be gone. Basically, it is

nature why we live continually, so it is a mistake for one to be aspiring and hoping for

nature's death. But that was my first impression of the title of the slide, fortunately

environmentalism's death meant differently and oppositely for the speaker. He defined

environmentalism's death as the death of environmental problems together. After that, I

was like shameful of giving another meaning of his view but at least now I know that

most of the times, probably it is better to use the opposite to make the audience minds

work imaginatively and critically. In his lecture, he talked about Aeschylus and Plato.

Aeschylus presented Prometheus whose benefit of the gift of fire was prominent. Because

of Prometheus, humans had their knowledge to build house, the ability to understand the

risings of the stars and their settings, the power to calculate, and to combine letters.

Aeschylus also presented Prometheus' agony. Prometheus fought with Zeus since Zeus

said that the human race was a mistake. It is quite wrong to fight with a powerful and

brilliant ruler. Despite the fact that the Greeks during that time was calling for democracy

it is inexplicable why their ruler is a tyrannical one and they cannot questioned them.

Plato had his own version wherein he had used Protagoras. He said in his version that the

gods created the mortal creatures and mentioned two people whose names meant

forethought and afterthought, and Protagoras said that virtue can be taught to humans.

The distinctions in the stories are: virtue is the quality of a particular behaviour described

as good, wisdom is the capacity of synthesizing what one has learned in the past, through

experience and applying what has been learned to the present, intellectual proficiency is

the result of both the genetic make-up and the intellectual training, virtue is civic virtue or

arete in Greek and civic wisdom is an awareness and determination to do what is best to

the state. His last slide captured the idea that the forethought and afterthought make

wisdom. I think indeed thoughts before and after count and it can make-up wisdom since

our forethoughts and afterthoughts help us make sound judgments.

The big lecture series, though my first time, is a good start. It helped me get a

broader picture of every aspect of the rampant issues in the society. One thing I noticed

with the speakers is that they continuously read only their paper and it made somehow

the lecture boring and that the visual aid is somehow not visible enough for the audience

to see. But it showed me how certain studies like environment are connected to

philosophy. The lecture series taught me how to approach the issues we are facing now,

view the various arguments in different views, and to think around the situation. And the

lecture series helped me analyze, comprehend and contrast various viewpoints.

Philosophy is an inseparably existing in every aspect of our lives and it is intertwined

with everything.