A 80,000-character “work” from my freshman year.
There are many typo errors, but I’m too lazy to correct them, and this childish essay will surely be completely surpassed by me myself.
In the past, Oyiku did not allow articles with too many characters to be uploaded; now it seems the restriction has been lifted, and even 80,000 characters can be pasted! For archive purposes only.
Department of Philosophy, Peking University
00423019
May 2005
The Elimination of Subject–Object Oppositional Thinking
The Development of Science and Technology
2. Christianity and Ecological Theology
3. The Instrumental Rationality of Industrial Civilization
2. Daoism, Buddhism, and Others
The Reform of Anthropocentrism
Non-anthropocentric Environmental Ethics
1. Animal Liberation/Rights Theory
Social Ecology, Feminism, Postmodernism
Part Five — Heaven and Humanity
Humanity in Relation to Animals
Humanity in Relation to Nature
The Fusion of Human and Nature
The Integration of Science and the Humanities
A Value Orientation of Self-Realization within the Whole
As you can see, this is a very long paper (more than 80,000 characters), and I devoted nearly an entire semester’s effort to it. So, for a first-year university student, why put in such labor just for a few general education courses? Below, I will first give some explanation of the purpose and method of writing this piece:
This paper is the term paper for three courses—Environmental Ethics, Introduction to Environmental Ethics, and Environmental Philosophy (two as major electives, one as a general education course)! When choosing courses, I had already planned this “killing three birds with one stone” strategy, and I have never concealed that. At Peking University, one can take three similar courses at the same time—this is part of the university’s distinctive character. Of course, the reason I arranged things this way was also to concentrate my energy and shift my focus; in fact, the effort I put into this paper was hardly just three times as much.
Moreover, my horizon is not limited to this semester; my ambition is to use this paper as the foundation and framework for many papers over the next three years. In the coming three years, on the one hand, I can continue to deepen and polish this article, ultimately laying the groundwork for the year paper and even the graduation thesis; on the other hand, the many topics involved in this paper—such as natural philosophy, ethics, philosophical anthropology, Chinese philosophy, Western Marxism, science and religion, science and the humanities, postmodernism, and so on—each have abundant room for further deepening and development, and this article is only a beginning and a foundation. The books I have read this semester and the views I have thought about will not be discarded just like that; rather, over the next several years I will keep taking them out again and again to read and again and again to rethink.
As the bibliography listed after the main text shows, I read a large number of related works. Of those 118 books, at least one hundred were bought and read this very semester. Of course, no one can read more than a hundred books from beginning to end in a single semester; among these books, some were read through in full, while a fairly large portion were not read completely. My way of reading is “reading with questions in mind,” that is, after gradually establishing my own conceptual framework, I then search the books for related topics. Even so, I was still quite serious in my reading, and the notes and reflections I jotted down in the process amounted to nearly sixty thousand characters. Of course, as some teachers pointed out: my reading was too broad, and I spent too little effort on original works and classics. This is indeed a shortcoming that needs improvement. But as my plan goes—this paper is only about “setting up the framework,” and the purpose of reading is mainly to broaden the line of thought and promote the breadth and depth of reflection—then many books, even if they are not classics or famous works or even not good works, are still very helpful in expanding my horizons. Only when one’s thinking and horizons have achieved a certain breadth and depth will reading those classics yield even greater rewards.
My reading experience went through two stages: in the first stage, the more I read, the more ideas I had of my own; whereas in the later stage, the more I read, the fewer thoughts “belonged” to me—because some of my earlier, imperfect ideas were negated, and many insights I had originally believed to be my own original creations were, after learning about more related works, often found to have already appeared in similar form long ago. Although I felt somewhat disappointed, whenever I presented views similar to ones already published by others, I would try my best to quote the original text. By the way, after reading a greater number of related books, I also found that quite a few works were similar in wording or repetitive in content, and I can only express my helplessness at this phenomenon.
Let me review this first: the author’s entire paper is not aimed at examining or sorting out various ecological philosophies, but at expounding some of my own ideas. In what follows, I will cite the views of many scholars and schools of thought, and express agreement with many of their claims—such as the unity of Heaven and humanity, deep ecology, and so on. However, my purpose is not to state and summarize those views, nor to support and defend any of them in particular; rather, I am using those views to support my own. Perhaps at times I will make the mistake of taking things out of context, or fail to understand certain scholars’ arguments in their entirety, but that does not matter much, because I am merely expressing my own views through a variety of means.
