Moral Habitat: Ethos and Agency for the Sake of EarthMoral Habitat explores how our moral imaginations and moral norms have been shaped by and even cocreated with Earth in diverse biotic communities. Weaving together science and religion with indigenous and womanist traditions, Nancie Erhard uses examples from a variety of sources, including post-Cartesian science, the Old Testament, and the Mi ́kmaq tribe of Eastern Canada. She demonstrates how each portrays the agency—including the moral agency—of the natural world. From this cross-cultural approach, she recasts the question of how we conceive of humans as moral agents. While written for "the sake of Earth," this thought-provoking book goes well beyond the issue of ecology to show the contribution that such an approach can make to pluralist ethics on a range of timely social issues. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 Ethos as Moral Habitat | 11 |
2 The Great Communityof Persons | 35 |
4 The Continuum | 57 |
5 Reconsidering Human Moral Agency | 71 |
6 Doing Ethics in a Moral Habitat | 93 |
Notes | 111 |
| 135 | |
| 143 | |
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Common terms and phrases
according activity agents American animals approach become Bible biblical biotic biotic community bodies calls capacity chapter choice claim conceived concept concern consider construction context continues conversation create creation creatures culture definition describe discussion distinction dominant Earth ecological elements environment ethics ethos example experience Genesis given hold human moral agency Ibid idea imagination important indigenous individual kind knowledge land language living matter means metaphor Mi’kmaq mind moral habitat narrative nature nature-cultures norms origin other-than-human otherkind ourselves particular person physical plants possible practices present Press question reason reflect relationship responsibility rest says sense shaped shared simply social society species spiritual story structures sustaining technologies theory things thought tion traditions understanding University values waters Western whole women York
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Page 1 - I had recently the pleasure of meeting observed that, if the philosophers had lived among your mountains their systems would have been different from what they are. Certainly, I should say, very different from what those systems are which the European genteel tradition has handed down since Socrates; for these systems are egotistical; directly or indirectly they are anthropocentric and inspired by the conceited notion that man, or human reason, or the human distinction between...