Summer 2016 209

The Natural Contract

in the Anthropocene
Thomas Heyd and Bertramd Guillaume*

In view of humanity’s vast and accelerating environmental impacts on the planet in its
more recent past it has been proposed to think of this period as a new geologic epoch called
“the Anthropocene.” While some suppose that our present situation justifies large-scale,
corrective interventions, Michel Serres has proposed “a contract with nature,” which, to
the contrary, calls for a reduction in our interventions on the planet. Although there are dif-
ficulties in engaging in a contract with something lacking autonomous agency, rationality,
and sentience, the idea of a natural contract does make sense. It offers a richly suggestive
reconception of socio-political relationships between human society and the natural world,
and has enough precedents to serve as a source of inspiration and guidance for the urgently
needed transformation of our approach to the natural environment.

INTRODUCTION

It now is evident that our planet is subject to rapid environmental change of a

sort that will have far-reaching consequences for future human generations as well
as other life forms. Perhaps most critically, given the continuation of present trends
in greenhouse gas emissions, climates around the world are not only expected to
change in somewhat foreseeable ways but to reach thresholds beyond which further
predictions will become little more than guesswork. Similar kinds of large-scale
changes are expected with regard to a number of other key indicators for environ-
mental integrity, such as biological diversity, pollutants on land, in the water and
in the air, and so on. In this paper, we argue that, while humanity has benefi ted

* Thomas Heyd, Department of Philosophy and School of Environmental Studies, University of Vic-
toria, Canada; email: heydt@uvic.ca. Bertrand Guillaume, Department of Humanities, Environment and
Technology, Troyes University of Technology, Troyes, France, and Department “Artefacts, Action, and
Knowledge,” Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße, Berlin, Germany. Heyd is
the Canadian representative for the International Society for Environmental Ethics and a research fellow
of the University of Victoria Centre for Global Studies. His publications are focused on environmental
philosophy, applied aesthetics, and the early modern and ancient history of philosophy. He is the author of
Encountering Nature: Toward an Environmental Culture (Aldershot, England and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate,
2007) and the editor of Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature (New York: Columbia University Press,
2005). His current foci are the ethics of global environmental change, especially in relation to indigenous
perspectives, and the hermeneutics of a “natural contract.” Guillaume’s interests include the epistemol-
ogy of global environmental change and the philosophical foundations of sustainability. His research is
currently focused on the Anthropocene and the history and anthropology of geoengineering projects.
The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, Elizabeth Mauritz and Alexandria Poole, and the
editor, Gene Hargrove, for their generous and helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The
main author, Heyd, also acknowledges the magnificent support of the Centre for Global Studies, at the
University of Victoria, where he was a fellow in the fall of 2015, and the kind welcome he received at the
Centre de Recherche et d’Études Interdisciplinaires sur le Développement Durable (CREIDD), Université
Technologique Troyes, Troyes, France, where he was a visiting scholar in May 2014 and in May 2015.

209
210 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

in many ways from the adoption of agreements conforming a “social contract,”

the reality of the Anthropocene calls for the adoption of new kind of agreement
among members of society in relation with the natural world, thereby conforming
a “natural contract.”
We begin with a brief discussion of the notion of “the Anthropocene” and its
implications for human action, and propose that a contract with nature, as introduced
by the renowned philosopher of science Michel Serres,1 may be an timely response
to the challenges posed by this new, anthropogenically marked, epoch. We continue
by exploring the analogy between this new kind of contract and the social contract,
as discussed by the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and address
potential critiques of the natural contract, suggested by the fact that the things of
the world for the most part are not capable of autonomous agency, rationality or
sentience. We conclude that the idea of a contract with nature, as proposed by Serres,
does offer a valuable, new, socio-political perspective in support of the urgently
needed, profound, transformation of our approach to the non-human things of the
world.

THE SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

The practice of a social contract probably goes back to the point in time at which
humans, individually or collectively, found themselves in competition with each
other for scarce resources and found this to be less than optimal.2 This should be
evident as soon as it is realized that, facing conditions of scarcity, social contracts
generally are less costly for most members of a group than anomie, i.e., a free-for-
all at which fortune, as much as force and intelligence, may be the arbiter.3 In the
European tradition the first extant discussions of the idea of the social contract, of
which we have a record, may be attributed to Plato, whose account of the kallipolis

1 Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, trans. E. MacArthur and W. Paulson (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1995). Originally published as Le Contrat naturel (Paris: éditions François Bourin,
1990). For overall assessments of Serres’ proposal for a natural contract from the ecocritical perspec-
tive see Steven D. Brown, “Natural Writing: The Case of Serres,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews
28, no. 3 (2003): 184–92; Jonathan Krell, Ferry, and the Possibility of a Natural Contract,” French
Literature Series 39 (2012): 1–13; William Paulson, “The Natural Contract: Governance and Citizen-
ship in Real Time,” Western Humanities Review 63, no. 3 (2009): 118–35; Stéphanie Posthumus, “Vers
une écocritique francaise: le contrat naturel de Michel Serres” (”Toward a French Ecocriticism: The
Natural Contract of Michel Serres”) Mosaic 44, no. 2 (2011): 85. Furthermore, Raymond Boisvert,
review of “The Natural Contract by Michel Serres,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 31, no.
2 (1996): 358–60; also the earlier discussion of Serres’ book in this journal by Patrick Hayden, “The
Natural Contract,” Environmental Ethics 20, no. 3 (1998): 433–36.
2 We apply this careful way of phrasing the point because the anthropological record clearly shows
that, despite common assumptions to the contrary, human beings have not always nor everywhere reacted
to scarcity by competing with each other. See for example George Silberbauer, “Ethics in Small-Scale
Societies,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 14–29.
3 Anomie stands for societal breakdown of bonds among individuals and their community. It is a
concept brought into circulation by Émile Durkheim in Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Glencoe, Ill.:
Free Press, 1951); originally published in 1897.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 211

in the Republic may be interpreted as an account of the benefits of social coordina-

tion, though variants of this concept most likely would have been discussed earlier.
In any case, the idea comes to prominence in the early modern European context
with Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679),4 obtaining further significant elaboration with
John Locke (1632–1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).
As we discuss further below, Hobbes’ idea of the social contract both seeks to
describe and justify the coordination of wills among human agents conceived as
antagonistic to each other due to external circumstances, which he calls “the state of
nature.” Paradoxically, while the social contract is conceived as capable of bringing
about concerted action that can neutralize contradictions among humans, thereby
enabling them to benefit from the resources of nature (so as to generate “commo-
dious living”), that same concerted action has by now provoked environmental
changes of such global proportions that it becomes necessary to ask whether the
social contract really suffices to deliver the benefits noted.
In the following we suggest that Serres’ proposal for the adoption of a “natural
contract” may be understood as a response to the troubling, self-contradictory,
character of action supported by the social contract: the more it succeeds in co-
ordinating human wills for the project of exploiting the resources of the natural
world, the more it leads to globally unsustainable conditions and environmental
degradation characteristic of the Anthropocene. The natural contract may then be
understood as a widening of the scope of the kind of contract modeled by the social
contract, while demanding a transformation of our relations to the natural world.5
So, as the idea of the social contract aims to explain and justify certain restraints on
individual human freedoms in relation to other human beings constituting society,
the idea of the natural contract aims to explain and justify restraints on individual
and collective human freedoms in relation to the nonhuman things of the world
constituting our natural environment.6