Prelude
“Even if 99% of the whole universe is engulfed in darkness, when I look up at the night sky, what is still before my eyes is that brilliant starry expanse!
——Treat goodness and beauty with gratitude; receive evil and ugliness with tolerance——this world is actually really quite good…”
This is the philosophy of the starry sky as I have felt it: the universe is filled with darkness, society is filled with ugliness, life is filled with suffering… Yet, just as the starry sky still shines brilliantly, goodness and truth do not need to occupy the majority in order to reveal beauty. Ugliness sets off beauty; in a certain sense, ugliness also becomes part of beauty. The whole world is beauty itself.
The deep and vast starry sky always brings inspiration to people, always arouses awe or emotion that comes from the heart.
Yet, ironically, that is only the starry sky in my dreams. I have never seen a truly “brilliant starry sky.” Born in Shanghai, the light pollution and murky air of the city have long since made seeing the stars an impossible luxury. In Beijing, things are much better than in Shanghai, but the stars scattered across the sky are still few and far between.
The metropolis is one of the symbols of modern human civilization. Looking at these towering buildings and the bustling traffic, one sometimes cannot help but marvel at the greatness of humankind. But at the same time, the city has brought other things as well: the inner bewilderment, loneliness, and indifference of human beings… The relationship between humanity and nature has grown distant. Those born in concrete jungles can spend an entire lifetime without even touching the real “earth.” Even the most stirring sight in the natural world—the starry sky—is denied to people! This must be said to be an immense sorrow.
Before unfolding the discussion that follows, it is necessary to provide an overall guide. Out of habit, I do not want to begin by summarizing the views I am about to discuss. Here, I would like first to explain two basic questions.
As you can see, the three courses I studied were all called environmental ethics or environmental philosophy, yet my paper deliberately takes “ecological philosophy” as its title. Of course, this is not because I want to be at odds with the three teachers. Please allow me to explain this choice below:
What is “ecological philosophy”? Yu Mochang believes there are two views: “One view holds that ecological philosophy is an ecological worldview; another view holds that ecological philosophy is environmental philosophy, or ecological ethics.” [①] And “for present purposes, environmental philosophy may be defined as a general theory linking human beings, nature, and value.” [②] It is clear that ecological philosophy and environmental philosophy largely cover the same field. In fact, “in Anglo-American academia, ecoethics, or ecological ethics, and environmental ethics are two interchangeable terms.” [③]
Although the terms can be used interchangeably, one still has to choose one as a personal preference, and Yu Mochang chose “ecological philosophy.” In his view, “ecological philosophy takes the relation between humanity and nature as its basic direction of inquiry. However, in observing the world, explaining the world, and transforming the world, it does not take the human as the sole measure, nor nature as the sole measure, but takes the relation between humanity and nature as its measure.” [④]
In fact, the two words “environment” and “ecology” differ greatly in meaning: “Strictly speaking, in ecological (environmental) philosophy, ‘ecological’ and ‘environmental’ are two concepts with essential differences. The term ‘ecological’ carries the implication of understanding humanity and nature as an organic whole… The term ‘environmental,’ by contrast, usually calls to mind the ‘environment’ external to human beings and corresponding to them; it presupposes the separation of humanity and nature and is often understood as dualistic…” [⑤]
So, when comparing “environmental philosophy” and “ecological philosophy,” I tend to prefer the term “ecological.” Many people think that “ecology” has a narrower scope than “environment.” For example, an environment is not only organic but also inorganic; there are things such as biological environments, atmospheric environments, social environments, and so on, and “ecological environment” can also be said to be one item within “environment.” But I have a different understanding: I believe that the term “ecology” actually contains more content. When we speak of “environment,” we often mean the combination of various factors, conditions, and atmospheres around us, but usually the term “environment” excludes ourselves; it mainly refers to things external to us. “Ecology,” however, is different. Using this concept makes it easier to include ourselves and form an organic whole. “Modern ecology regards the world as a compound ecosystem of ‘humanity—society—nature’.” [⑥] Whether one speaks of an “ecological” philosophy or an “ecological” philosophy/ethics, compared with the term “environment,” it better reflects the wholeness of “humanity—society—nature.” And the importance of considering problems holistically will be mentioned frequently in the discussion below.
