Excerpts from a master’s thesis on combined human and ecological well-being. The full document is here.
Josef Mahesh Mathews, B.S.
A thesis submitted to the Graduate Council of Texas State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
In this master’s thesis, I characterize socio-ecological justice as opportunities for all humans to flourish and healthy ecological space for nature to flourish. I presume socio-ecological flourishing to be an intrinsic good and argue that we have a moral obligation to promote this good. I suggest that the injustices of domination and oppression of humans and nature are major impediments to flourishing. I survey causes of domination and oppression and identify various agents that dominate and oppress. As for causes, of particular interest to this thesis is a logic of domination that sanctions domination and oppression as well as the orientations of hypermaterialism, greed, and hyperconsumerism. I discuss some harms of domination and oppression to both the oppressors/dominators and the oppressed/dominated. Once I describe human and ecological flourishing and combine the two ideas to speak of a socio-ecological flourishing, I offer political, social, and educational pathways that can create the conditions for flourishing. The main argument herein is that socio-ecological flourishing is a collective good for the entire Earth community and that we have a moral obligation to foster it. Part of the work that this thesis does is bearing witness to much unnecessary suffering in this world that comes through domination and oppression while recognizing the possibilities for socio-ecological flourishing.
The notion of socio-ecological justice in this master’s thesis echoes other discourses such as buen vivir, Earth Jurisprudence, and biocultural diversity conservation that assign moral worth to the entire Earth community and promote modes of being based on that view. It reflects the idea that the entire Earth community has intrinsic worth and deserves our respect and that fostering the conditions for socio-ecological justice is our moral duty. I characterize socio-ecological justice as opportunities for all humans to flourish and healthy ecological space for nature to flourish. I presume that socio-ecological flourishing is an intrinsic good and argue that we should foster it. I suggest that the injustices of domination and oppression of humans and nature are major impediments to socio-ecological flourishing and propose political, social, and educational pathways to achieve states of flourishing.
My conception of socio-ecological justice in Chapter 2 reflects existing notions of social and ecological justice. The social justice aspect echoes the capabilities approach framework, which advocates for creating optimal conditions for all people to realize their basic capabilities and realize their potential. The approach seeks the structuring of society’s economic and political institutions in ways that permit everyone access to the material and social resources to develop a set of basic capabilities with which they can develop their talents, capacities, and potentialities and make a decent life. The ecological justice component refers to treating all non-human elements of the natural world with respect and leaving nature a fair share of healthy ecological space to flourish and realize its potential.
Introduced in Chapter 2 are the injustices of domination and oppression of humans and nature that impede socio-ecological flourishing. Chapter 3 elaborates on these injustices and identifies the various agents that perpetrate and perpetuate them. Chapter 4 surveys the causes of domination and oppression. Of particular interest to this thesis is the logic of domination that sanctions domination and oppression and the causes of hypermaterialism, greed, and hyperconsumerism. Chapter 5 continues the discussion of the harms of domination and oppression to the oppressors/dominators and the oppressed/dominated. Chapter 6 takes up a substantial part of this thesis. In the chapter, I describe human and ecological flourishing and combine these ideas to speak of a socio-ecological flourishing and offer political, social, and educational pathways that can create the conditions for flourishing. The main argument in this thesis is that socio-ecological flourishing is a collective good for the entire Earth community and that we have a moral obligation to promote this good. I argue that flourishing requires attending to the call of justice so as to minimize the domination and oppression of humans and nature and further say that flourishing is achievable through more equitable sharing of natural resources and the cultivation of a moral consciousness that bends toward justice. Finally, part of the work that this thesis does is bearing witness to much unnecessary suffering in this world that comes through domination and oppression while recognizing the possibilities for socio-ecological flourishing.
