- Masahiro Morioka

International Research Center for Japanese Studies 3-2 Oeyama-cho, Goryo, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 610-11, JAPAN

Azariah cites White's classic paper and says "any possible solution to the present ecological crisis should be religious if the crisis is religious." White's paper "the historical roots of the ecological crisis" was criticized from various viewpoints 25 years ago. Among them was the criticism that the religious factor is mo more than a possible root of the crisis; more important factors are industrialization, modern capitalism, materialism, and our ignorance of ecological complexity. Reading Azariah's article I remembered this criticism against White's paper.

Of course it is important to study ancient religious scriptures' environmental ethics, and Azariah's article gives us precious information on environmental ethics in the Book of Genesis, but more urgent task is to clarify to what extent our present value systems and the forms of life depend on traditional religious world views, and how much we can change our attitude toward the environment if we change a religious world view in our brain. Today, environmental destruction in China and former East Europe is getting worse and worse. This phenomenon has little relationship with the Judeo-Christian religious tradition itself. The amalgam of social- historical-economic system and metaphysical value system has created the modern ecological crisis. We have to clarify the inner structure of their relationships.

- Frank J. Leavitt, Ph.D.,

Faculty of Health Sciences Ben Gurion University of the Negev P.O.B. 653, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel

In his article, "The book of Genesis and environmental ethics, biodiversity and the food deficit"(1) Jayapaul Azariah, a zoologist, applies Biblical scholarship in an attempt to understand effects of human ethical error on biodiversity. Azariah's synthesis of zoology and Biblical scholarship sets the tone for the interdisciplinary work which bioethicists will have to do in future, turning to the physical and life sciences for knowledge of the facts of organic life while turning to spiritual wisdom, liberal education in the broad sense including the humanities as well as ancient prophetic texts, for insight into the meaning of organic life.

It is therefore fitting that Azariah refers to Lynn White Jr's classic 1967 article, "The historical roots of our ecological crisis"(2). Writing just a few years after Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring, when we were just starting to wake up to global consequences of human interference with nature, White applied historical and theological scholarship to explaining how we humans got our planet into so much trouble.

In White's story as elsewhere, the Jews are supposedly to blame. But not so much because of deeds Jews did in their own right but because Christians supposedly "inherited" from the Jews a teleological cosmogony according to which "no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes". God in Genesis I, 28, supposedly gave humanity a license to "subdue" and to "have dominion" over the earth and its creatures. When Christianity inherited this license from Judaism humanity was cursed with the concept of "domination", which was to spawn both chauvinism and environmental wantonness.

It need not detract from White's importance as a forerunner of today's interdisciplinary bioethics if I argue that his Biblical scholarship is not necessarily true. To White's credit, he not only has support from the language of the King James translation of Genesis I, 28: "... fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth". He is also supported by Nachmanides, one of the most respected of rabbinical Biblical exegetes, who seems also to have interpreted Genesis I, 28 as giving us license to exploit all nature for our purposes, as if all nature were created to serve humanity.

But other interpretations are possible. The main difficulty is with the word UREDU, from the root RDH, which the King James translation renders: "and have domination" ("domination" from "Dominus" = Lord). This rendering is natural if you believe that God created nature as a teleological hierarchy with humanity at the top. But if you do not believe that all nature is created to serve man you will tend to understand UREDU as suggesting a gentler and more beneficent stewardship. And in fact Maimonides in Guide to the Perplexed III, 12, rejects hierarchical teleology, stating clearly that there is no evidence that God created any one creature for the sake of any other. But God created each creature because, for reasons beyond human comprehension, He wanted that specific creature, and not because He needed it for the sake of some other creature.

This non-hierarchical viewpoint suggests responsible management rather than domination of nature. And this bioethic guided Maimonides in much of his medical writings. In Regimen Sanitatis II, 3 for example, citing Hippocrates as his authority, Maimonides says: Nature is wise and crafty. It does what is proper. It, nature, is sufficient to cure the sick. And the physician should only help nature, nurse it along and follow its ways. This is very far from the supposed "Judeo-Christian" attitude of domination which White blames for ecological crisis. Maimonides, when read carefully, opens possibilities for understanding Scripture as closer to East Asian philosophies of harmony than to European anthropocentrism.

There is room for debate over Maimonides's precise meaning because he recognizes later in the same chapter that God, at Genesis I, 29 and 30, gave the plants to humans and animals to eat. But this cannot mean that God created the plants for the purpose of providing food for animals and humans. For Maimonides has been very clear in saying we cannot know God's purposes. Indeed it is a principle of Jewish Biblical interpretation that Scripture only comes to teach us things that we would not have known, and might even have expected the opposite, had we not been given Scripture. God has to give humans explicit permission to use other creatures because reason alone might have led us to doubt whether we may use them. After all, God created each creature for purposes unknown to us. He wants them to exist. How dare we use them for our purposes unless we have unambiguous Scriptural permission? This is very far from Western hierarchical teleology!

Although both Scripture and Maimonides's bioethics encourage great respect for nature, the children of Israel don't always act appropriately. With our geographical area constantly decreasing, our government is simultaneously converting agricultural land to massive high-rise construction and encouraging vegetable imports. The Senpo Sugihara Asian Bioethics Center. will not be able to stop the paving over of the Promised Land but perhaps we can exert some moderating influence.

Another aspect of Azariah's article bears comment. This is the assumption that biodiversity is obviously desirable, and a reduction in the number of species clearly bad. I have argued informally (Nature 360:100;1992) for objective grounds for biodiversity and Tilman and Downing (Nature 367:363-365;1994) have argued more scientifically for the hypothesis that more diverse plant communities are more stable. But Givnish (Nature 371:113-114;1994) questioned Tilman and Downing's argument, (see also reply by Tilman et al. Nature 371:114;1994), and it seems clear that the biodiversity debate will not be settled until much more research is carried out.