Of course, as I myself insist—which will also be touched on later—ecology and philosophy should aim at breaking down the boundary between humanity and nature, the boundary between the humanities and science, and the boundaries between disciplines and fields. If that is the case, then there is no need to carefully distinguish the specific scope of ecological philosophy and environmental philosophy. Moreover, in actual usage, these terms are often mixed together anyway. My use of the term “ecological philosophy” is merely a matter of preference; it certainly does not imply any intention of drawing a distinction from something else.
The Elimination of Oppositional Thinking between Subject and Object
The elimination of oppositional thinking between subject and object is the basis on which I carry out my reflections and arguments. Of course, to break down opposition does not mean to collapse everything into sameness. The concepts of subject and object always exist; what is broken down is only the boundary between them. To use an imperfect analogy: it is like “tall people” and “short people”—no strict dividing line can be drawn between them, but that does not mean the concepts of “tall people” and “short people” have been abolished.
The elimination of the subject-object opposition is the focal point, common denominator, or common trend of modern Western philosophy as a whole. Mr. Zhang Shiying says: “The history of Western philosophy is a history of development from the complete unity of thought and being, subject and object, through the view of their separation and opposition, gradually toward the view of the opposition and unity of the two, and even to the point of reaching views that criticize and transcend the subject-object relation.” [⑦]
My own thinking about the subject-object relation began with the inspiration brought by contemporary new physics. By “new physics” I mean relativity and quantum physics—the pioneering advances in these two fields (and, of course, also the newer “chaos theory”) have brought a total overturning of humanity’s worldview and view of matter, from the cosmic scale to the microscopic! This undoubtedly deserves our attention.
Relativity shattered the absolute concept of space and time; the observer, as subject, cannot step outside space-time. “Einstein believed that observation of the physical world changes with changes in the observer (as he travels in the universe).” [⑧] Therefore, what needs to be observed first may perhaps be the observer himself… However, even more significant [⑨] and stranger and more uncanny than relativity is quantum theory—because what quantum mechanics tells us is this: nothing is real; when we do not observe them, nothing can be said about them. [⑩] A particle when observed, a wave when not observed—quantum mechanics tells us that the result of an experiment also depends on whether and how you observe during the process. In addition, the uncertainty principle stipulates that we can never determine a particle’s position and momentum at the same time—when we decide to observe its velocity more precisely, we must lose information about its position.
All these scientific facts point to the same problem: the observer and the observed are an inseparable unity. The reasoning is simple: the subject (observer) and the object (observed) always constitute a unified system. Since the observer is a part of the whole system, the standpoint it occupies and the way it acts will inevitably affect the whole system! Therefore, the subject depends on the object: and the object, when separated from the subject, has no “reality” to speak of!
Besides the natural sciences, the “observer” theory and the “uncertainty principle” can also be extended to the social sciences. The “observer” theory reveals the influence of the observer’s standpoint and method of observation on the entire observation process, and the same is true in social observation—the prejudices and preconceptions of the observer can never be entirely eliminated. Amory Lovins said: “The answers you get depend on the questions you ask.” [⑪] This makes sense: one should examine oneself while examining society. The “uncertainty principle” reveals the unavoidable interference of the act of observation with the object observed, and the same is true in social observation. For example, suppose we want to conduct a social survey, such as investigating how well known Xu Zhihong is. We ask each person in the sample, “Have you heard of Xu Zhihong?” Yet this question itself will change the respondent. Someone who had never heard of Xu Zhihong before may hear his name in the survey, go home and ask around, and by the next day change from someone who did not know Xu Zhihong into someone who does. If we want to understand the situation of the whole society as accurately as possible, we need to conduct more and more sample surveys; but the more surveys we conduct, the more we change society’s original state. In this way, if we want to know with 100 percent certainty Xu Zhihong’s level of public recognition within a given population—that is, if we ask every single person—then regardless of the original situation, after the survey his level of recognition will probably be 100 percent… The above is only a simple example to show that in any act of observation, the subject and object must be viewed as a whole.
The relation between “human” as subject and “nature” as object is the same: it is inseparable. Humanity’s so-called exploration and cognition of nature proceeds under the condition that humanity and nature constitute a unified system. The more deeply one seeks to understand nature, the more thoroughly one explores it, the more fully one “interrogates” it, the greater at the same time is the impact imposed on nature’s original state! In other words, once people have thoroughly “explored” nature, nature can no longer remain in its original state. Moreover, the impact on nature is at the same time an impact on the whole of humanity and nature: while conquering nature, humanity itself is also being conquered, instrumentalized, and alienated… Humanity and nature need to return again to a harmonious and consistent relationship; this is precisely the urgency of raising the issue of subject-object unity at present.
