Selfishness In Ishmael

In the book of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, we discover that humans feel as though they were created to conquer and rule the world and every species in it. However, God never meant for man to travel aimlessly throughout earth on their own accordance. By his refusal to give us all the knowledge and wisdom that would be needed to govern the earth, he made it necessary for us to seek him for guidance in order to fulfill his desire. As we continue to possess an attitude of superiority, our way of life will destroy the world. Traveling down this road, we will bring civilization to destruction and calamity with our dominance, greed, and selfishness that will eliminate all species including ourselves. The human species has become an enemy to all other …show more content…
We are so selfish that we’re willing to eliminate civilization with our actions and habits that are causing climate changes and global warming. Through global warming, animals and plants are dying due to the changes in their natural habitat. We hunt animals for the sake of killing them, as a sport. In the civilization systems that was describe in Ishmael, it explains this event as “exterminating our competitors. Humans are the only species that does this. Other species, only hunt what they are going to eat. Secondly, we are also depleting oceans of fish before they can be replenish for our own selfishness and greed. This is referred to as destroying our competitors in the civilization system, taking more than we need. Nothing like this happens in the natural community because other animals take what they need and leave the rest. Thirdly, we prevent other species access to food. This is called denying other species access to all the food in the world. Other species only deny you access to what they have in their possession. Fourthly, all species store food internally or externally because this makes the whole system works.” However, people tend to store things that they don’t need. Many people feel that it’s there moral duty to enjoy the environment anyway they want, in spite of the fact that it only benefits them. This attitude feeds into Kant’s theory that it’s “our good will to do things whether the …show more content…
Recently, Pope Francis called for “drastic changes in our consumption, lifestyle and production from superficial and unsustainable habits to more mature means of caring for our environment.” He said that “we have a moral duty to care for the environment and when we do that, we are connected intimately to one another.” This is the message that Ishmael, the teacher in the book, wanted spread among the people across the world. As self-absorbed, destructive, greedy, and selfish people, will we take the challenge to impart change around the world? If civilization is to continue after we are long gone, we must change the minds of the people today for generations to come. We must change the way we think, behave and live among other species. As we learned, man was created for the world and not the other way around, so it should be our mission to leave the world in a more harmonious and sustainable way. Our mission should be to change the minds, actions and habits of present and future generations toward the environment. Many environmentalist have stated that, we have to protect human health and our environment by reducing artificial climate change, air pollution, land availability, soil erosion and water scarcity. We must adopt the same principle that John Stuart Mill promoted which is “we as a people have a moral duty to increase good for the greater number of people”.