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in the intake of refugees.
The present refugee intake might increase quite dramatically
before any consequences like those mentioned above were
reached; and some may take this as a consequence sufficiently
unacceptable to support the rejection of our line of argument.
Certainly anyone starting from the assumption that the status
quo must be roughly right will be likely to take that view.
But the status quo is the outcome of a system of national
selfishness and political expediency, and not the result of a
considered attempt to work out the moral obligations of the
developed nations in a world with 15 million refugees.
It would not be difficult for the nations of the developed world
to move closer towards fulfilling their moral obligations to refugees.
There is no objective evidence to show that doubling
their refugee intake would cause them any harm whatsoever.
Much present evidence, as well as past experience, points the
other way, suggesting that they and their present population
would probably benefit.
But, the leaders will cry, what is moral is not what is
politically acceptable! This is a spurious excuse for inaction.
In many policy areas, presidents and prime ministers are quite
happy to try to convince the electorate of what is right - of
the need to tighten belts in order to balance budgets, or to
desist from drinking and driving. They could just as easily
gradually increase their refugee intakes, monitoring the effects
of the increase through careful research. In this way they
would fulfill their moral and geopolitical obligations and still
benefit their own communities.
262
Insiders and Outsiders
SHELTERS AND REFUGES
How would you have voted, in the referendum conducted in
Fairhaven in 1998? I think most people would have been prepared
to sacrifice not just a quarter, but all of the tennis courts
to the greater need of those outside. But if you would have
voted with the 'bleeding hearts' in that situation, it is difficult
to see how you can disagree with the conclusion that affluent
nations should be taking far, far more refugees than they are
taking today. For the situation of refugees is scarcely better than
that of the outsiders in peril from nuclear radiation; and the
luxuries that we would have to sacrifice are surely no greater.
263
10
THE ENVIRONMENT
A river tumbles through forested ravines and rocky gorges towards
the sea. The state hydro-electricity commission sees the
falling water as untapped energy. Building a dam across one of
the gorges would provide three years of employment for a thousand
people, and longer-term employment for twenty or thirty.
The dam would store enough water to ensure that the state could
economically meet its energy needs for the next decade. This
would encourage the establishment of energy-intensive industry
thus further contributing to employment and economic growth.
The rough terrain of the river valley makes it accessible only to
the reasonably fit, but it is nevertheless a favoured spot for bushwalking.
The river itself attracts the more daring whitewater
rafters. Deep in the sheltered valleys are stands of rare Huon
Pine, many of the trees being over a thousand years old. The
valleys and gorges are home to many birds and animals, including
an endangered species of marsupial mouse that has seldom
been found outside the valley. There may be other rare plants
and animals as well, but no one knows, for scientists are yet to
investigate the region fully.
S ~ 0 U L.D the dam be built? This is one example of a situation
m WhICh we must choose between very different sets of
values. The description is loosely based on a proposed dam on
the Franklin River, in the southwest of Australia's island state,
Tasmania - an account of the outcome can be found in Chapter
II, but I have deliberately altered some details, and the above
description should be treated as a hypothetical case. Many other
examples would have posed the choice between values equally
well: logging virgin forests, building a paper mill that will release
pollutants into coastal waters, or opening a new mine on the
264
The Environment
edge of a national park. A different set of examples would raise
related, but slightly different, issues: the use of products that
contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer, or to the greenhouse
effect; building more nuclear power stations; and so on.
In this chapter I explore the values that underlie debates about
these decisions, and the example I have presented can serve as
a point of reference to these debates. I shall focus particularly
on the values at issue in controversies about the preservation
of wilderness because here the fundamentally different values
ofthe two parties are most apparent. When we are talking about
flooding a river valley, the choice before us is starkly clear.
In general we can say that those who favour building the
dam are valuing employment and a higher per capita income
for the state above the preservation of wilderness, of plants and
animals (both common ones and members of an endangered
species), and of opportunities for outdoor recreational activities.
Before we begin to scrutinise the values of those who would
have the dam build'and those who would not, however, let us
briefly investigate the origins of modern attitudes towards the
natural world.
THE WESTERN TRADITION
Western attitudes to nature grew out of a blend of those of the
Hebrew people, as represented in the early books of the Bible,
and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, particularly that of
Aristotle. In contrast to some other ancient traditions, for example,