The concept of justice has a rich and vast history. The idea has multiple geographical origins and has persisted over millennia. It has been expressed in various cultures, governments, legal systems, and religious and secular societies around the world (Lauren, 2013). The call of justice is as relevant today as when it was first conceived. Justice was a chief concern of the earliest known legal code, the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu, which emerged around 2100 B.C.E in the Middle East (Darling, 2013; Pryke, 2017). Among other meanings, justice held protecting the powerless from oppression by the powerful (Darling, 2013). The Far East was also a source of contributions to ideas about justice. The Chinese philosopher Kong Qiu, known as Confucius, whose life spanned the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., underscored the duty of doing no harm to others and respecting the intrinsic worth of all people. He advocated for laws that served justice and spoke out against oppressive governments (Lauren, 2013). In the West, around 380 B.C.E., the philosopher Plato explored the nature of justice and its relation to human well-being in the book Republic (Plato, 2004). In the same century, the philosopher Aristotle inquired into justice and injustice in his books Nicomachean Ethics and Politics (Aristotle, 1999a; Aristotle, 1999b). Others have followed. Many landmark thinkers of the Western civilization—Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls—have contemplated the concept of justice (Jost, 2020). And rightfully so, as the concerns of justice continued to be important in human affairs.
2.1 Social Justice
Varieties of justice include distributive, procedural, interactional, retributive, restorative, social, and ecological (Jost, 2020). I focus on social and ecological justice. As for the former, the nineteenth century witnessed a pronounced interest in performing a comprehensive assessment of the full range of social institutions with the aim of fairly distributing the advantages and disadvantages, or benefits and burdens, within a society (Johnston, 2011). In the 1874 book Methods of Ethics, philosopher Henry Sidgwick posed the important question, “Are there any clear principles from which we may work out an ideally just distribution of rights and privileges, burdens and pains, among human beings as such?” (1874, p. 247).
The first two major developments in social justice theory, which came into prominence in the nineteenth century, were the “principle of desert” and the “principle of need.” According to the principle of desert, a version of justice articulated by Aristotle and at the base of important concepts of justice prior to ancient Greek philosophy, people’s contributions to society determine what they deserve. In other words, the benefits enjoyed should be equivalent in value to the contributions. This idea still has a powerful hold on the imagination of many people. The principle of need, on the other hand, says that each person contributes according to their ability and receives according to their needs and breaks the proportionality requirement between contributions and benefits maintained by the principle of desert (Johnston, 2011). The principle of need was expressed by Marx in the context of envisioning a higher phase of communist society. As he put it, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (Marx, 2008, p. 27).
The third major development in social justice theory took place in the twentieth century with the conception of justice as fairness. This new paradigm was advanced in philosopher John Rawls’ 1971 book A Theory of Justice (Johnston, 2011). Rawls was concerned about how the major institutions of society contributed differentially to people’s opportunities to flourish. He wrote, “The basic structure is the primary subject of justice because its effects are so profound and present from the start” (Rawls, 1999, p. 7). In his view, the political, economic, and social circumstances of a person at birth greatly determine that person’s starting social position, and differentials in starting positions between members of society could cause deep inequalities in initial life chances (Rawls, 1999). Referring to important social structures of society, Rawls wrote, “Taken together as one scheme, the major institutions … influence … [people’s] life prospects, what they can expect to be and how well they can hope to do” (Rawls, 1999, pp. 6-7). In this work, I reflect Rawls’ concern of all members of society having opportunities to flourish.
The twentieth century saw a fourth important development in social justice theory with the capabilities approach to justice. The contemporary version of the approach was initially articulated by economist Amartya Sen in 1979 at a Tanner lecture entitled “Equality of What?” (Robeyns, 2018; Sen, 2011). That question has framed much social justice discourse since then, generating a wide variety of answers, ranging from “welfare” (utilitarianism), “primary goods” (John Rawls), “resources” (Ronald Dworkin), “equality of opportunity for welfare” (Richard Arneson), and “equality of access to advantage” (Gerald Cohen). Sen’s capability approach favored the conception of “capability to achieve valuable human functionings.” Two other leading capability theorists are the philosophers Martha Nussbaum and Elizabeth Anderson. While the versions of the capabilities approach differ among the three, common moral and political principles support their theoretical foundation. At the heart of the approach is the notion of creating the optimal conditions for all people to realize their basic capabilities. The focus of the approach as a theory of justice is to structure society’s economic and political institutions in ways that permit everyone access to the material and social resources necessary to possess and exercise a set of basic capabilities with which they can develop their talents, capacities, and potentialities and make a decent life (Alexander, 2016). I echo the sentiments of the capabilities approach to social justice herein when referring to the fair distribution of opportunities to all members of global society to flourish.