From the indistinction of subject and object to their division, and then to their unity: this is not a regression of thought, but a transcendence achieved through the negation of negation. Just as one goes from “seeing the mountain as mountain and the water as water” to “seeing the mountain not as mountain and the water not as water,” and finally to “seeing the mountain still as mountain and the water still as water,” this is a kind of thought sublimation that returns to simplicity and authenticity.
Regarding the holistic view of subject-object unity, I have only briefly mentioned it here; it will be brought up frequently in the discussion below.
Humanity is in crisis!
I am not a pessimist, much less an apocalypticist. Crisis does not necessarily lead to tragedy. Crisis contains two meanings: “danger” and “opportunity.” “Crisis manifests itself as follows: uncertainty increases and becomes generalized; the regulation or negative feedback used to eliminate anomalies is interrupted; positive feedback, that is, uncontrolled growth, develops; and both the danger of regression and death and the opportunity for survival and rescue increase.” [⑫]
When faced with crisis, if we remain indifferent, do nothing, and are unwilling to change, then crisis will eventually become disaster. Yet if, under the pressure of crisis, we can reflect and make some major adjustment to the way we think and act, then crisis is by no means a bad thing; it prompts us to turn back from the quagmire and the abyss, to find new perspectives, new goals, and to open up new paths.
First, let us clarify what kind of crisis people are currently facing.
Resource and environmental problems are among the important issues facing humankind in the world today. [⑬]
The environmental crisis is the crisis of the material environment that supports human survival. Its main manifestations are: depletion of resources, environmental pollution, and ecological destruction. More specifically, this includes the scarcity of freshwater resources, land degradation, the exhaustion of mineral and energy resources, pollution of water bodies, soil, and air, the sharp decline of forests, species extinction, nuclear pollution, the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole, and so on. In simple terms, the entire natural environment is becoming unsuitable for human survival.
In Contemporary Society and Environmental Science, Yu Mochang points out: “Ecological crisis is a concept specifically used to indicate the relation between human activity and nature, mainly referring to the phenomenon whereby human irrationality leads to the destruction of basic ecological processes, namely ecological structure and function, and the collapse of life-support systems, thereby endangering human existence.” [⑭] The environmental crisis is caused by human beings, and in the final analysis, it is a crisis in the relation between humanity and nature.
“Now, human activity itself has developed into one of the important geophysical forces capable of contending with natural forces. Take mining for economic development alone: it has been increasing at an annual growth rate of 5%; in the 1980s, the volume of rock and earth displaced worldwide reached as much as 20,000 cubic kilometers. In the Soviet Union alone, the total length of its reservoir dams exceeded the earth’s equatorial circumference, not to mention the changes to the geological environment brought about by other major projects, buildings, and military facilities. In 1980, the area occupied by the world’s cities and land transportation already amounted to 5% of the global land area, and it was projected to reach 15% by 2000…” [⑮]
Modern humanity’s transformation of the natural environment is unprecedented; of course, nature’s response to human interference is very difficult to predict. For example, the emission of greenhouse gases will raise temperatures, whereas pollution by suspended particulate matter will lower them. Perhaps human interference will drive environmental pollution into a vicious cycle, or perhaps, as some optimistic scholars claim, nature’s self-regulating power is enough to digest these disturbances. But one thing is certain: humanity’s interference in nature is increasingly pushing both humankind and nature toward unpredictable danger.
We have already stepped to the threshold of a great upheaval in the natural world: we live at the moment when nature is about to come to an end.[⑯]
What McKibben calls “the end of nature” refers not only to the natural world, but also to the nature within the human heart. In fact, the roots of the series of crises faced by modern civilization, including the environmental crisis, all lie in the human mind and spirit. As Heisenberg said: “For the first time in the history of humankind on earth, human beings have neither companion nor adversary, and all they have to face is themselves.”[⑰] To overcome the environmental crisis, or rather the ecological crisis, one must first overcome the spiritual crisis of the human being.
