Individualism Gone Awry

"In the past we have admitted the right of the individual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present profit. In fact there has been a good deal of demand for unrestricted individualism, for the right of the individual to injure the future of all of us for his own temporary and immediate profit. The time has come for a change. As the people we have the right and the duty, second to none other but the right and duty to obeying the moral law, of requiring and doing justice, and to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual destruction of such resources or by making them impossible of development hereafter."

1908

 

Roosevelt gives us a political precursor to "The Land Ethic" where Aldo Leopold defines ethics as limits on human freedom.