2.2 Ecological Justice
The second concern of this work, ecological justice, became a more prominent feature of the terrain of justice in the twentieth century. This later arrival aligns with accounts of the expansion of the moral community, such as that of William Edward Hartpole Lecky, author of the 1917 publication History of European Morals: From Augustus to Charlemagne, who wrote, “At one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity, and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world” (pp. 100-101). Moral concern for the nonhuman world, however, was not a novel idea of the twentieth century. Plutarch, a philosopher of the first and second centuries, strongly advocated for admitting animals into the moral sphere (Lecky, 1917). The growing ethical sphere of the West now also considers the interests of non-sentient things, such as rivers, oceans, forests, and the land (Baxter, 2004). Other accounts suggest that human respect for nature “has been with humanity since we evolved” (Washington, Taylor, Kopnina, Cryer, & Piccolo, 2017, p. 35). Ecocentrism, a broad term for worldviews that recognize intrinsic value in both the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosphere, “has been an important theme [worldwide] for many individuals and some societies for millennia” (Washington et al., 2017, p. 39).
The field of environmental ethics emerged as a distinct area of philosophy in the 1970s at least partly in response to influential works such as Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962), Lynn White, Jr.’s article “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” and Garrett Hardin’s article “The Tragedy of the Commons” (Kawall, 2017). The term “ecological justice” appears to have entered the lexicon of ethics in 1995 in the edited bookGreen Planet Blues: Environmental Politics from Stockholm to Rio, with four essays on ecological justice (Conca, Alberty, & Dabelko, 1995; Okereke & Charlesworth, 2014). Other foundational works on ecological justice include Ecologism: An Introduction (Baxter, 1999), Justice, Society and Nature: An Exploration of Political Ecology (Low & Gleeson, 1998), and A Theory of Ecological Justice (Baxter, 2004). Between his two books, Baxter forwarded the notion that the nonhuman world is worthy of moral consideration and that it should be accounted for in social, economic, and political systems. He also proposed that nonhuman beings have a claim to a share of the Earth’s resources (Baxter, 2004). As in his thought, “ecological justice” herein means nature having a fair share of healthy ecological space to flourish.
2.3 Socio-ecological Justice
The notion of socio-ecological justice refers to the web of just relations woven among humans and between humans and nature. Although I use the term “nature” to refer to the nonhuman elements of the natural world, I consider humans to be a part of nature. I distinguish humans from the rest of nature to facilitate a conversation about humans and their interactions with the rest of the natural world. “Nature” means plants, animals, rocks, and other such things that constitute the natural world. Returning to the idea of socio-ecological justice, the two currencies of justice in this work are opportunities for all humans to flourish and healthy ecological space for nature to flourish. The currencies combine to permit socio-ecological flourishing.
The boundaries of the community of justice then are the boundaries of the Earth, and its members include both living and natural non-living things. It would not be meaningless to include non-living things, such as dirt and rocks, in the community of justice. Prominent environmental ethicists have invited us to extend moral consideration to non-living things. Aldo Leopold, considered by many as the father of wildlife ecology, challenged us to include the land, which contains non-living things, within the contours of our ethical community (The Aldo Leopold Foundation, n.d.; Leopold, 1949). Leopold envisaged the land as an interactive and interrelated community of all the living and non-living things on it and enlarged the moral circle from the human community to the land community. This new ethic sprouted out of the desire to care for all the interdependent parts on the land for the benefit of the whole. For Leopold, “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals; or collectively: the land” (Leopold, 1949, p. 204). The boundaries of Leopold’s ethical concern coincide with the ones I am forwarding in this work. They include concerns about how we relate to the nonhuman world in addition to the human sphere.
