Ethical Individualism
A Study in Agrarian Discontent & Irreconcilable World Views
Dr David Heaf (UK)
During the spring and summer of 1999 there were at least 43 “decontaminations” of genetically mutilated (GM) crop trials throughout the UK. A handful of similar actions took place in the USA, and in France rioting farmers demolished a McDonald’s outlet - seen as symbolising US food globalisation.
Such unrest bears a striking resemblance to another outbreak over a different matter in the period 1839-44; namely, the “Rebecca1 riots”, which involved 293 attacks on tollgates on the turnpike roads of southwest Wales.2 Both were rural and involved “direct action” rather than action through the ballot box. However, neither can be honestly described as non-violent, despite what the crop pullers claim to the contrary. Both frequently involved pantomime and some form of dressing up.
The Rebecca-ites and Crop Pullers
The Rebecca-ites generally dressed up as women and blackened their faces. They enacted short plays or rituals before demolishing the gates, and sometimes the special constables sworn in to apprehend them were forced at gunpoint to join in the proceedings. The crop pullers often dressed either in white decontamination suits or in more elaborate garb as “mutant plants.” Some, such as those involved in Genetix Snowball, pulled only a few plants as a symbolic gesture. Both Rebecca-ites and crop pullers often notified the authorities in advance of their intended targets. A blend of overt and covert actions applied in both cases, and neither was controlled by a single person or group. No “Rebecca” was ever caught, although several activists were eventually transported. Both were precipitated by threats from those in power that employment would be withdrawn from the locality. Such threats by the Welsh landed gentry, who were trustees of the toll roads, were particularly ominous at a time of severe rural poverty and starvation there. Today, the threats come from the leaders of the biotechnology industry.3
Loss of commons
By far the greatest parallel between the protests then and now centres on the general concept of enclosure of the commons; i.e., all resources which we share in common. In its simplest form it involved the enclosure, appropriation and “privatisation” of common land. This has taken place throughout the UK for centuries, and is still happening today, aided by general lack of public awareness regarding which land in their neighbourhood still has legal status as commons. The discontent of the Rebecca-ites concerned many issues for which the tollgates were a visible focus. They represented the privatisation of the natural routes through the landscape used by farmers and drovers for millennia. The riots eventually led to legislation for a reduction in the tolls and the removal of the many gates, bars and chains perceived as most unjustified.
A further loss of commons relates to water supplies, which are increasingly under the control of private trans-national companies eager for profits for their shareholders. The recent moves by Monsanto to increase its grip on the treated water supply industry in India and Mexico has not been welcomed by many.4
Probably the most important modern example of the loss of commons is the increasing privatisation of seeds. As the dramatic narrowing of agricultural crop bio-diversity concentrates the remaining few varieties in the hands of trans-national companies, peasant farmers become increasingly dependent on the seeds of modern biotechnology and the chemical agriculture which goes with them. Once upon a time they saved seed from their crops for planting the following year. Now, protected by patent legislation, the trans-national corporations (TNCs) are increasing their control worldwide over plants and their seeds.
Outrage followed news of moves to patent neem, basmati rice and turmeric, and even traditional livestock are fair game for the patenters. The Southeast Asian neem tree is a particular focus of concern because of the patents granted for it worldwide. It is a source of natural pesticides, fertiliser and herbal medicines. The Roslin Institute in Scotland, where “Dolly” was cloned, applied for a patent on the nearly extinct Indian cattle breed called “Vechur.”5 Recently, a patent application was made in Japan for curry. The Administration Council of the European Patent Office (EPO) decided to allow patents on animals and plants—and on human genes and cells—from 1 September, 1999, onwards. This is a radical change from its previous interpretations of the European Patent Convention. However, the debate at government level over patenting living organisms is not over, as a recent challenging statement from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe shows.6 But the biotechnological devices of hybrid seeds and the new “terminator” technology, which renders sterile the seeds saved from the first planting, will enable the TNCs happily to do without live organism patenting if it is eventually banned.
Organic VERSUS Chemical farming
The clash of world views that underlies the agrarian discontent is nowhere more intense than between the organic farming movement and chemical farming interests. The government-funded farm scale GM-crop trials currently under way in the UK are being undertaken primarily to study the effects of the crops on the biodiversity of insects, wild flowers and birds as one of the final steps before commercial planting. Much could be said about the socio-political nature of these trials, but it would be beyond the scope of this article. The key point is that SCIMAC,7 the voluntary body formed by the seed industry to oversee these trials and eventual commercialisation, and plant breeders cannot guarantee that trans-genes will not escape from GM crops and contaminate organic crops.8 Indeed, research commissioned in the summer by Friends of the Earth produced evidence of GM pollen in pollen traps at beehives some 4.5 kilometres from a GM oilseed rape crop. However, the latest European regulation rules out use of GM organisms (GMOs) in organic farming.9
The Soil Association and the Demeter Standards Committee of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association go a step further and rule out the presence of GMOs in their farming systems. This means that for them “GM-free” means GMO levels must be zero, not merely below some de minimis threshold of contamination that is provided in the European regulation.10
In October, 1999, a European Commission committee recommended that the threshold for adventitious contamination should be set at 1%. “GM free” will then mean “contains some GMOs.” Clearly, we have two apparently irreconcilable standpoints. But the UK government has expressed its belief that organic farming and biotechnology based agriculture can co-exist. What form will such co-existence take, and how will it be reached?