4 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), ed. A. P. Martinich and Brian Battiste (Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview Press, 2010).
5 It is important to keep in mind that Serres is addressing humanity as expressed in industrialized
countries where people have benefited, although very unequally, from the exploitation of natural re-
sources, and have some options for participation in the management of relations with each other and
the natural environment. It goes without saying that his call for a natural contract does not apply to
indigenous populations that have already lived according to such a conception since time immemorial,
such as the inhabitants of Amazonia (see, for example, Emilio F. Morán, Through Amazonian Eyes
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993). Calls for societal re-fashioning of relations to the natural
environment would also be moot in countries in which citizens are politically or socially disempowered,
as in war zones or under dictatorships.
6 Serres interchangeably makes reference to the world, nature, and the natural environment because
he contrasts humans and humanity to everything else. Though the differences between the three concepts
(world, nature, and the natural environment) generally are worth maintaining in other contexts, in the
present article we follow his approach since it highlights the manner in which his proposal for a natural
contract inserts into the discussion a plethora of entities otherwise neglected. See Mary Midgley’s list of
neglected entities in Mary Midgley, “Duties Concerning Islands: Of Rights and Obligations,” Encounter
60, no. 2 (1983): 36– 43. Reprinted in Donald Vandeveer and Christine Pierce, eds. People, Penguins
and Plastic Trees, first edition (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1986), 142–51.
212 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

THE ANTHROPOCENE: A NEW GEOLOGIC

EPOCH AND FURTHER INTERVENTION

The scope of contemporary anthropogenic environmental change is such that

books with titles such as The Death of Nature and The End of Nature have become
bestsellers.7 Such environmental change is a matter of concern because of its many
problematic impacts for human functioning such as weather extremes and exhaus-
tion of important sinks and resources, and consequent new disease vectors, forced
migration, aesthetic degradation, and so on, as well as because of the transforma-
tion of the nonhuman parts of our world as such (measured in terms of loss of
biodiversity, for example).
In 2000 Paul Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer tried to sum up our present situa-
tion by coining the term the Anthropocene for the period beginning with the large-
scale use of coal in industrial processes, and extending into the future for at least
as long as the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will
significantly alter the planet’s climates.8 They claim that humanity has become a
geological force, and that we may be well advised to keep this in mind while we
consider our continued existence on the planet.
Although by 2016 the term Anthropocene has already become common usage,
the assumption that this human-shaped time should be characterized as a geological
epoch has been critiqued by some because of the scarcity of observed or expected
direct geological effects in the strata.9 This is a complex issue, too large to be
properly discussed within the boundaries of this paper.10 Suffice it to say that the

7 Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980); Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Anchor 1989).
Also see Christopher J. Preston, “Beyond the End of Nature: SRM and Two Tales of Artificity for the
Anthropocene,” Ethics, Policy and Environment: A Journal of Philosophy and Geography 15 no. 2
(2012): 188–201.
8 Paul Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer, “The Anthropocene,” IGPB [International Geosphere-
Biosphere Programme] Newsletter 41 (2000): 17–18. Also see Paul Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,”
Nature 415 (2002): 23.
9 See Guido Visconti, “Anthropocene: Another Academic Invention?” Rendiconti Lincei 25, no. 3
(2014): 381–92. One may also note the overlap between the period that Crutzen and Stoermer call “the
Anthropocene” and the period in which technology takes on a new, much more impactful, character.
10 But see Alf Hornborg and Malm Andreas, “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the An-
thropocene Narrative,” The Anthropocene Review 1, no. 1 (2014): 62–69; Hannah Jordan and Colin
Prosser, “Indicators of the Anthropocene: Is There a Case for Conservation?” Geology Today 30, no.
2 (2014): 61–66; S. J. Price, J. R. Ford, A. H. Cooper, and C. Neal, “Humans as Major Geological and
Geomorphological Agents in the Anthropocene: The Significance of Artificial Ground in Great Britain,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 1056–84; C. H. Vane, S. R. Chenery, I.
Harrison, A. W. Kim, V. Moss-Hayes and D. G. Jones, “Chemical Signatures of the Anthropocene in
the Clyde Estuary, UK,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 1085–1111; Jan
Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams, Will Steffen, and Paul Crutzen, “The New World of the Anthropocene,”
Environmental Science and Technology 44 (2010): 2228–31; Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams, Alan
Haywood, and Michael Ellis, “The Anthropocene: A New Epoch of Geological Time?” Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 835–41.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 213

International Union of Geological Sciences is expected to pronounce itself on the

question this year 2016. Independently of the geologists’ decision, we propose that
the term Anthropocene may be quite appropriate to characterize our times on the
grounds of the evident large-scale, unprecedented, human complicity in multiple
processes of global environmental change already noted.11
Interestingly, despite the untoward side effects of past human actions, some12
have argued that conceiving of our times as the Anthropocene provides grounds for
further large-scale human interventions in the functioning of our global ecosphere.
The supposition is that, given the degree of human influences that the environment
has been subjected to up to now, further intervention, even at the scale of the planet,
may be justified, and possibly even ethically required, to set things right again (as
a kind of “global restoration”). This kind of reasoning opens the way for attempts
at a justification for geoengineering schemes, even those that may themselves be
risky, on the grounds that it would be irresponsible to just sit by as humanity and
other life forms are exposed to increasing levels of unmanageable environmental
disturbances.13
Developing arguments here against such large-scale interventionist schemes would
take us too far afield from our purpose in this paper. We believe, in any case, that
unprecedented experiments with our planet, entailing wholly uncertain outcomes,
are unjustifiable if alternatives are available.14 In opposition to those who envis-
age such projects, we argue that the descriptive value of the term Anthropocene
should rather serve us as a sufficient ground for moderating our scales of interven-
tion by adopting a change in attitude toward the natural world, with a consequent
transformed sociopolitical engagement. As we argue below, this is precisely what
Serres’ notion of the natural contract calls for.15