Another figure that extended moral consideration to the non-living world is Holmes Rolston, III, widely recognized as the father of environmental ethics. Rolston argued for the intrinsic value of other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere that exists outside the human valuer (McDonald, 2004; Posas, 2010). In his book Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World, Rolston pushes back against the idea that nature does not have intrinsic value. For him, a value theory that is more biocentric than anthropocentric is more appealing as it recognizes the inherent value of nature. As he puts it, “A … more biocentric theory holds that some values are objectively there—discovered, not generated, by the valuer” (Rolston, III, 1988, p. 116). Unsurprisingly, Rolston opposes several prevailing Western notions. He rejects such views as humans can have no duties to rocks, rivers, or ecosystems, and almost none to birds or bears; humans have serious duties only to each other, with nature often instrumental in such duties. The environment is the wrong kind of primary target for an ethic. It is a means, not an end in itself. Nothing there counts morally. Nature has no intrinsic value. (Rolston, III, 1988, p. 1)
Rolston’s writing indicates his high regard for nature. It suggests that nature has intrinsic value and that it counts morally. Rolston derives duties to nature from various other types of values that pertain to it, such as economic, recreational, scientific, aesthetic, and religious (Rolston, III, 1988). From my perspective, if the various elements of nature are subjects to whom we have duties, they are a part of our community of justice. This means that even the abiotic components of nature, for example, sand or stone, belong in our ethical field of view.
Another thinker who thought similarly as Rolston is legal scholar Christopher Stone. In a seminal work, Stone wrote in earnest, “I am quite seriously proposing that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called “natural objects” in the environment—indeed, to the natural environment as a whole” (Stone, 1972, p. 456). If we grant that legal rights assume the moral worth of subjects with legal rights, then the abiotic parts of the Earth are part of the community of justice. And we can say that we owe them something. I submit that the expansion of the moral community to the abiotic parts of the world is not an uncontested idea. Nonetheless, their inclusion is worthy of consideration. Jurisprudence professor Brian Leiter suggests as much in a discussion on where to draw the boundaries of our moral and legal communities when he writes:
But how far will the expansion of the moral community go? Will it come to include trees and plant life? Insects? The earth itself? You may think those cases far-fetched, and perhaps they are, but what has seemed “far-fetched” in moral matters at one time is often a poor guide to what comes to seem important at a later date. (Leiter, 2013, p. 525)
We have come far in the project of expanding membership in our moral community. If admitting abiotic parts of the natural world into the moral circle seems bizarre now, thoughtful consideration of ecocentric worldviews and an adoption of an attitude of reverence toward nature could alter that perspective. The framework of socio-ecological justice embraces the admittance of the entire planet into the moral sphere.
In a socially just world, each person in the City of New York, the country of India, and the continent of Africa, in fact, the entire globe, would have at least a few opportunities to realize their potential, whether moral, intellectual, social, athletic, musical, or otherwise. At minimum, a few pathways for self-development would exist for everyone even if there are inequalities in opportunities within and between cities, states, and countries. The overall result would be more fulfilling individual lives and more people contributing more to society, benefitting both individuals and societies.
In an ecologically just world, humans would also consider the welfare of the nonhuman sphere. A substantial amount of healthy ecological space would be left for nature to thrive. Biologist Edward O. Wilson suggested in his book Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life that humans set aside about half the surface of the Earth for nature (Wilson, 2016). The idea is to permit members of the nonhuman world, such as squirrels and sharks and bats and bears, to engage in behaviors natural to them and maintain their populations in thriving ecosystems. It would also allow for a healthy diversity in species and ecosystems and genetic diversity within species, elements considered necessary for ecological flourishing if we take ecosystem stability as a measure of flourishing (Center for Biological Diversity, n.d.). Moral consideration of the nonhuman sphere could also mean humans limiting the use of non-living things, such as sand and limestone, for purposes such as making glass and computer chips, so that other living things that rely on them may also flourish (Ludacer, 2018). I will discuss in a more robust fashion what flourishing can look like for both humans and nature in Chapter 6.