What kind of spiritual crisis has modern civilization actually brought about? Daniel Bell points out in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism: “The real problem of modernism is the problem of faith. In unfashionable language, it is a spiritual crisis. For this new and stable system is full of illusion. And the old beliefs no longer exist; such a situation takes us back to nihilism. Since there is neither past nor future, we are faced with an emptiness.”[⑱] The emptiness of faith is a striking manifestation of the spiritual crisis of modern people. Moltmann points out: “The crisis of the modern world, which has emerged mainly under Western influence, is not merely a technical and moral crisis, nor only a religious crisis. What I mean is the crisis of the fundamental faith and values of modern society.[⑲]” In fact, whether in the West or in the East, the crisis of faith and values has become very pronounced: in the West, it takes the form of the secularization of Christianity and the rise of scientism; in the East, it takes the form of the collapse and disintegration of traditional culture under the erosion of Western thought. All of this has led to a loss of faith. People are at a loss when faced with the question of the value of life and the meaning of human existence; in more technical language, they have lost their “ultimate concern” — “ultimate concern is the term Paul Tillich used with reference to religion and its object. For you, whatever is of ultimate concern or of ultimate importance is in fact your lord. Faith, feelings, attitudes, and practices oriented by ultimate concern construct your true religious life — regardless of whether you belong to a religious institution.”[⑳] Just as ultimate concern does not have to depend on a religious institution, in Western society, although religious institutions still remain, they cannot halt the retreat of ultimate concern; in modern China, the situation is even more serious. Not only has the religious institution been broken apart, and traditional ideas shattered, but the Marxist faith that was attempted to be established was also discredited by the ten years of catastrophe; Western thought is seeping into our culture, yet it cannot be said to have been accepted by us. The entire Chinese society’s value system is in an extremely confused and fragmented state.
Of course, you may say that modernity has broken old dogmas and brought freedom, but as the author of Earth, Fatherland says: “Modernity includes individual liberation, the universal secularization of standards of value, and the diversification of truth, goodness, and beauty. But in the future, individualism will not merely mean autonomy and liberation; it will also mean atomization and anonymity; secularization will not merely mean escaping religious dogma; it will also mean loss of roots, fear, doubt, and nostalgia for great faiths; and diversification will not merely promote spiritual autonomy, aesthetic exhilaration, and the free pursuit of truth; it will also cause moral corruption, shallow aestheticism, and nihilism.”[21] Modern spirit does indeed have many positive aspects, but now its negative side is also becoming increasingly apparent, and is becoming the root cause of the series of crises now confronting humankind.
In modernity, in the industrial era and even into the information era, the Earth has become smaller and smaller, but the distance between people has become farther and farther; people recognize more species of living things than at any time before, but species extinction is faster than at any time before; people work harder than in any previous era, but understand less than ever the purpose of labor; people live longer than in any previous era, but are less clear than ever about the meaning of being alive; people can explore the essence of matter more than in any previous era, but understand less than ever the essence of the human being……
People are laboring hard at something, and people also know how to do it, yet they have forgotten why they do it; exploration and labor have lost their original meaning and are merely being continued as a kind of habit…… As Moscovici said, “If one day our civilization no longer believes in the essence of reason, yet retains its formal uses — like a person who has lost faith in what he himself is doing, and continues only out of habit — then once such a situation arises, everything created by human civilization will, in turn, become destructive. No matter how perfect Einstein’s equations are, in the end they will endanger life on earth.”[22]
To put it by way of analogy: medicine has meaning, and its meaning is to cure illness. Using medicine in order to treat a certain disease — that is, using medicine for the sake of a certain goal — is to bring its value into play. But if one forgets the purpose of using medicine and uses it merely out of habit, using medicine for the sake of medicine, then medicine turns into poison, causing people to lose themselves and sink into it without being able to extricate themselves. Modern technology is likewise exploring nature, and the modern economy is still pursuing productive forces, but they have forgotten why! There is absolutely nothing wrong with “exploration” and “development” themselves; the problem lies in people’s attitude and spirit!
