Still, even against this attempt to establish ecological ethics on the intramundane level, one serious objection can be raised: the objection that the positive evaluation, in the "hermit strand", of (wild/intact) nature as an ambiance might seem to have, more or less, lost sight of suffering in nature. The more so since in many canonical texts, and mostly in those which may be characterized as rational discourse, animals and existence as an animal are so negatively evaluated that efforts to preserve them appear highly problematic.

According to these texts, animals are, firstly, intellectually inferior. Though they have some capacity forthinking (manasikaara), they lack the faculty of insight prajna. Hence they cannot understand the Buddhist doctrine and cannot attain liberation, unless they are, in a later existence, reborn as men, which is regarded to be possible but very rare.

Secondly, animals are not just subject to suffering like man, but subject to much more suffering; their existence is considered to be extremely unhappy, not only because they are exploited and tortured by man but also in nature itself, where the weaker one is threatened and devoured by the stronger and, moreover, because at least many of them live on disgusting food or in uncomfortable places. In contrast to rebirth as a human, rebirth as an animal is hence usually regarded as an evil rebirth.

Thirdly, animals are considered to be (for the most part at least) morally inferior or even wicked, because of their promiscuity including even incest, or precisely because the stronger devours the weaker. The latter argument is, by the way, adduced as a reason why rebirth of an animal as a human is so rare.

Such a negative evaluation of animals and animal existence is no doubt extremely unfavorable as a basis for an active ecological ethics. To be sure, the commitment not to take life prevents Buddhists from killing animals once they are there. But if animal existence is in fact such an unhappy state, why should we make any effort to perpetuate it? If the presence of many animals and few humans means that the world is in a bad condition should we not welcome the present growth of human population and decrease of (at least wild) animals, and should we not be glad if, for some reason or other, animals were to disappear entirely from this world, just as there are none (at least no real ones) in the later Buddhist paradise Sukhaavati. Would it not be rather cruel and selfish to preserve them for our own spiritual progress, let alone our happiness, if even by an increase of our spiritual perfection we cannot essentially ameliorate their sombre situation because it is inherent to their status?

On the one hand, one could, from the traditional Buddhist point of view, rejoin that the number of beings to be born as animals cannot depend on external factors like man-made pollution or deforestation, etc., but is solely determined by the previous karma of those beings themselves. This would mean that a decrease in the total number of animals would have to be either merely apparent or somehow the result of a preceding large-scale moral and spiritual improvement, and can also in future be achieved only in this way. Hence, at least as long as such a large-scale improvement has not taken place, there may be good reason to argue that in the sense of the Golden Rule it is part of everybody's moral duty to preserve the world in an agreeable condition not only for future generations of humans but also for the beings to be reborn as animals. This would, by the way, even coincide with one's own interests since--in view of the complexity of karmic processes--few persons can exclude the possibility that either they themselves or their friends and relatives may be reborn in one of these groups, so that protection of intact ecosystems would even amount to protecting what may be one's own future abode.

On the other hand, apart from this, the idea of the extreme unhappiness of animals would, it too, seem to be a wide-spread preconception of the peasants and townsmen of those days, met with in Jainism and Hinduism as well--a preconception which may be rooted in frequent bad treatment of domestic animals and in the civilization strand's fear of wilderness. To that strand we can probably also attribute the idea of the wickedness of (at least certain wild) animals. Both of these ideas seem to have been adopted or utilized by Buddhism for didactic purposes. Their main aim is not to make a statement on animals but to warn against the evil consequences of bad karma and to underscore the necessity of maximum moral and spiritual effort. I suggest that in an age where establishing an ecological ethics has become imperative, they ought to be de-dogmatized by being relegated to their specific didactic contexts. For, though animals have doubtless to suffer, the assumption that they have to suffer more than man appears unwarranted, at least as long as their natural situation is not additionally aggravated by man.

Actually, in another strand of the Buddhist tradition--in the Jaataka (together with its commentary) and related texts--animals are often viewed quite differently. I admit that this view is a more popular one and not specifically Buddhist either, but it is not therefore necessarily less appropriate, and it has exercised a considerable influence on the feelings and attitudes of lay Buddhists. As is well-known, in these texts animals are described as being both unhappy and happy, stupid and prudent, bad and good. They are even susceptible to religious admonition. To be sure, these texts largely anthropomorphize animals.

But in not regarding them as particularly unhappy and wicked creatures they seem to come closer to the truth.

The evaluation of animals in these texts shows some affinity to the hermit strand. In fact, this strand stands out quite frequently in the Jaataka and related texts; in a pre-Buddhist setting, to be sure, but nevertheless mostly in connection with ascetics exemplifying such virtues as the Buddhist compilers too wanted to inculcate. In some passages, nature around the hermitage (assama, aa"srama) is described as, and expressly called, lovely and beautiful, abounding in a variety of blossoming and fruit-bearing trees spreading delicate odors and inhabited by various kinds of birds and quadrupeds, and embellished by ponds and rivers with clear water and full of lotus-flowers, fishes and other aquatic animals. The emphasis on variety of species (which are enumerated in great detail) is conspicuous.

This kind of description of nature around the hermitage is obviously closely related to the romanticizing strand of nature description in secular poetry mentioned above. It is current in non-Buddhist literature as well, and in the Jaataka similar descriptions can also be found of the forest inhabited by animal heroes. There can be little doubt that it too depicts nature mainly from a human aesthetic point of view. Even the inclusion of fierce animals like lions, tigers, bears, boars and crocodiles does not contradict this since they would rather appear to be envisaged--from afar, so to speak--in their majestic beauty. Hence, a positive evaluation of intact nature and biodiversity, but tacit omission of the violence and suffering involved in nature as it actually is.

Yet, some passages show that suffering and violence in nature may not simply have been ignored. One passage, e.g., stresses that in the forest around the hermitage there is plenty of food also for the animals (thus suggesting that in nature food is often scarce). As for violence, the idea is rather that around the hermitage there is an exceptional situation in that violence has been neutralized or overcome by the (non-violent) spiritual power or irradiation of the hermit, especially by his practice of friendliness or loving kindness (mettaa). Not only in the sense that by practicing loving kindness the hermit protects himself from the aggressiveness of dangerous creatures, i.e., renders them non-aggressive towards himself. Rather, by his spiritual power and irradiation of friendliness or loving kindness the hermit affects, so to speak, the animals around him so that they abandon even their natural mutual enmities and to become friendly and non-aggressive even towards one another. Thus peace not only with nature but also within nature.

To be sure, this is a vision of an ideal state of nature, disclosing dissatisfaction with nature as it actually is, i.e., as involving violence and suffering. But at the same time it does not regard animals as hopelessly miserable. It presupposes that as animals they may be happy and good, and may even advance spiritually, at least under the influence of human spiritual perfection.

Such a view of animals would tally well with arguing for ecological ethics for the sake of maximum spiritual progress and intramundane happiness of all living beings, not merely of human beings. I do not know to what extent a modern Buddhist is ready to subscribe to such a view of animals; but it would anyway be sufficient to abandon the idea that animals are wicked and the idea of their irremediable, extreme unhappiness, and to admit that under natural conditions animals, though, to be sure, not living in a paradise and by no means free from suffering, may, after all, not be so extremely unhappy, at any rate not more than an average human being.