I embarked on this thesis journey partly because I got the sense that socio-ecological ethics was not a prominent topic in ethical discourse based on my studies in ethics. Many conversations seemed to be restricted to either social or environmental ethics. The combined concerns of humans and nature did not appear to receive much attention. In my view, we ought to have more conversations that cover all the entities on the planet because we share ecological space with them and our actions can affect them. I undertook this project for other reasons as well. I sought to learn more about what we owe ourselves, each other, and nature and wanted to heighten my understanding of socio-ecological justice and flourishing, learn about the impediments to both, the causes and harms of those impediments, and outline pathways to foster justice and flourishing. Further, I thought this thesis would be a substantive culmination to my master’s education and believed doing it can enhance my own moral consciousness.
At the outset of this thesis, I characterized socio-ecological justice as opportunities for all humans to flourish and healthy ecological space for nature to flourish. If flourishing is a moral good, as I have suggested, then we have a moral duty to create the conditions for all people to develop at least a few important capabilities to experience fulfilling lives. Our duty extends further to allow the rest of the natural world—of which we are a part and on which we depend for our own flourishing—to thrive by minimizing the harm we do to it as we meet our basic needs. The flourishing of nature requires setting aside a certain amount of ecological space for it to express itself and not engaging in activities that are destructive to the natural environment.
Two major impediments to socio-ecological justice and flourishing are the injustices of domination and oppression of humans and nature. These two interpenetrating and overlapping injustices restrict life opportunities for people through social and political institutions. Both result in excessive alteration of the natural world, interfering with its self-realization. Domination and oppression can occur through individual agents as well as social and political structures through the unjust exercise of power over humans and nature. The manners in which individuals exercise power can maintain, create, or disrupt conditions of domination and oppression, either facilitating or constraining flourishing.
Domination and oppression of humans and nature have multiple causes. A few major reasons are the orientations of hypermaterialism, greed, and hyperconsumerism. It is true that members of society need to produce, distribute, and consume goods and services to flourish, but these activities need to occur in the context of understanding that we share a planet with finite resources with other species. A finite planet does not allow for the infinite use of natural resources. The consumer culture throughout the globe, particularly in industrialized countries, promoted by both corporations that seek profits and governments that aim to grow their economies, contributes to social and environmental decay. The acquisition of things that are not necessary for a flourishing life should not displace more worthwhile activities, such as spending time in nature, places of worship, and with friends and family. About consumption, professors Stephen Dovers and Colin Butler write:
The environmental impact of all this consumption is huge. The mass production of goods, many of them unnecessary for a comfortable life, is using large amounts of energy, creating excess pollution, and generating huge amounts of waste. … Individuals living in developed countries have, in general, a much bigger ecological footprint than those living in the developing world. (Dovers & Butler, 2015, Population Consumption section)
While the mass consumption of unnecessary goods is a problem, other items such as super yachts and super homes used by a limited number of people also have large ecological footprints.
The harmful effects of domination and oppression seem to be self-evident. Both hamper humans and nature from realizing their potential and living worthwhile existences. Blameworthiness for the domination and oppression of humans and nature varies from individual to individual. The consumption patterns of some are more damaging to socio-ecological justice and flourishing, but many of us participate in systems that dominate and oppress. The point to keep in mind is that sometimes we have some capacity to help shape the lives of others and the health of the planet for the better.
The first pathway to socio-ecological flourishing that I discussed is good governance. As a community, we can exert pressure on governments to initiate structural changes that would tackle the problem of forced complicity in social and political systems destructive to humans and nature. Governance based on the values of justice and flourishing is a cornerstone for those two ends. Instead of the Gross Domestic Product and the Gross National Product, perhaps we ought to pursue other metrics, such as Gross National Happiness or Happy Planet Index, that measure the well-being of people and the planet. For better governance, citizens should vote for politicians who will stand up for fairness in human affairs and ecological matters. This includes such things as recognizing that wealth accumulation in the millions of dollars is unnecessary for a good life. Perhaps it is wise to place caps on incomes and wealth to minimize the domination and oppression associated with high incomes and excessive wealth. The government can promote conscientious consumption campaigns on cruelty-free, fair-trade, and eco-friendly goods and services and aid in making them the default option for consumers by making these options more affordable, convenient, and accessible for widespread adoption.
