Eric, this topic of ethics seems worth some effort so i went to
the library and got three Pc books to see what they said. So
far we have proposed the following:
1 2
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All life is valuable. Care of the Earth
People care within limits of cycles Care of others
Recognition of resource limits Return surplus
Give away our surplus
Aesthetics from our designs
The first book "The Permaculture Way" by Graham Bell said something
very close to list one. Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture said:
care of the earth, care of people, and dispersal of
surplus time, money, and materials towards these ends.
This sounds identical to the points in list two.
The third book was about forest gardens and talked about sustainability,
conservation, and solving todays problems. I did not find the word
ethic used, but the philosophy is similar.
Mollison said "Cooperation, not competition, is the key" at the conclusion
of his ethics discussion. This is yet another way to view ethics.
My conclusion is, the concept of balance needs to be introduced
so a realistic model of ethic can be built. The idea that we can
have cooperation and not competition doesn't fit my thinking. We
are always in a state of competition and at the same time we are
cooperating. We care for the earth and that is balanced by care
for people. Sometimes care of people is not earth friendly and
sometimes care of earth impacts people.
In Mollison's model of the Pc everything is viewed from a design
perspective. Ethics is just one factor that impacts design. Others
are energy, site characteristics, culture, economics, etc. This
says ethics is just another trade off which needs to be balanced.
I'm not comfortable with this viewpoint.
Eric:
>These ethics were included in the two Pc courses I took (and in the intro
>courses I've seen), but the discussion of them was less than one hour out
>of over 100 hours. They are not always included in definitions of Pc in
>brochures for courses. They seem to be taken for granted, but the lack of
>attention to them often means that they are not followed.
Thinking about why ethics are ignored gave me an idea. How
do we apply ethic to Pc design efforts without an ethical
future vision? If we assume the ethics are included then we
stop being critical of our actions. Also, ethics need to be
built into our objectives and can't be handled completely by
design. We may be using Pc design techniques to create an
unethical results.
>maybe we just need some Pc ethics police : )
Don't most designs have provisions for feedback. We adjust
and improve constantly. The same might fit ethics. We need
to include their review and growth in our designs and views
of the world.
Rather than a police effort, we could propose Pc grow to
include ethics specific actions. Move it from a passive
assumed state to active enquiry state. This way everyone
would police themselves.
jeff