11 Will Steffen, Jacques Grinevald, Paul Crutzen, and John McNeil, “The Anthropocene: Conceptual
and Historical Perspectives,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 842–67.
12 Including Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind.”
13 Notably, a number of meetings have been addressing this issue, for example, the round table dis-
cussion on climate engineering governance “Different Perspectives from around the World,” Institute
for Advanced Sustainability Studies, 23 May 2013, Potsdam, Germany, and the international workshop
of the European Consortium on Political Research (ECPR), “Climate Change 2.0? Normative and
Political Issues of Geoengineering the Climate,” Johannes Gutenberg Universität, 11–16 March 2013,
Mainz, Germany.
14 One may see the situation sketched as a suitable place for the application of the precautionary
principle, which has been subscribed to in multiple international agreements, ranging from various
United Nations treaties (such as the World Charter for Nature, the Montreal Protocol, the Rio Declara-
tion and the Kyoto Protocol), to Law in the European Union. For discussion see, for example, S. M.
Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” Ethics 114 (2004): 555–600.
15 For further discussion, see Paul Alberts, “Responsibility Towards Life in the Early Anthropocene,”
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 16, no. 4 (2012): 5–17; Paul J. Crutzen and Christian Schwägerl,
“Living in the Anthropocene: Toward a New Global Ethos,” Yale Environment (2011): 360, http://e360.
yale.edu/feature/living_in_the_anthropocene_toward_a_new_global_ethos_/2363; Marion Hourdequin,
“Restoration and History in a Changing World: A Case Study in Ethics for the Anthropocene,” Ethics and
the Environment 18, no. 2 (2013): 115–34; Donna Houston, “Crisis is Where We Live: Environmental
Justice for the Anthropocene,” Globalizations 10, no. 3 (2013): 439–50; Ben A. Minteer, “Geoengineering
214 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

THE ANTHROPOCENE AND SOCIAL COORDINATION

Perhaps one may wonder whether the term Anthropocene gives too much credit
to human power, since it appears to be one more expression of hubris or excessive
human pride.16 Alternatively, one may be impressed by the apparent catastrophist
and pessimist outlook, entailed by the assumption that humans have no option but
to continue modifying the planet at a global scale and accept whatsoever conse-
quences this may imply.17 Viewed in connection with the idea of the natural contract,
however, conceiving of our times as “the Anthropocene” in fact may have some
salutary implications for our attempts to reflect on the relation between humanity
and the Earth’s natural environment.
Among other things, one may point to the fact that the concept advances the
supposition that the planet’s atmospheric, geologic, and biological systems all
need to be thought of together, acknowledging thereby something like Alexander
von Humboldt’s notion of the “unity of nature”18 and Vernadsky’s idea of the
“biosphere.”19 The concept of the Anthropocene also suggests the end of the great
divide between nature and culture, insofar as “the age-old humanist distinction be-
tween natural history and human history” is obviated in today’s processes of global
anthropogenic environmental change.20 Once we begin engaging the thought that
the Anthropocene is mostly generating problematic symptoms, though, we may
wonder how we got there.

and Ecological Ethics in the Anthropocene” Bioscience 62, no. 10 (2012): 857–58; A. Nicholas Rob-
inson,. “Beyond Sustainability: Environmental Management for the Anthropocene Epoch,” Journal of
Public Affairs 12, no. 3 (2012): 181–94; Paul Wapner, “The Changing Nature of Nature: Environmental
Politics in the Anthropocene,” Global Environmental Politics 14, no. 4 (2014): 36-54.
16 Also see Krzysztof Ziarek, “The Limits of Life: A Non-Anthropic View of World and Finitude,”
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 16, no. 4 (2011): 19–30.
17 Also see Lesley Head, “Contingencies of the Anthropocene: Lessons from the ‘Neolithic,’” The
Anthropocene Review 1, no. 2 (2014): 113–25.
18 See Gabriela Rangel and Christina De León, eds., Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and
the Americas, trans. Christopher Leland Winks (New York: Americas Society, and Bielefeld: Kerber,
2014); Thomas Heyd, “Ascensión al Teide de Alexander von Humboldt,” HiN–Humboldt im Netz.
Internationale Zeitschrift für Humboldt-Studien 16, no. 30 (2015): 68–77, http://www.uni-potsdam.de/
romanistik/hin/hin30/heyd.htm; Alexander von Humboldt, Über das Universum: die Kosmosvorträge
in der Berliner Singakademie (1827–1828), ed. Jürgen Hamel and Klaus-Harro Tiemann (Frankfurt
am Main/Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1993), esp. p. 136.
19 E.g., Bertrand Guillaume, “Vernadsky’s Philosophical Legacy: A Perspective from the Anthropo-
cene,” The Anthropocene Review 1 (2014): 137–46; Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Biosphere, trans. David
Langmuir (New York: Copernicus/Springer Verlag, 1998). Originally published in Russian, 1926.
20 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35/2 (2009): 197.
For discussion also see Gilbert Caluya, “Fragments for a Postcolonial Critique of the Anthropocene:
Invasion Biology and Environmental Security,” in Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environ-
mental Humanities, ed. Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 31-44; and
Thomas H. Ford, “Aura in the Anthropocene,” Symplokē 21, nos. 1–2 (2013): 65–82. In passing, it is to
be noted that this supposed “age-old humanist distinction” is, of course, a product of Western European
culture. Traditional societies, such as still exist in various places, as in the Amazon basin and in parts
of Africa, generally do not view the world this way but rather treat what Europeans see as “the natural
world” as their home, which they inhabit together with fellow nonhuman beings.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 215