The second pathway mentioned to socio-ecological flourishing is a robust social network where people lift each other up and care for nature. While good governance is an integral part of a flourishing Earth community, the private sector can reinforce and compensate for any shortcomings on the part of governments. Individuals and organizations can foster socio-ecological flourishing in conjunction with the state. Examples are non-profits providing children opportunities to develop their athletic potential and those working to conserve land and sea across the globe.
The third pathway discussed to promote socio-ecological flourishing is moral education. At the root of making changes is awareness of the problem. A 2017 poll indicated that 75 percent of US adults believed that they usually buy humane products when only one percent of food animals live on non-factory farms (Zampa, 2019). This reveals a problem with a lack of awareness. An appropriate solution to this problem is moral education as it can enhance students’ moral reasoning and moral empathy. Further, it can help them think about concepts such as socio-ecological justice and flourishing and how their actions impact others and nature.
Flourishing requires a consciousness that challenges unsustainable consumption patterns based on manufactured needs. A flourishing society would orient production to the satisfaction of authentic needs, such as water, food, clothing, and shelter and basic services such as health, education, and transportation. This approach increases the likelihood of the entire world population being able to meet its basic needs than systems that permit a minority of the global population to accumulate wealth at the expense of other humans and nature. This shift in thinking can be facilitated by a moral education that inspires people to profoundly care about other humans and nature. Warren’s logic of domination is an apt example of how our conceptions of other humans and nature factor into our attitudes and behaviors. The logic shows how faulty beliefs shore up unjustified relationships of domination and oppression (Warren, 2000). The development of a moral consciousness seems necessary for the mutual flourishing of humans and nature because it can inspire a desire to create a socially and ecologically just world. Education can help foster caring attitudes that can play an important role in creating the conditions for non-domination, non-oppression, justice, and flourishing.
For social justice, we ought to find ways to lessen the inequalities of wealth between rich and poor countries as well as within countries so that people everywhere can prosper and contribute to the global community. All people should have access to the material resources essential for flourishing so that they can develop capabilities fundamental to flourishing. As Alexander puts it, “A society that fosters those capabilities that are necessary for human flourishing is morally better than one that is either indifferent or (even worse) hostile to their manifestation” (Alexander, 2018, p. 9). All societies should aim to create opportunities for flourishing, and those that are succeeding should help those that are not. Flourishing requires ethical reflection and an understanding of the nature of a good life. We have to form moral foundations that emphasize the importance of fairness and the avoidance of harm. The fulfillment of human potential is a mark of a well-lived life and bad luck should not foreclose opportunities to develop the capacities needed for flourishing. A life cannot be expected to go well unless a person develops a few capabilities that can help them flourish. This means that all persons ought to have access to important needs, such as water, food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education and be free from domination and oppression.
Not feeling connected to others and nature can lead to the domination and oppression of both. Philosopher Val Plumwood recognized that the value system of anthropocentrism assumes a deep division between humans and nature even though humans are embodied beings who are part of nature. The presumption is that humans are somehow different in kind from the rest of material nature. The difference is believed to be the human mind. The Western tradition further refines the mind-matter division into a reason-nature division. Plumwood shows how this dualism informs many categories of Western thought. For example, it renders inferior all the groups that became associated with nature rather than reason: women, the working-class, the colonized, the Indigenous, and the other-than-human world, legitimizing their domination. Perhaps it would help us feel connected to nature if we adopted an ethic that regards humans as part of nature, as Plumwood does (Mathews, 2008). In addition to recognizing the instrumental value of nature, seeing intrinsic value in it can help foster respect for it.
