Natural Disasters and Moral Responsibility

Maria Clara DIAS


In this article we discuss the question of the supposed natural disasters and to do so in the first instance from a moral perspective. To this end, we will first examine the concept of “natural disaster,” examining the description of natural events that become disastrous and the ways in which that description acquires negative connotations that seek to minimize the human role in disaster creation. We then turn to analyze the responsibility of human beings in the face of disastrous natural events. In this connection, we intend to examine some lifestyle and/or social choices made by individuals and groups of individuals and the inherent but often ignored risks inherent in these choices. We will then consider, using concrete examples, whether one can discern in these examples amoral commitment to the prevention of natural events the consequences of which may be disastrous. In the process, we intend to show that moral considerations in this context should entail social awareness and consequent moral and political responsibilities that are both practical and necessary. In conclusion, we will outline some needed moral and policy measures that should routinely be followed in the process of disaster prevention planning context, including the adoption of a draft World Charter for Socially Responsible Disaster Planning. These measures, we will finally suggest, point, if not to a solution, then at least in the direction of a more responsible and morally committed life for us all, both as individuals and as individuals in society.

1. Natural disasters: curse of the gods or consequences of human actions?

It is not difficult to understand what we mean when we speak of a "natural disaster.” We can all imagine a storm, an earthquake or a volcanic eruption –with nature in all of its brutality shaking houses to their foundations, lifting cars and buses from the ground and destroying human lives and property in the process. The mere description of a natural event with disastrous consequences is, despite its destruction of persons and property important to us, simultaneously replete with terms that connote strength, extreme force and uncontrollable disorder. Curiously, however, many of the terms used to describe such events, because they are deemed “natural” are not also understood negatively in the sense of being something that, through human agency, could be avoided. Indeed, we often appear both to fear and also to admire greatly the characteristics of such natural phenomena, using terms that reflect what Kant called the intuition of the sublime.¹

In saying this, we do not argue that, at bottom, the characteristics of such natural events are good or desirable. Rather, we are arguing that we can judge them as good or bad, desirable or not, depending on our position and the circumstances that surround us. To be clear, we thus wish to draw attention to the fact that we who deem a certain configuration of properties as good or bad do so based on a certain universe of values that we create in and project out into the world. In a world where such creation and projection has not been carried out, a storm, earthquake or volcanic eruption would be value-neutral, mere physical events described with specificity (e.g. with numbers and dates and in terms of the laws of physics) and not in terms that convey our wonder, awe and sense of incapacity in the face of something that would take our breath away or something that would prove to cause us to lose sleep and haunt our days.