It is a sobering and perplexing fact that environmentally degrading changes,

measured, for example, in terms of biodiversity losses or greenhouse gas emissions,
keep on increasing or even accelerating unabated. One may, of course, point to
some successes at management of environmental change, such as the reduction of
ozone-reducing gases following the signing of the Montreal Protocol (agreed to
in 1987 and in force since 1989), or to the fact that since the 1970s most well-off
countries have ministries of the environment, which have legislated certain limits
to environmental pollutants and to the destruction of wildlife habitat. Nonetheless,
the present, rapid degradation of our planet’s biosphere through human action, and
our combined incapacity to halt the further continuation of that transformation to
date, are puzzling as well as profoundly ethically worrisome.
Given that at this moment in history humanity is better equipped than ever to ad-
dress such problems,21 thanks to the combination of scientific knowledge, technical
prowess, and financial means available, it may be that key ingredients are missing
in the approaches engaged in up until now. It would seem that the problems in ques-
tion are the result of a multiplicity of factors, including socioeconomic conditions
perceived as unchangeable givens, manipulative political cultures, shortsighted
political representatives without the courage to take unpopular initiatives, subservi-
ent technological rationality, as well as cultural patterns composed of maladaptive
beliefs, values, habits, and practices.
Moreover, institutional barriers frequently stand in the way of citizens who either
individually or collectively are ready to make a difference. In Spain, for example,
incentives aimed at the equipment of a maximum of houses with solar photovoltaic
panels have been replaced with legislation that actively penalizes such equipment
in benefit of the state-run electric utility monopoly. Similarly, in most countries
expanded car and air travel still receive generous state subsidies while public and
bicycle transport receive little more than lip service.
The determination of the precise causes and reasons generating the present patterns
of harmful environmental change is a task for the social sciences and humanities,
in coordination with the natural sciences and engineering,22 and beyond the limited
objectives of this paper. It is evident, however, that in most countries and regions
a common vision supporting a clear commitment to act is missing. Once equipped
with such a vision, anthropogenic mitigation and remediation of environmentally

21 It is to be noted that there are many regions in the world, along with the majority of individuals,
who are not well equipped to address either the global or local problems noted, but humanity seen as
a whole certainly has large capacity to do so. This is especially true of the part of humanity from the
Global North that has generated, and consequently bears the responsibility for, those problems.
22 See, for example, W. N. Adger, I. Lorenzoni and K. O’Brien, eds., Adapting to Climate Change:
Thresholds, Values and Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009); Robert Gifford,.
“Psychology’s Essential Role in Alleviating the Impacts of Climate Change,” in Mary Gick, ed., special
issue of Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne 49, no. 4 (2008): 273–80; Thomas Heyd, En-
countering Nature: Toward an Environmental Culture (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), Thomas
Heyd, ed., Special Issue, “Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change,” Human Ecology Review 17, no. 2
(Winter 2010); K. O’Brien, J. Wolf, L. Sygna, eds., The Changing Environment for Human Security:
New Agendas for Research, Policy, and Action (London: Earthscan, 2013).
216 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

degrading behaviors and conditions should largely reduce to a problem of social

coordination.23 It is in this context that Serres’ proposal for the adoption of a col-
lective agreement with the natural world may constitute a valuable new viewpoint
on our present quandary, since it aims to provide both a new vision and a new mode
of coordinating behaviors and institutions across society.

THE NATURAL CONTRACT: WHY IT IS NEEDED

Aldo Leopold’s essay “The Land Ethic” already views people’s increasing
separation from the natural environment as one of the significant obstacles to the
development of appropriate care for the land and its life forms in contemporary
societies.24 This perspective is echoed by Serres, who points out that we moderns
are distanced from both referents of the French term temps: weather and time (pp.
27–28).25
While in former times at least sailors and farmers were intimately aware of
weather and its vagaries, today we all, including our society’s decision makers, who
by Serres’ reckoning include scientists, administrators and journalists, live indoors,
protected from the inclements of weather (pp. 28–29). Moreover, while the long
term was as relevant as the short term in agricultural societies that had to plan for the
vagaries of weather fluctuations over the span of several years,26 in today’s societies
obsessed with short terms gains the future increasingly is discounted or even sold
off in favor of the present (pp. 29–31). (Contemporary agricultural businesses, for
example, often continue to exploit the land even if aquifers are overexploited and
soil fertility may become compromised, since they count on the remedial use of
irrigation and artificial fertilizers.) The consequence that Serres draws from these
two sorts of distancing (from weather and time) is that we become disconnected
from the natural environment and neglect to consider it as such in our decisions.27

23 Certainly, reaching agreements on socially significant issues requiring coordination within nation-
states and across national and cultural barriers can constitute an important challenge. The fact that various
international treaties have been signed over time shows, however, that such coordination is possible.
24 Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” in Donald Vandeveer and Christine Pierce, eds. People, Pen-
guins and Plastic Trees, 1st ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1986), pp. 142–51. Reprinted from Aldo
Leopold, Sand County Almanac (London, New York, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), pp.
201–26.
25 To save space, references to Serres, Natural Contract, are given by page numbers in text wherever
it is obvious that this book is the referent.
26 Rain-dependent farmers, who have their fields in the open, cannot expect to have the same suc-
cess in obtaining crops year after year, requiring them to plan ahead for at least one failed season and
contingencies such as higher concentrations of pests and blights.
27 It is notable, by the way, that in contrast to Leopold’s “Land Ethic,” Serres’ proposal, as just noted,
explicitly includes natural phenomena such as weather, climate, and the state of the sea, as well as the
condition of the land and its biota, thereby remedying a gap that some perceive in Leopold’s apparently
land-based approach. But see C. Safina, “Launching a Sea Ethic,” Wild Earth (Winter 2002–2003),
pp. 2–5, who claims that Leopold would have seen land and sea as continuous in terms of the ethical
stance required by each.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 217

He continues by pointing out that, despite our disconnection, we moderns do

pursue knowledge about the world, but primarily in order to take possession of it
(pp. 20–23).28 In this way, our relationship with the world increasingly becomes a
pursuit of mastery over things and ever more human-centered. (This echoes Francis
Bacon’s original hope for humanity, laid out in his New Atlantis,29 that we may
be able to subject the natural world to us through the systematic development of
knowledge.) Serres argues that, in light of the newly discovered fragility of the
world, however, and because we cannot exist without the world, insofar as it sup-
plies us with all of our necessities, we rather have reason to place things in the
center and us humans in the periphery in our conception of the relation of humans
to world (pp. 33).
In terms of Serres’ analysis, precisely our globalized efforts to master the world
are now bringing about a reversal in hoped for consequences (pp. 33–34).30 There
are many well-known cases that confirm this point: for instance, the unlimited use
of pesticides on monocultures generates resistance to such biocides, eventually
making our crops more rather than less susceptible to pests; the excessive use of
antibiotics, used worldwide in a prophylactic way in animal feed, makes bacteria
resistant to antibiotics, making future generations of humans and animals vulnerable
to diseases that had supposedly been “conquered” already; the depletion of aquifers
by excessive exploitation for short term gains, causing the eventual inhabilitation
for agriculture of large areas of marginal land due to the lowering of water tables;
and so on. Given this situation, Serres draws the practical conclusion that a mastery
of mastery, that is, restraint through self-control in the use of our techniques of
mastery, is now called for (p. 34).31
Serres, furthermore, argues that the generalized exploitation of the biophysi-
cal environment, without much consideration for its sustainability, makes us the
equivalent of parasites. Parasites, however, abuse their hosts, ultimately causing
their hosts’ death, which provokes the parasites’ own death in turn. Given this
stark description of our relations to the natural world, Serres suggests that we need
to transform our role from parasites to symbionts (pp. 33–34, 36–37). This is the
immediate background to his proposal for the adoption of a society-wide contract
with nature since, among other things, law, as represented by contractual relations,
may constitute a limitation on parasitism.
He also points out that in former times it might have seemed that we could use

