Eugene Hargrove has remarked that "Aldo Leopold's 'The Land Ethic' is the single most important piece of writing on environmental ethics by a non-philosopher." Yet, although most environmentalists, philosophers and even bureaucrats compiling regulatory documents have been citing Leopold or referring to him for many years, many have not discussed the land ethic in detail, or based their environmental philosophy on Leopold's main prescriptive claim: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

      The first concept Leopold adduces as a benchmark of the rightness of actions is "integrity" and its preservation, which has been adopted as a focal point of legislation at least since 1972. Its use has accelerated and multiplied in later years. The preeminent placement of integrity in Leopold's norm, combined with its adoption by governments and institutions in the international community, has moved me to devote most of my work to the study of that foundational notion, and raise questions about its meaning, significance, and role in natural systems, and its corresponding function in environmental ethics.

      Several points emerged from that research; first of all, inter-disciplinary work has shown that integrity is indeed a scientific notion, a factual one (as one would expect from Leopold) rather than a metaphysical one; hence, a substantive definition must be based on dialogue with biologists and ecologists if we hope to understand integrity as Leopold did. We also need to start with integrity, as Leopold does, in order to ensure that the original moral message is preserved. After examining the meaning of the concept in detail, and exploring its scientific implications, the next step is to consider what consequences might follow once we truly understand not only ecological integrity, but also what a maxim supporting its ethical primacy might entail. In other words, if-following Leopold-we define moral action first and foremost from the standpoint of its possible effect on ecological integrity, then our ethical stance will be holistic in a radical sense.

      In order to preserve Leopold's position as fully as possible for a philosophically defensible moral theory, the defining characteristics of integrity must inform the specific prescriptions that comprise the "ethics of integrity." Hence the first principle (the Principle of Integrity) is the injunction to acknowledge our community with all life and natural systems, and to act in a way that does not affect adversely nature and natural processes. The second order principles that follow upon the PI must incorporate integrity's characteristics of complexity and total interdependence with all life, and must be governed by the Precautionary Principle that is mandatory in the face of scientific uncertainty. These aspects of the natural whole, whose primacy we must respect, do not become automatically moral norms, but they provide the basis and the limits within which our ethical approach will be firmly grounded in actual systemic functioning, rather than remaining simply a logical exercise.

      The "land ethic" is therefore more than a vague inspiration. It becomes an integral part of an environmental ethic, in fact, it is viewed as foundational for ethics as such. Leopold's primary concept is analyzed, di scussed and taken as seminal in the ethics of integrity, so that "living in integrity" becomes a fully articulated and defended moral goal. The spirit as well as the letter of Leopold's holism is also preserved, because consideration for the whole comes first, in integrity as applied to largely undiminished and unmanipulated natural systems, rather than as added on to human or even individual animal moral considerations.

      In contrast, much has been made of Leopold's reliance on Darwin, primarily in order to argue from the viewpoint of communitarian "moral sentiments," based on the philosophy of David Hume and Adam Smith. But Leopold's references to Darwin are primarily to his science. Darwin's insights are used in support of the interconnectedness that provides the main reason to abandon purely anthropocentric and economic determinations of value. Further, the interrelation among all components of "the land" indicate beyond a doubt that the "community" to which Leopold refers explicitly is the all-inclusive "biotic community," and that "whole" is where we belong first. The integrity of that whole therefore is and must be the first c oncern of an ethic for Leopold and for his followers. This is a holistic ethic, holistic "with a vengeance", as J. Baird Callicott contends, but if we start with a purely human community (as Hume and Smith do) and then attempt to "extend" it, Leopold's h olism appears to be severely compromised. Although community is indeed a pivotal notion in Leopold's work, it is its scientific sense to which we must return to our understanding, although in reality we have belonged to that community all along. But if we start with the moral understanding of the human community, then our project remains an extensionist one, even if our final goal is respect and love for the whole.

      The ethics of integrity start with the whole instead, so that Leopold's insight is understood and preserved, as is the function of Leopold's maxim in promoting a radically new moral perspective.

      Laura Westra is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor, Ontario, and the author of An Environmental Proposal for Ethics (1994), and Living in Integrity (1998).

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