4 Regulation and the environment

A major aspect of nurturance is protection. Parents have to protect their children not just from the most obvious forms of crime and violence but from less obvious forms of danger: cigarette smoke, asbestos and other toxic chemicals, lead paints, dangerous toys, harmful foods, cars without seat belts, inflammable clothing, dangerous toys, unscrupulous businessmen, and on and on. A truly caring, nurturant parent is vigilant when it comes to such everyday dangers.

Liberals conceptualize government regulation as the protection of those who cannot protect themselves – protection of citizens, workers, honest businessmen, and the environment against possible harm by unscrupulous or negligent businesses and individuals. Government regulation of business is there to be sure that businesses don't hurt or cheat anyone.

Conservatives, however, do not conceptualize government regulation as protection. In the system of conservative moral categories, government regulation falls under interference with the pursuit of self-interest by people trying to make a living, people using their self-discipline to become self-reliant (and, if possible, rich). These are the good people in our society. We want to encourage people like them and it is wrong to put roadblocks in their way.

The argument against environmental, worker-safety, and product-safety regulations is that they are too cumbersome and get in the way of doing business. Regulators are seen as stupid and corrupt. But conservatives don't just want to reform regulatory agencies, to get rid of what is cumbersome, while still protecting those who need protection. They want to get rid of regulations completely. Liberals are incredulous. Don't people have a right to clean air and water, safe products, safe airlines, safe jobs? Shouldn't the environment be preserved for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? The liberal arguments never get heard by conservatives.

The Environment

Strict Father morality includes the notion of the natural order of domination: God has dominion over human beings; human beings over nature; parents over children; and so on. By the metaphor that the Moral Order Is the Dominant Order in nature, this arrangement is seen as a moral one, with the responsibility for protection and care going along with moral authority. But man's protection and care make sense only in the context of the primary given: the domination of man over nature according to man's priorities, which is taken to be both natural and moral.

Strict Father morality starts with the "natural order," the domination of man over nature. Conservative environmentalism is "conservation" – "hardheaded management with regard to costs and benefits

Conservative environmentalism – the conservative view of man's relationship to nature– arises naturally from Strict Father morality. It is conceptualized and reasoned about in terms of a system of common metaphors that best fit the Strict Father view.

• Nature Is God's Dominion (given to man to steward wisely).

• Nature Is a Resource (for immediate human use).

• Nature Is Property (for the use of the owner, and for sale and purchase).

• Nature Is a Work of Art (for human appreciation).

• Nature Is an Adversary (to be conquered and made to serve us).

• Nature Is a Wild Animal (to be tamed for our use).

• Nature Is a Mechanical System (to be figured out and put to use).

Liberals Nature has provided and continues to provide. Our relationship with nature is as the recipient of nurturance and as such it involves attachment, inherent value, gratitude, responsibility, respect, interdependence, love, adoration, and continuing commitment.

This view of nature is conceptualized using the following metaphors.

• Nature Is a Mother (who provides for us).

• Nature Is a Whole (of which we are inseparable parts).

• Nature Is a Divine Being (to be revered and respected) .

• Nature Is a Living Organism (whose needs must be met if it is to survive).

• Nature Is a Home (to be maintained and kept clean).

• Nature Is a Victim of Injury (who has been harmed and needs to be healed).

The nature-as-mother metaphor sees nature as nurturer and provider. Take the Environmental Protection Agency. From a liberal perspective, the mission of the EPA is to serve the protective function of nurturance. Conservatives want to eliminate the EPA on the grounds that government should encourage and reward free enterprise, not constrain and punish it. This fits the conservative view of nature as being there to serve private interests.