The Center for Humans and Nature Mourns the Loss of Strachan Donnelley

Strachan Donnelley, PhD
Founder and President, The Center for Humans and Nature
Photo by Ansell Bray

The Board and Staff of the Center for Humans and Nature are deeply saddened by the death of the Center’s Founder and President, Strachan Donnelley, PhD (1942-2008). Strachan combined several vocations as a writer, an educator, and a builder and supporter of organizations in service to the common good. He was at once a conservationist, philanthropist, and philosopher; and he was also a man of remarkable love, dedication, and care for his family, friends, and colleagues.

Strachan spent his life ardently pursuing an understanding of the appropriate relationships between humans and nature. He came to see humans as utterly dependent on nature, erasing myths of a place for humans apart from the natural world. He attributed his particular insights to the study of the history of philosophy (Oxford) and his work with Hans Jonas at the (then) Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. Jonas guided his thesis on Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of ‘Nature Alive,’ the idea that all nature has some level of vitality and thus merits our serious consideration and respect. Other major influences on his thought were Charles Darwin, Ernst Mayr, Heraclitus, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak, Aldo Leopold and his biographer Curt Meine, and Wes Jackson.

After a brief stint teaching at Valparaiso University, he joined the Hastings Center, an organization which did much to establish the field of biomedical ethics. Donnelley served as Director of Education at Hastings with a special focus on questions dealing with the end of life, traumatic brain injury, and the use of animals in research. During this period Donnelley, working with some of his numerous Chicago contacts, also began a project entitled ‘Nature, Polis, and Ethics.’ Groups of thinkers and civic actors gathered, usually at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, to discuss the future of the region with special emphasis on the natural environment and the changes wrought by the development of the city and suburbs. Numerous papers and presentations resulted from these efforts as well as civic forums in which presentations were made to a larger segment of the public often reaching several hundred persons.

Strachan became President of the Hastings Center in 1996 and worked to establish an active humans and nature program there. Upon leaving the Hastings Center in 2002, he and colleagues formed the Center for Humans and Nature (CHN). The Center built on the foundations of his earlier work, now has offices in Chicago, New York, and the Lowcountry of South Carolina as well as collaborators world wide. The intellectual commitments of CHN are 1) Promoting critical research and education at the intersection of the humanities and the life sciences, especially evolutionary biology and ecology; and 2) Envisioning responsible relationships between human and natural communities conducive to the long-term mutual well-being of these communities, their resilience and flourishing. Strachan played a formative role in the intellectual activity of CHN wherever the meetings were held; he continued to be active in CHN well into mid-June of this year when he contributed significantly, by telephone, to the development of biosphere ethics to guide the work of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Donnelley published numerous articles in philosophy and applied ethics and co-edited and wrote for three Special Supplements to the Hastings Center Report: "Animals, Science, and Ethics" (1990), "The Brave New World of Animal Biotechnology"(1994), and "Nature, Polis, Ethics: Chicago Regional Planning" (November-December 1999). He also edited a special edition of the Hastings Center Report (1995) on the philosophy and ethics of Hans Jonas. Recently, his writing has focused on philosophy, evolutionary biology, and ethical responsibility.

Besides being a very generous supporter of the Hastings Center and the Center for Humans and Nature, Dr. Donnelley made numerous gifts to many other organizations. He served on the Boards of the New School University, the University of Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, the Land Institute, and many other organizations. He chaired the Board of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation from 1992 to 2003 during which their gifts totaled over $50 million.

One of Strachan’s fundamental new ideas was ‘orchestral causation.’ This quote from his 2007 paper ‘Bottom Lines and the Earth’s Future’ tells the story: “The fundamental conception of an interbreeding population living within a wider, causally efficacious historical and changing environment cries out for a fundamental new conception of causation. .... How best can we conceive this grand new fundamental idea? Imagine a musical, orchestral performance, say Verdi’s Requiem. What factors are at play? There is Verdi, the composer; the musical score; the conductor; the orchestra and the chorus; the soloists; the members of the audience (each with different musical ears and personal concerns); the orchestral hall with its acoustics; the wider world in its present historical and cultural moment; and no doubt more. Who or what is the cause of the performance? No single thing or factor. Rather the performance emerges out of the interactions of all these factors. Change one or more factors, the interactions change, and a qualitatively different performance emerges. Without stretching the metaphor too far, we can call such systemic interaction ‘orchestral causation.’”

Donnelley’s musical metaphor was developed for all the levels of biotic and abiotic interaction but he pointed to its implications for philosophy and ethics, economics, law, planning and politics. He often revealed that simple solutions were only available because of ignored facts, and this failure was almost always to the detriment of ethical behavior toward nature or those without a voice (such as families struggling with traumatic brain injuries). Simplistic approaches, he pointed out, often contributed to the justification of human domination over nature. Such partial understanding has led to current and expanding environmental crises. He shredded arguments based on a single economic bottom line.

Strachan loved his family home, Windblown Hill, near Libertyville, Illinois. In the company of his parents, he learned to hunt and fish and continued in these pursuits throughout his life, often taking his five daughters to a lake, stream, or hunting ground. Strachan played sports in the Libertyville area, at Hotchkiss, and at Yale (football, baseball, and hockey). After receiving his BA in English literature at Yale (1964), he focused on the history of philosophy at University College of Oxford University (1964-1967) and received his M. A. (1972) and Ph. D. (1977) from the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research in New York (now New School University). After family, philosophy, and fishing, music was Strachan’s passion and Verdi’s Requiem his anthem.

Strachan is survived by his wife Vivian; his five daughters, Inanna Donnelley, Naomi Donnelley, Aidan Donnelley Rowley, Ceara Donnelley Berry, and Tegan Donnelley, and five grandchildren; his brother, Elliott; sister Laura; nieces, nephews and many cousins. A memorial gathering will be held at the Fullerton Auditorium of the Art Institute of Chicago at 10 am on Saturday July 19 with the public welcome.

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