Competing Environmental Ethics in Cooper’s The Pioneers

Sabri Mnassar

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.2p.78

Abstract

This essay examines the environmental worthiness of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers and analyzes the various and competing environmental ethics that Cooper introduces in this novel through his descriptions of the different relationships between humans and the natural world. Among these different environmental ethics are the anthropocentric view of nature, the idea that the natural environment should be valued only for the satisfaction of human needs and interests, and the view that nature has intrinsic value and that it should be valued for its own sake. This essay also examines Cooper’s own preferences and attitudes towards these different environmental ethics. It highlights Cooper’s deep regret and disappointment at the thoughtless destruction of nature, the rapid disappearance of wildlife from the American wilderness and the degradation of the nonhuman natural environment. For these reasons, this essay underlines Cooper’s stature as a pioneer of American literary environmentalism and as an early precursor of the modern Environmental Movement. Keywords: Cooper, nature, environment, anthropocentrism, extrinsic value, intrinsic value

Highlights

Set in 1793 in upstate New York during America’s early national period, Cooper’s The Pioneers describes different relationships between humans and the natural environment
This third environmental ethic that Cooper introduces in The Pioneers consists in the view that nature has a spiritual and moral value and that it should be valued for its own sake regardless of the utility, usefulness or profit that mankind can obtain from it
In The Pioneers, Cooper introduces three different and competing environmental ethics the first of which consists in the anthropocentric view of nature or in the idea that humans are superior to the natural environment which should be overexploited and subdued

Summary

Introduction

Set in 1793 in upstate New York during America’s early national period, Cooper’s The Pioneers describes different relationships between humans and the natural environment. In contrast to the settlers, Leatherstocking is described as living in a small cabin whose existence predates the building of Templeton He recurrently expresses his dissatisfaction and disapproval of the devastation and destruction of the natural environment by reminding the settlers of their wastefulness and their thoughtless behavior. Throughout his career, Cooper was highly worried by the serious and grave environmental consequences of the westward expansion of civilization and of the thoughtless manipulation of nature For this reason, he was concerned with the description of the American landscape and with the documentation of the misuse and destruction of the wilderness. Nature and the state of the environment were objects of great interest and concern to him

The environmental worthiness of Cooper’s The Pioneers

The anthropocentric view of nature

The utilitarian approach to nature

The intrinsic value of nature

Cooper’s attitude towards the competing environmental ethics

Conclusion