Ethical individualism
Before attempting to begin to answer this question, it is worth considering the process whereby differing viewpoints become motivations to action. This necessitates looking at ethics, the science of morals. We hear calls for an improvement of public morality, but this overlooks the fact that moral action is a characteristic only of the free individual.
Actions motivated by instincts, reflexes, dispositions, maxims, commandments, social and religious customs and even laws are not truly moral. A deed can only be described as moral in the truest sense when the individual has intuited the idea which he makes the moral principle for the particular situation concerned, and brings into play the imagination needed to realise that principle in the deed. The idea and the love of the deed it engenders in the individual is all the motivation that is needed. And of course the idea may be identical with the idea which once inspired the passing of an existing law.
There is a difference between reducing speed in a built-up area because that is the law and doing so because one intuits it as right for the particular situation. If this seems like a recipe for anarchy, then in a certain sense it is. That is in the sense that no external governance prevails, only the free individuality. But the freedom meant here is an inner, not an outer one. Until we are all so free inwardly that our actions are not governed by our personal inclinations, outer laws are needed to protect us from our own and other people’s selfishness. What I have outlined here is what Rudolf Steiner called ethical individualism.11 In some key respects it resembles what modern ethicists refer to as Aristotelian virtue ethics.12
Because of the seemingly anarchic element in a moral philosophy based on the individual, it immediately begs the question as to how social life would be possible in a world where ethical individualism prevails. Steiner answers:
“To live in love towards our actions, and to let live in the understanding of the other person's will, is the fundamental maxim of free men.”
No morally free individual would want to compel another person to agree with him, but he can legitimately hope eventually to find agreement. This is because we all draw from a common world of ideas, We are one in spirit, evidenced by the fact that in most instances most of us can intuit the ideas behind (i.e., see the justification for) many of the laws of our state.
Living in love towards our own actions is a matter of individual responsibility and inner development, but to let live in the understanding of the other person’s will takes us into a social process for which there is no sustainable alternative other than dialogue in a context of mutual trust.
It is easy to see that when chemical farmer and GM crop grower William Brigham drove his JCB13 at organic farmer and Greenpeace director Peter Melchett’s tractor-mower as he cut a swathe through Brigham’s maize field this summer, dialogue had been dispensed with and the protagonists were well down the road that leads to Kosovo, Rwanda, Chechnya etc.14 Were these men acting out of ethical individualism? Here, Steiner gives a clue:
“A moral misunderstanding, a clash, is impossible between men who are morally free.”
Obviously, there was a clash! Thus on this basis one or both must have been morally unfree. We need not speculate here about the pros and cons of GM crops (for which there are many good arguments on both sides) or on whether Brigham needed the money and Greenpeace needed another publicity stunt. What is clear is that the event symbolised in microcosm a blockage in a social process which on a wider scale is evidenced by the current irreconcilability of the polar positions of SCIMAC and the organic movement. How this is to be overcome will depend as much on the quality of future dialogue as on the quality of the thinking on both sides.
Pluralism is the cultural manifestation of ethical individualism
In his 'chairman's remarks' at The Future of DNA conference in 1996 Dr Henk Verhoog, member of the Ifgene15 team in Holland, had the following to say:
“The processes of coming to (moral) judgment are considered to be more important than the judgment itself. Ethical judgment can take place at different levels. Most important is the personal judgment of individuals in a particular social situation (ethical individualism in real life decisions). Important aspects in this connection are the person’s biography and the tension between individual moral responsibility and social constraints (especially economic and political constraints). In the philosophy of Ifgene it is of the utmost importance to show a sincere interest in the life history of each individual, keeping back any moral judgments about the person in question. For the realisation of a power-free dialogue it is important to strive after value-clarification. What is the person aiming at and why, what are the constraints under which she/he is working, why are certain choices made or not made? etc. An attitude of respect for the individual human being is required.”