Humans are part of an interdependent global ecosystem, existing in relationship with other humans and nature. Basic science tells us that a web of connections links all living and nonliving things on earth. For instance, plants need carbon dioxide, which is exhaled by humans and other animals, and the latter need oxygen, which is released by the former. Living and nonliving things, to various extents, depend on other things for their flourishing. We are interconnected to other humans and the rest of nature. A sense of interconnectedness can guide us toward conditions of non-domination and non-oppression. Philosopher Nancy Jecker and physician Zohar Lederman discuss interconnectedness and the need for an ethic of global solidarity from the perspective of the COVID-19 pandemic. They say that an ethic of global solidarity requires reckoning with the implications of our interconnected world. Just as pollutants in the sky and degradation of the earth endanger people everywhere, the SARS-CoV-2 virus anywhere threatens people everywhere. In today’s world, the ethic that ought to be front and center is solidarity with human beings everywhere. (Jecker & Lederman, 2021, p. 4)
Developing a sense of interconnectedness with other people and the rest of the natural world can help us grow an ethic of care.
Part of living a good life is living an ethical life. The latter requires entering into proper relations with humans and nature. I have discussed important ways we can be more ethical in our relationships with humans and the biosphere. The more we can live our lives in states of non-domination and non-oppression the better the chances for socio-ecological flourishing. Such ethical living requires the discipline to regulate the appetite for unnecessary material riches. To facilitate relationships of non-domination and non-oppression, we can utilize our understanding of why humans seek to dominate and oppress. We can also use our knowledge of how domination and oppression harms both humans and nature. This can help us develop an aversion to domination and oppression and minimize the problems of environmental destruction and social injustice fueled by hypermaterialism, greed, hyperconsumerism, and a logic of domination.
We have considered political, social, and educational pathways that can move us into conditions of non-domination and non-oppression that hold the promise for socio-ecological justice and flourishing. For more harmony between humans and nature, we need to change the policies that permit the domination and oppression of humans and nature and shift to frameworks that show respect toward both. Domination and oppression of people and nature are moral wrongs, and, as a global society, we ought to create the conditions necessary for all members of the earth community to flourish. A just world removes unfair advantages and disadvantages so that all people can live meaningful lives and the various components of the natural world can flourish. The social and ecological problems we face today may seem intractable, but they are not insurmountable. Society’s social and political institutions and the development of a moral consciousness can aid us to reach states of socio-ecological flourishing.
We can positively impact our circle of influence and create the conditions to live in ways with other people and nature that promote socio-ecological flourishing. Exactly how a person or a community fosters flourishing depends on the context and the aptitudes of the relevant people. As individuals and as collectives, we can address such problems as global inequality, institutional racism, patriarchy, climate change, and environmental degradation. Social and ecological violence need not be abiding features of human existence. There are ways of living without harming other people and destroying the natural environment. Just relations among humans and between humans and nature through societal institutions and right attitudes can create a better world. This may demand an inner revolution that develops a moral consciousness that gravitates toward the mutual flourishing of humans and nature.
Whether the changes we need to make to minimize domination and oppression and foster socio-ecological flourishing should be incremental or radical is a question we should consider. Given the damage that harmful attitudes are wreaking, a radical attitudinal change may be necessary. If socio-ecological flourishing calls for a radical shift in how we operate in this world, then that is what we ought to do. Delaying changes because they are inconvenient for people who are benefiting, but perhaps not fully flourishing because others are languishing, is not a good reason to do so. Regarding the magnitude and swiftness of change, Kretz writes:
I have never been persuaded by arguments suggesting that resistance movements are asking for too much too soon, that change takes time, and that if we are not patient the world as we know it will fall apart. If the world needs radical change because it is shaped by the contours of oppression, its collapse is not my concern; rather, its continuation is. (2018, p. 212)
In his 1963 letter from Birmingham jail, King writes something similar in the context of the struggles of the Black community to obtain civil rights. He invoked a sense of urgency to bring about justice when he said, “We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied’” (King, Jr., 2018, para. 13). Many would agree that we are overdue for socio-ecological justice. While it may be delayed, it is still worth achieving.
