Thomas Hill’s Avocado Tree Dilemma

Thomas Hill presents a situation where his neighbor cuts down an avocado tree and covers the ground in his backyard with asphalt. The tree (a non-sentient being) cannot feel pain and hence the man does not cause it direct harm or suffering. Additionally, the neighbor logistically has every right to cut down the tree since it is on his property. Therefore, from a cost-benefit analysis or rights perspective, there is nothing wrong with the neighbor’s actions.

However, Hill would argue that we can still feel moral discomfort even if an action does not violate rights or cause direct harm: “The moral significance of preserving the natural environment is not entirely an issue of rights and social utility” (291). Therefore, Hill proposes that we shift our perspective from “the effort to find reasons why certain acts destructive of natural environments are morally wrong to the ancient task of articulating our ideals of human excellence” (293). Instead of asking ‘Is this wrong?’ we should be asking ‘What sort of person would do that?’ Hill further supports this claim through framing analogies. For instance, spitting on your grandmother’s grave does not directly harm anyone, but Hill asserts that the action reflects on your deficiency as an excellent human, which he derives through four traits: humility, self-acceptance, gratitude, and aesthetic sensitivity. To this end, Hill claims that the neighbor’s “indifference to non-sentient nature does not necessarily reflect an absence of virtues, it often signals the absence of certain traits which we want to encourage” (294). 

For Hill, humility and self-acceptance are intertwined. To support his argument, he holds a conversation with an imaginary critic, a Sophisticated Anti-Environmentalist (SAE). Hill intially asserts that “increased understanding of nature tends to heighten people’s concern for its preservation” (295). The SAE would refute that despite his expertise, he still feels indifferent. Hill then adds another layer, stating that the tree destroyer does not lack information but perspective. Then, the SAE would claim that nature, for some, can also lead to depression, hedonism, or resignation. Through this back-and-forth discourse, Hill effectively addresses potential limitations of his argument. 

Hill would align a human who understands their place in nature but still views nature as a mere resource at our disposal to the tree destroyer with a racist his is aware of other races, but treats them as significant in comparison to his own. Therefore, Hill would claim that his neigebor lacks “proper humility”(296). 

However, Hill’s humility argument fails to address the other ways in which people can become properly humbled without nature. It is unrealistic to believe that once all humans are educated on their place in nature that we will be humble. Nonetheless, Hill successfully illusrates that although it is possible for an individual to be simultaneously humble and indifferent toward non-sentient nature, “this logical possibility may be a psychological rarity” (296). 

Hill’s idea of humility requires a state of self-acceptance. He states that those who have fully accepted who we are as humans, and our place in the natural world as citizens should “lack the desire to dissociate themselves from nature by replacing natural environments with artifical ones” (298). For Hill, dying one’s hair or dressing twenty years younger in denial of old age and eventual death illustrates a lack of self-acceptance because you are disowning parts of yourself, and “such pretense is incompatible with proper humility because it is seeing oneself as better than one is” (297). 

Furthermore, Hill considers aesthetic sensitivity as another human virtue. Thus, he believes that one is a deficient human if they are unresponsive to natural beauty. A critic may argue that we should not judge the moral importance or excellence of humans based on subjective taste. For instance, I do not find weeds or worms beautiful, but that should not make me any less of an excellent human. Hill would refute that the subjective distinction of beautiful or ugly is not the point; “the point is rather that unresponsiveness to what is beautiful, awesome, dainty, dumpy” most likely “reflect a lack of openness of mind and spirit necessary to appreciate the best in human beings” (299). In short, Hill claims that the qualities and traits necessry to appreciate the beauty in nature is needed to do the same in humans. 

Hill’s focus on virtue ethics may pose a moral relativism problem, however. Different cultures value different traits, and hence causes conflict in deciding the virutes to uphold when considering actions toward non-sentient nature.