28 Also see Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of )ur Ecological Crisis,” Science 155 (1967):
1203–07.
29 Francis Bacon, New Atlantis and the Great Instauration, ed. Jerry Weinberger (Arlington Heights,
Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1989); originally published in1624.
30 Also see Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity (London: Calder and Boyars, 1974).
31 Also see Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological
Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985); Catherine Larrère, “A Critical Review of the Pre-
cautionary Principle,” Innovations 2, no. 18 (2003): 9–26; Jorge Riechmann, Biomimesis: Ensayos sobre
imitación de la naturaleza, ecosocialismo y autocontención (Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata, 2006).
218 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

(and abuse) the things of the world with impunity and without limitation. This al-
lowed us to suppose that we humans had cast off from the world, affording us to
become exclusively immersed in our own, human, history. Our present experience
teaches us the falsity of this view, since the present excessive exploitation of the
world’s sinks and resources is provoking ever more muscled reactions from the
nonhuman world (pp. 33–34).
This situation, Serres points out, creates a very serious practical problem because
human beings do not have another place to which we can retreat: there are no fur-
ther reserves for us anywhere, despite the views of those who hope for an escape
from Earth through space travel, and of those who dream of technological utopias
divorced from the natural world (pp. 40–41). The adoption of a natural contract
would represent a recognition of our dependence on the continued integrity of the
world by calling for the pursuit of a new equilibrium between two types of systems:
social systems, which seek an equilibrium in society, and self-regulating natural
systems (pp. 37–38).32

THE NATURAL AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

Serres further sharpens the concept of a “natural contract” by contrasting it with

the idea of the “social contract,” according to which human beings agree to cooper-
ate for the common good by adopting a virtual covenant (pp. 13–20 and passim).
As noted, in the early modern era, this idea was first explicitly laid out by Hobbes,
who supposes that people are quite ready to come to such an agreement simply as
a result of applying reason to their miserable condition.33 More specifically, his
supposition was that, when faced with scarcity of resources coupled to the evils of
inter-human competition, people willingly give up some of their freedoms if they
perceive that this may provide them with enough peace to lead flourishing lives.
Though consent would seem to be a sine qua non for this kind of agreement
to work, Hobbes assumes that it suffices if consent is tacitly given through par-
ticipation in the benefits of society. As pointed out already, the world or natural
environment plays no part in the social contract, however: it functions as mere
silent background to the foregrounded pursuit of human well-being. That is, the
things of the world function as mere resource, or what Heidegger calls “standing
reserve” (Bestand).34 This view of nature as passive bystander is not tenable any
longer, on Serres’ analysis.
On the view of the latter, the things of the world rather need to be seen as active
participants in the resolution of the coordination problem facing human beings in
a limited world because, despite their “thingness” they increasingly behave as if

32 Serres speaks of “natural equilibria, described by physical mechanics, thermodynamics, the physi-
ology of organisms, ecology, or systems theory” (Natural Contract, p. 37). This notion of equilibrium
is best understood as a reference to the self-regulating character of natural systems.
33 Hobbes, Leviathan.
34 Martin Heidgger, in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt
(New York: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 17.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 219

they were subjects (pp. 10–13).35 The perception of things of the world as active
arises due to the new constellation of powers generated by our global, cumulative,
interventions in the world’s atmosphere, biosphere, and so on, that bring about
globally distributed feedback responses from the natural environment. In other
words, our present experience teaches us that the world takes and gives according
to its own logic, and not in accordance with the supposed mastery that we may
thought to have acquired on the basis of our expanded knowledge.
The most obvious cases in point are the changes in global climates, such as the
increasing prevalence of more powerful storms and more prolonged droughts,
resulting from the accumulation of heat in the atmosphere and in the oceans,
itself generated through the capture of thermal radiation caused by the presence
of increasing quantities of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane
in the atmosphere. A similarly worrisome development is ocean acidification,
caused by the dissolution of carbon dioxide, which, by way of the weakening of
shell structures of microscopic shellfish, is expected to significantly contribute to
a reduction of fish stocks available to fishers and predating biota.36
Insofar as the natural contract is modeled on the social contract, it may be
understood as entailing the granting of certain rights to the things of the world.
According to Serres, this is merely part of the kind of expansion of consideration
that we have already seen repeatedly throughout human history, as a consequence
of which others who differ from the mainstream; for example, in terms of gender or
ethnicity, eventually have become rights holders (pp. 35–36). So, when understood
this way, knowledge of the things of the world constitutive of our environment
should no longer imply the right to possession; nor should action concerning those
things be carried out with the supposition of a right of mastery (pp. 38–40). In this
he is anticipated once again by Leopold, who declared that humans should no longer
view themselves as conquerors but as plain citizens of the biotic community.37
What makes Serres’ proposal distinctive in relation to approaches that empha-
size environmental ethics as such is that he does not propose a new personal ethic
but, rather, a deep reconception of sociopolitical relationships.38 Just as the social

35 Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2005), for whom things play roles as actants, but see Denis Dumas, “Peut-il y avoir
un contrat naturel? La raison moderne au tribunal de l’écologie,” Dialogue 31, no. 2 (1992): 295–310.
36 Regarding the consequences or global warming there are a plethora of references. Most authorita-
tive are the IPCC Assessment Reports. See http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm.
37 Gene Hargrove, editor of this journal, has pointed out to us that Leopold’s land ethic is not only
to be conceived in terms of personal ethics but also would have political consequences. We agree that
it could serve as a foundation for the transformation of political institutions. This is easily seen by
Leopold’s reference to the notion of human “plain citizenship” in the biotic community. While this
generally is understood as implying that humans should see themselves as responsible for their con-
tributions (positive or negative) to the ecosystem, it can also be interpreted as implying that land and
its inhabitants ought to have their voices heard as fellow citizens in the political arena. This is another
way in which Leopold anticipates Serres’ notion of the natural contract in an important way.
38 But see Dumas, “Peut-il,” who sees Serres’ project in a more limited sense as the proposal of an
ethic, either anthropocentric or physiocentric.
220 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

