Progress or return? Interpreting Leopold’s ‘land ethic’ as an evolutionary-ecological critique of modernity

Abstract

This reflection upon the challenge of interpreting Aldo Leopold’s evolutionary-ecological outlook begins with a study of three distinct interpretations of his A Sand County Almanac. One interprets him as a human-centred, Darwinian human ecologist (Larry Arnhart); another portrays him as an ecocentric Darwinian, dialectical educator (J. Baird Callicott); and the last argues that he is primarily a non-Darwinian civic educator who advocates a return to America’s deeper values (Bob Pepperman Taylor). I seek to bring out the best of all of these views by offering yet another version of Leopold, which holds that his ‘land ethic’ is a social critique of modernity inspired by his evolutionary-ecological outlook. In other words, while he is an outspoken critic of modernity, he remains wedded to certain features of it, namely the scientific frame of mind