Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :A Sand County Almanac
This extension of ethics, so far studied only by philosophers, is actually a process in ecological evolution. Its sequences may be described in ecological as well as philosophical terms. An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct. These are two definitions of one thing. The thing has its origin in the tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve modes of co-operation. The ecologists call these symbioses. Politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which the original free-for-all competition has been replaced, in part, by cooperative mechanisms with an ethical intent.
Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.
Leopold takes the capital N outta Nature; unlike Muir, he sees the need for a more egalitarian relationship between humans and their environment. Nobody is to be worshipped. There is no need for a church service—just a good therapy session to heal the abusive relationship between "modern man" and the great outdoors.
The ethic this dude's unpacking in the passage is what he calls a land ethic. This ethic asks us to strive for the "limitation of the freedom of action in the struggle for existence." What he's suggesting is that people must limit those actions that harm others. Except he doesn't just mean other people.
He also believes that the land has its own inalienable rights. And when people put their own needs ahead of the land's basic survival, that's unethical.
Ecocritics have applied Leopold's work to understanding the relationships between humans and nature as akin to relationships between to people. For example: it's a pretty safe bet Captain Ahab treated some people just as insanely as he treated the great whale. Think of the amount of counseling needed for a breakthrough in that relationship. Eek.