contract aims at the good for the community of humans, to be obtained through
social coordination, the natural contract aims at benefits for a joint community of
humans and nonhuman nature, to be obtained through coordination with the things
of the world. Accordingly, on this view, the things of the world should be seen as
having “standing” of their own39 and as partners in a common project with humans.
As such, the natural contract would call for limitations on our individual freedoms
for the common good analogous to the limitations required by the social contract.
One consequence of the adoption of policies in accordance with the natural con-
tract would be, for example, to severely restrict or even ban the use of neonicotinoid
pesticides on the grounds that they are incompatible with a flourishing bee population,
which itself is of crucial importance for the sustainability of agriculture as well
as wild plant diversity dependent on bee pollination.40 The natural contract would
require that appropriate measures to protect bee populations be instituted regionally,
nationally, and internationally, and in good faith, with adequate compensations for
vulnerable small holders who initially might have difficulties in switching over to
alternate ways of controlling excessively large, problematic, insect populations.
Similarly, a stance motivated by the natural contract would call upon the world
fishing nations to ban fishing on the high seas in benefit of the recovery of stocks
that foreseeably would be obtained and the greater equality in access to fishing
stocks across small and large scale fishers.41 Once again, insofar as the natural
contract would represent a consensual position across the interests of humans and
the integrity of natural systems, nations that would be highly disadvantaged by a
simple application of such a ban, for instance, because they only have small exclu-
sive economic zones around their countries, should be able to obtain compensatory
adjustments from the winners in such a change.42

CRITIQUES AND RESPONSES: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AS MODEL

In order to properly assess Serres’ proposal it is necessary to consider the analogy

between the social contract and the natural contract in a little more detail. Limit-
ing ourselves here to the model of the social contract propounded by Hobbes, it
is worthy of note that it is a conceptual device, which serves both to explain and

39 Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer, eds., People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, 2nd ed. (Bel-
mont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1995).
40 Damian Carrington, “Neonicotinoids: New Warning on Pesticide Harm to Bees,” The Guardian,
28 October 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/28/strong-consensus-that-
neonicotinoids-harm-bees-analysis-shows.
41 Crow White and Christopher Costello, “Close the High Seas to Fishing?” PLOS Biology, 25 March
2014, http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/04/02/297840486/should-we-close-part-of-the-ocean-
to-keep-fish-on-the-plate.
42 U. Rashid Sumaila, Vicky W. Y. Lam, Dana D. Miller, Louise Teh, Reg A. Watson, Dirk Zeller,
William W. L. Cheung, Isabelle M. Côté, Alex D. Rogers, Callum Roberts, Enric Sala, and Daniel
Pauly, “Winners and Losers in a World where the High Seas is Closed to Fishing,” Scientific Reports
5, no. 8481 (2015), http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08481.
 Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 221

justify the legitimacy of restrictions on the indefinite freedoms that individuals

would have in “the state of nature,” where, as noted, “the state of nature” refers
to a condition in which humans have significant incentives to compete with each
other for the basics of life, even with recourse to violence.
Hobbes sets up the motivation for adopting the social contract among contending
parties in a double way. 43 First, as arising from the harshness of a life in “the state
of nature,” notoriously characterized as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Second, as arising from the missed opportunities for “commodious living” that
could be achieved through the development and application of diverse practical
arts, which require a substantial degree of social peace and collaboration.
As such, the social contract makes reference to a virtual agreement among citizens
to collaborate in the pursuit of certain commonly valued goods (e.g., peace, good
governance), since explicit declarations of agreement usually are only required
when formal laws and constitutions are to be set in place. That is, the majority of
rules facilitating a smoothly functioning society remain tacit and only virtually
agreed upon. So, while diverse across societies, the rules of decency in business,
for example, do include a minimal degree of accountability to customers and
society at large. Similarly, while it is understood that individual citizens usually
will put their own interests and those of their close ones ahead of those of the rest
of society, it also is generally considered an unwritten law that those who benefit
from society’s institutions should, at least from time to time and in the expected
measure, return something to society for the privileges which it accords us all.
The supposition grounding the social contract, most succinctly, is that individuals
reasonably give up a portion of their individual freedoms by agreeing to certain
restraints on their behavior, as required by collaborative enterprise, in exchange
for overall favorable conditions to their flourishing (or, conversely, for the avoid-
ance of overall unfavourable conditions). Moreover, since the social contract is
supposed to endure, it importantly implies commitment by individuals to continue
collaborating under the umbrella of the agreement, in spite of the downsides that
at certain times may arise for some, and in principle any, of the participants in the
agreement.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS REGARDING THE NATURAL CONTRACT

Much discussion regarding the social contract has centered on the question
regarding how a virtual agreement could have authority over individuals, and the
explanation usually makes reference to the tacit or implied consent that people give
through acceptance of some of the relevant benefits of living under the auspices
of the social contract, which may only be obtainable through this virtual institu-
tion. Notably, even if never actually given, the idea that consent could be given

43 Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. 13.

222 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

by individuals plays an important role, since, as noted, the assumption is that the
commitment to collaborate with others, which the social contract tries to explain
and justify, is supposed to be reasonable.44
So, if the natural contract is to be understood as analogous with the social con-
tract, then the virtual character of the latter, understood to imply that it suffices for
consent to be tacit or implied, turns out to be advantageous for the plausibility of
the former: only exceptionally do people give their outright consent to the social
contract (few ever really “sign” it) and, by analogy, there would seem to be no
good reason to expect anything more from the respective participants in the natural
contract for it to gain authority over the participants in that agreement. (To require
stricter conditions for the natural contract than for the social contract would be
arbitrary without further argument.45)
It may be objected, however, that, in contrast to most human participants in the
social contract, the things of the world are not capable of (full-blown) autonomy,
neither rational nor sentient, these being characteristics that one would normally
expect in the participants of a contract.46 From this objection, it may be concluded
that there cannot be consent by the natural world, not even implied or tacit, thereby
undermining the very possibility of a natural contract. There are diverse ways to
respond to this objection. Here we canvas three by discussing (a) the possibility
that the things of the world be represented, (b) contracts as commitments to act,
and (c) the natural contract as a practically useful fiction.