“Two other levels of ethical judgment are the cultural and the political. Ifgene is mainly active at the cultural level of social life, not at the political one. At the cultural level, freedom and pluralism are important requirements; persons taking part in processes of ethical judgment should feel free to express their feelings and to give their personal opinion, free from any ideological, political or economic constraints. It is important to rise above the level of personal, economic or political interests and create a climate in which a power free dialogue can take place. What counts are the arguments used, not the person (or any authority) who argues. Arguments can be one-sided, biased, etc. and can be criticized because of this. Criticism is welcomed at the cultural level. Fundamental concepts such as truth and justice are necessary as regulative ideals. At the cultural level the equivalent of ethical individualism is pluralism. Personally I may be convinced that I know what is true or good with respect to a particular problem, but in a dialogue with others I must respect the freedom of the other participants to have their views. No dialogue is possible when participants claim that there is only one truth and that they possess it. This is not pluralism, but fundamentalism (absolutism). The other extreme is relativism, where the ideal of truth is given up, and the views of people are seen as relative to their social position. In extreme relativism dialogue is useless because people are believed to be unable to escape from the situation in which they are imprisoned. The cultural ideal of pluralism requires a fundamental openness to the ideas of others, willingness to listen to others and to revise one’s own ideas if this is believed to be necessary in the search for truth or justice. Every idea can be questioned; dogmas are not accepted at this level. Pluralism is the cultural manifestation of ethical individualism; it is implied by the respect for the human being, for what it means to be human.
“It is an important aspect of processes of ethical judgment that, although they are fully dependent on individual persons, the ethical intuitions arising in this process increasingly come from a level which goes beyond the individual. This may be compared with what in philosophical ethics is called the ‘universalizability’ of normative statements. [...] When you are convinced of an injustice in society, it is very natural that you speak up against this injustice. The reason behind this is that in spite of, or perhaps because of, our individuality we are human and we want our society to be ‘humane’." 16
In a conference set up by Greenpeace UK in October, 1999, Monsanto head Robert Shapiro expressed his faith in the promises of biotechnology, and reached out to Peter Melchett with an offer of dialogue, which the latter accepted, but not without imposing stringent conditions. Clearly both sides are not yet ready for the quality of process outlined by Verhoog; i.e., mutual value clarification, pluralism and openness to the ideas of others. But a social process of some kind has to take place, and is taking place. Maybe the outcome means that the proponents of organic agriculture will have to accept the unthinkable, that chemical agriculture with its new weapons from the gene lab is here to stay. Perhaps, as with other technologies (for instance, nuclear power, which was supposed to make electricity too cheap to be worth metering), mankind will have to learn by its mistakes. If so, one can only hope that in the event of the worst predicted outcomes of introducing GM crops, countries like Thailand—which has pledged to set up GM-free zones as an interim stage towards becoming a GM-free country17—will be curators of seed stocks of traditional crop varieties that have escaped the attentions of the molecular biologists.
Notes
1. The origin of the name is obscure. It could stem from the nickname of a ringleader heard addressed as “Becca” by his followers, or even from the following biblical source: “And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, let thy seed possess the gates of those which hate them.” (Genesis xxiv, 60)
2. See for example David Williams, The Rebecca Riots, University of Wales Press, 986; or David Jones, Rebecca’s Children, Clarendon Press, 1989.
3. Colin Merritt, Monsanto UK Technical Manager, Reported in Farmers Weekly 16th July, 1999.
4. Vandana Shiva in The Hindu, 1st May, 1999; and Geoffrey Lean in the Independent on Sunday, 26th Sept 1999, title: “Monsanto plan to cash in on world water crisis.”
5. V. J. Thomas in The Times of India 3rd October, 1998.
6. Press Release from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Strasbourg, 24 September 1999, Biotechnology & Intellectual Property, Recommendation 1425 (1999).
7. The Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops (SCIMAC) offers several booklets on its work which can be obtained from Dr R. Turner, BSPB, Woolpack Chambers, Market St, Ely, Cambs CB7 4ND, Tel: 01353 653200, Fax: 661156.
8. A discussion paper of the background of such a statement is available on an educational web site of the John Innes Centre, Norwich at http://www.gmissues.org.
9. Press release 29th September, 1999, Friends of the Earth, Information and Enquiries Unit, 26-28 Underwood, Street, London, N1 7JQ, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 171 490 1555. Fax: +44 (0) 171 490 0881 URL: http://www.foe.co.uk.
10. Council Regulation (EC) No 1804/1999 of 19 July, 1999, supplementing Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto on agricultural
products and foodstuffs to include livestock production. Published in the Official Journal of the European Community on 24th August, 1999 (L 222 1-28, URL: http://europa.eu.int/eurlex/en/oj/1999/l_22219990824en.html,
follow link “1”).
11. Rudolf Steiner (1898) Philosophy of Freedom – A Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Various English translations and Publishers.
12. For a list of modern writers on virtue ethics see Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. T. Honderich, OUP, 1995, p 900.
13. a mechanical excavator
14. For an eye witness account of this whole incident see The Lord confronts the brothers Brigham by John Vidal, The Guardian, Tuesday July 27, 1999.
15. Full details of Ifgene - International Forum for Genetic Engineering can be obtained from its web site at http://www.anth.org/ifgene or from the author at Hafan, Llanystumdwy, LL52 0SG, UK.
16. Verhoog, Henk (1997) in The Future of DNA, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp136-137.
17. Japan Economic Newswire: Thailand to declare GMO-free zones, BANGKOK, September 27 1999. Kyodo. Report on a statement by Newin Chidchob, deputy agriculture minister.