SOME RESPONSES

First, one way to respond to the objection is to point out that in our societies there
already are agreements between people and “nonhuman entities” insofar there are
contracts between individuals and corporations. These constitute apposite examples
of cases that involve entities that are not fully capable of autonomy, neither rational
nor sentient. Corporations as such, furthermore, are not only fully artificial creations
but also merely virtual entities because, even though they may own physical goods,
such as buildings and land, hire and fire employees, open and close bank accounts,
and so on.47 In principle corporations need not have any physical manifestation at
all.
This is most starkly manifested in so-called “shell” or “mailbox” corporations,
which do not have any further reality than a mailbox address, generally located in
some tax haven. Corporations are virtual in the full sense of the word—they exist
by virtù or moral power of society which chooses to give them reality. So, one

44 Ibid., chap. 15, on the exclusion of animals from the social contract on the grounds of their in-
capacity to adhere to contracts or covenants. (I owe this reference to Pedro Francés-Gómez.)
45 Dumas, “Peut-il,” p. 297.
46 For some other related objections, see, e.g., Dumas, “Peut-il,” p. 300.
47 They may also cause their employees to pollute or, contrarily, to remedy pollution, of course.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 223

may argue that, if it makes sense to enter into contracts with such virtual entities,
then contracts with “the things of the world” constituting our physical environment
may not be any the more questionable, for the latter at least have the advantage of
being as real as anything can be.
Furthermore, even if corporations have no body or location they certainly enter
into contracts, which are negotiated by their representatives or officers. Analogously,
contracts with things of “the world,” nature, or the environment could be negotiated
by representatives. This is territory that has long been explored by Christopher Stone
from the perspective of legal rights in his much-discussed Do Trees Have Standing?48
As may be recalled, on Stone’s analysis, representatives (duly selected accord-
ing to some legitimated and legitimizing process) could speak in court on behalf
of the interests of certain areas of the natural world (e.g., a particular river or for-
est), just as officers of corporations speak for their firms and as wards speak on
behalf of incompetent humans. Although Serres’ proposal does not limit itself to
the legal representation of particular parts of the natural world, as Stone proposes,
the lesson to be drawn from Stone’s account is that agreements with corporations
provide a model for agreements with nonhuman things even if those things are
non-autonomous, non-rational, and non-sentient, since the latter could be similarly
represented, at least in principle.49
Second, in law there is a category of “implied contracts” that can serve as a model
for the natural contract that humans might engage in with the things of the world.50
Implied contracts are offers by one party for the performance of certain actions
in the event of participation (acceptance of the offers) by (initially unspecified)
other parties. The contract is realized through actual participation, which triggers
the obligation by the respective parties to comply by the terms of the contract as
set out by the initiating party.
This kind of contract is exemplified by offers to sell or rent out a certain item for
a set price (as stated on the “price tag”), as is customary in most businesses that
advertise to sell or rent retail. Its realization is exemplified by hotel stays or meals
in restaurants: the visitor who occupies a standard hotel room and the restaurant
guest who eats the meal listed in the menu both implicitly agree to pay the respec-
tive set prices once they occupy the room and start eating, respectively.
So, a contract with nature may be understood as an offer by “the human party”for
the performance of certain actions, in the expectation that the natural environment
or world would (eventually) “do its part” (perceptible in certain changes in its func-
tioning, partially foreseeable by our sciences). Under these conditions presumably
it would be a sign of goodwill on the part of humans to start acting under the terms

48 Christopher Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? Law, Morality, and the Environment (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1972).
49 Ibid., pp. 467–70. As Stone put it, this is not a merely theoretical point since already in 1972
there were are a number of cases that had given legal reality to the possibility of legal representation
of nonhuman natural things.
50 We are grateful for this suggestion given to us by Michael M’Gonigle.
224 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

of the contract long before any expected collaboration by the things of the world,
just as restaurant owners put up buildings, furnish them with appropriate equipment
and furniture, begin cleaning floors and tables and preparing meals—long before
someone sits down and orders a meal listed on the menu.
It may be questioned, of course, whether it is reasonable to speak of a contract
if the other party (in this case, the world or nature) is not aware of or cannot grasp
the terms of the contract. This objection may be hard to reply to, though there are
cases involving humans in which relatively similar situations come about. It is not
unusual, for example, that in certain circumstances individuals may become prey of
sales practices that rely on implied contracts, into which they enter into as unwit-
ting “customers” without fully realizing the terms. For example, when clients sit
down in restaurants and order foods and drinks without being given price lists, and
subsequently find out that they have just entered into an implied contract requiring
them to pay unusually high prices for the goods consumed (which they generally
do out of embarrassment).
Moreover, not being able to fully grasp the terms of the contract would seem to
be close to the norm for many of us who can only function in our overly legalistic
world by not reading the reams of “fine print” in the agreements that are constantly
required of us (required even to enable us to download or update word processing
software). In short, and on a more positive note, if we conceive of contracts as
primarily constituted by commitments to act, then a one-sided offer from humanity
to do its part may be a way in which the natural contract could begin to take on
reality.
Third, a further type of reply may consist in arguing that, even if strictly speaking
a contract of humans with nature were implausible, due to the lack of sentience,
rationality, and capacity for autonomy of the latter, one may still enter into a con-
tract with the remainder of humans regarding nature or the world. Such contracts
among humans regarding nonhuman beneficiaries already are implemented, for
example, in the case of “conservation land trusts,” which generally involve formal
promises by an agent to limit the kinds of use of particular parcels of land, often
in perpetuity. (On a grander scale one may consider, for example, international
agreements not to develop the resources of Antarctica or national commitments
to leave certain areas of the Amazon basin undeveloped, as had been proposed by
Ecuador regarding the Yasuni Reserve.) Arguably the beneficiaries of such agree-
ments are not only recreational users of wild spaces and indigenous populations,
who depend on the integrity of the land, but the land itself (and its biota) since,
as a result of those agreements, these areas may be protected from a diversity of
exploitative uses.
This reply may be subject to the further objection that, if it is a contract among
humans regarding the world, then the idea of the natural contract seems to have
collapsed into the idea of the social contract, insofar as it involves agreements
among people to apply certain limitations to their own behaviour regarding nature.
One reply to this further objection is that it is practically of little import if, under
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 225

the guise of a natural contract, we had only negotiated an extension to the social
contract—as long as the conditions for human action according to this modified
social contract were set as if nature could be participating party in the contract.51
In other words, even if the natural contract were only seen as a useful fiction, this
would still be a desirable option, given the quandary that humanity is in today.
As an additional objection one may wonder perhaps what the novelty of the
proposal of a natural contract is supposed to be if there already is precedent for
this kind of contract in conservation land trusts, for example. To this query one
may respond by stressing that, in contrast to existing agreements regarding certain
parcels of the natural environment, the natural contract proposes a generalized
agreement of humans either with or regarding nature. In analogy to the social
contract, it is to be understood as an agreement that, once assumed, requires all of
those who would be included in society to adhere to it and not just the few who,
by becoming owners and users of particular parcel of land, are required to abide
by certain commitments to conservation goals (as in the case of conservation land
trusts).
As such, the natural contract may be seen as a significant conceptual innovation
with potentially important consequences for the remediation of environmental harms
through a reassessment of rights and responsibilities of human users of the natural
environment. In short, the natural contract may be an effective transformative tool
even if it were only to function as a useful fiction that extends the concerns to be
considered under the social contract.52

LAST CONCERNS

Some may ask what may motivate people and nations to adopt the natural contract,
and how it may be enforced. These are legitimate questions. On Serres’ analysis, as
with regard to the social contract, motivation would arise from the conviction that
we will be collectively better off adopting it than not. This already is a conviction
with deep roots in various indigenous cultures, as among the Quechua-speaking
people of the Andes, who couple their way of life to a deep respect for the Earth
(which they call “Pachamama”).53

51 This, one may argue, is how the buen vivir clauses in the recently revised constitutions of Ecuador
and Bolivia should be understood. See Constitution of Bolivia (2009), http://pdba.georgetown.edu/
Constitutions/Bolivia/bolivia09.html; Constitution of Ecuador (2008), http://pdba.georgetown.edu/
Constitutions/Ecuador/english08.html.
52 Nonetheless, we do not believe that we have to content ourselves with this somewhat deflationary,
extensionist way of understanding the natural contract, since we think that the replies to the two ob-
jections above are quite strong and to the point. For discussion also see Jane Lubchenco, “Entering the
Century of the Environment: A New Social Contract for Science,” Science 279 (1998): 491-497; Ayesha
Siddiqi, “Climatic Disasters and Radical Politics in Southern Pakistan: The Non-linear Connection,”
Geopolitics 19, no. 4 (2014): 885–910.
53 See Thomas Heyd, “Symbolically Laden Sites in the Landscape and Climate Change,” Ethics,
Policy and Environment 17, no. 3 (2014): 1–14.
226 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. 38

Behavior and policies that are coherent with the idea that the natural environment
should be seen as partner also has been gaining ground increasingly in European
countries, such as Norway, Sweden, Latvia, and Finland, where a large part of the
energy consumed is produced by renewable means,54 and where a steadily increas-
ing quantity of foods produced and consumed come from organic agriculture.55
Moreover, with regard to enforcement, we may suppose that the natural contract
would rely on the same kinds of positive and negative incentives (praise and cen-
sure) as the norms supporting the social contract, unless the concerns in question
were of such importance that they would be turned into law.
Finally, one may wonder whether the notion of a natural contract may be as
motivating as alternatives, such as the stewardship approach, or even moderate
self-interest, for that matter. This is a fair question. The answer probably depends
on whether the alternatives would be as consistent over the long run in delivering
the kind of norms and institutions required to slow down the rates of environmental
degradation that the world is witnessing. It seems to us that, in contrast with com-
mitment to the natural contract, stewardship, and especially self-interest, would
be unreliable motivators because they still allow us—qua humans—to position
ourselves ahead of the nonhuman parts of the world, and hence would fail just
when norms and institutions “with teeth” would be called for.

CONCLUSION

While the very notion of the Anthropocene suggests that the rapidly increasing
artificialization of the planet due to human behaviors likely is to continue for a very
long time, the idea of the natural contract points toward the fact that, even under
these conditions, humans still have important choices regarding how we relate to
the things of the world that make up our environment. This idea calls for wide-ran-
ging commitment to coordinated restraint, so that our unsustainable impacts on
environmental resources and sinks can be drastically reduced, and even reversed.
Given our present world condition, with its globalized problems, this would need
to be done at multiple scales.
Following the model of the social contract, the realization of the natural contract,
among other things, would demand a society-wide conscientization regarding the
ways in which the natural environment can be incorporated as a partner into all
decision making. It would also call for an anchoring of generalized commitments
to sustainable environmental governance in international law, national constitu-
tions and laws, and regulations at all levels. Some countries, such as Ecuador and

54 See, for example, http://qz.com/359415/three-european-countries-have-already-hit-their-2020-re-

newable-energy-goals/ and http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Renewable_en-
ergy_statistics.
55 Regarding organic foods production in Europe, see, for example, http://www.ifoam-eu.org/en/
what-we-do/organic-europe.
Summer 2016 THE NATURAL CONTRACT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 227

Bolivia, have already proceeded to incorporate society-wide commitments to the

Earth, of the sort expected from a natural contract.56 In various parts of the world,
furthermore, a number of legal cases have already been creating precedents in this
sense.57
In summary, even if the realization of a contract with nature poses important
challenges,58 there is reason to believe that such a contract makes sense and ought
to be pursued, that there are ways to implement it, and that it constitutes a powerful
alternative to potentially disastrous, large–scale, interventionist approaches that
some have offered in light of the reality of the Anthropocene. The idea of a natural
contract proposes that the future is still modifiable in ways that gives the things of
the natural world a significant voice, and, in the process, provides inspiration and
guidance for the maintenance of the planet in much more liveable conditions than
if we continue with business as usual. This is a hopeful perspective that calls upon
our imaginations and wills, and deserves a hearing among philosophers, decision
makers, and the general, educated, public.

POSTSCRIPT

It is not all about law and contracts, however. In “The Land Ethic” Leopold wrote:
add page
“It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, nos. for
respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value.”59 Serres echoes the two
Leopold once more in the last section of his essay “The Natural Contract” when Serres
quotes
he declares: “Love our two fathers, natural and human, the land and the neighbor;
in this
love humanity, our human mother, and our natural mother, the Earth.” This is a paragraph
matter beyond theory, which we can only realize through practice. Having reached in text.
the top of the stairs with his talk of a new contract, Serres, figuratively, withdraws
the ladder and proposes: “There is nothing real but love, and no other law.”

56 See the Constitution of Ecuador 2008, and the Constitution of Bolivia 2009. Notwithstanding the
good intentions laid out in those constitutions, environmental degradation and cases abuse of the rights
of indigenous peoples continue being very serious issues in those countries. See, for example, Mary
Elizabeth Whittemore, “The Problem of Enforcing Nature’s Rights under Ecuador’s Constitution: Why
the 2008 Environmental Amendments Have No Bite,” Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal (June 2011),
https://digital.lib.washington.edu/dspace-law/handle/1773.1/1032.
57 See, for example, Stone, Do Trees Have Standing?
58 See, for example, Dumas, “Peut-il”, passim; and Erin Fitz-Henry, “The Natural Contract: From
Lévi-Strauss to the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court,” Oceania 82, no. 3 (2012): 264–77.
59 Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” p. 151.