Apart from the crisis of faith, another problem of modern civilization is fragmentation as a whole. People always like to divide things into one independent part after another, and then break each part down into even smaller parts…… in pursuit of reductionism and simplification. This mode of thinking is especially prominent in modern times. The relation between humanity and nature has been severed; nature has become environment, become resource, become property; in short, it has become something external to the human being. Society as a whole has also been shattered into isolated individuals; greed has been rationalized as human nature; people shamelessly emphasize their own rights and interests while forgetting the value of society as a whole, as the harmonious coexistence of human beings. In science, this is expressed in the increasingly fine division of specialization: not only are different disciplines “as distant as mountains,” but even within a single discipline, scholars in different fields, such as condensed matter physics and fluid mechanics in physics, may “grow old without ever dealing with one another.” The whole picture of the world dissolves into fragments. As David Bohm pointed out, “The idea of fragmentation is now very widespread, not only throughout society but also within each individual, and this has led to widespread confusion in the mind. This confusion causes all sorts of endless problems, and seriously interferes with the clarity of our perception, thereby preventing us from solving most problems.”[23] “In fact, the attempt to live according to the idea that the fragments are truly independent has in essence led to the growing series of the most urgent crises we face today.”[24]
A crisis situation in itself cannot produce a public that is good at embracing new ideas, unless there is a spiritual foundation that provides moral resources for taking purposeful action.[25] The urgency of the environmental crisis is not enough to change people’s behavior; the key lies in leading people, from within, to awaken to the arrival of the crisis — not only to recognize the environmental crisis, but also to become aware that their own spirit is facing a crisis. And what needs to change is not merely people’s behavior, but their inward judgments concerning value and meaning. As Moltmann says: “Any society that cannot fundamentally change its values and meanings in order to adapt to new circumstances cannot itself undergo change as a whole. This means that it cannot put an end to the destruction it is causing. On the contrary, the damage it causes to the natural environment reacts back destructively upon society itself, producing material loss and a crisis of meaning.”[26]
“The green concern in the age of science is in fact humanistic concern…… Green concern is not only concerned with our external environment, but also with our inner minds.”[27] This essay begins with concern for ecology, but it does not end with concern for ecology. Concern for ecology, for nature, will ultimately return to concern for the human mind and spirit; therefore, topics such as “What is the human being,” “What is human nature,” and “What is human life for” are the ones I will discuss at length in what follows.
Whether humankind can get out of the present predicament or not, that human beings are now in crisis should be unquestionably certain. Yet there are always many optimists who do not take this seriously. They believe that people need not make a fuss over problems such as environmental pollution and resource depletion, because these problems will easily be solved by the development of human economy and technology. For example, in 1981, Z. L. Simon, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland in the United States, stressed in his book The Growth of No Limits that “the ‘predicament’ currently encountered by humankind is merely an interlude in the history of human development; people can entirely rely on the development of science and technology and the improvement of civilization to eliminate the ‘predicament’ and move toward brightness.”[28] Of course, I too believe that humankind can eventually emerge from the crisis, but that can only be achieved after profound reflection on and transformation of established thought and patterns; it is by no means, as the optimists say, something these problems will be resolved without effort.
Let us first look at the optimists’ views: Simon traced the history of humankind over the past 10,000 years and concluded that when materials become scarce, human beings respond with new discoveries, replacing old resources with new ones or preserving the old ones as much as possible. For example, 3,000 years ago Greece transitioned from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, prompted by a shortage of tin used to make bronze, and the Greeks thereby discovered iron. Likewise, the scarcity of timber in sixteenth-century England led to the coming of the age of coal. Around 1850, the shortage of whale oil helped bring about the drilling of the world’s first oil well in 1859. In The Ultimate Resource, published in 1981, Simon set forth his view: human intelligence will infinitely expand the carrying capacity of the Earth; population growth is not a bad thing, but a benefit; it will ultimately lead to a cleaner environment and a healthier humankind. Tomorrow’s world will become even better, because more people will contribute more ideas. Humanity will progress without limit, because the Earth’s resources are inexhaustible and never run out.[29]
Of course, once Simon’s views were published, they came under strong criticism. For example, the pessimist Ehrlich strongly attacked Simon’s views in various ways. In response, Simon publicly issued a challenge in the newspapers: let the pessimists choose any several natural resources — grain, oil, coal, timber, or metals — and any time in the future; if those resources become increasingly scarce along with population growth, then prices must rise. Simon proposed betting that the prices of these resources would steadily fall. Egged on by reporters, Ehrlich accepted Simon’s challenge. In 1980, with $1,000 at stake, he bet on the prices of five metals — chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. If ten years later the combined price of these metals, after deducting the effects of inflation, exceeded $1,000, then Simon would pay him the excess; if the price fell, then he would pay the difference.
The result of this gamble was announced in the autumn of 1990. To the surprise of the vast majority of people, Simon actually won. The combined price of the five metals selected by Ehrlich’s group, after removing the effects of inflation since 1980, had fallen. Ehrlich had no choice but to mail Simon a sheet of calculations concerning metal prices, along with a check for $576.07.
Did the optimists really win? Can the environmental crisis really be overcome merely through economic or technological development? I think absolutely not! Simon’s wager concerned only the prices of a few metals; what it discussed was only the problem of resource scarcity. Even if one were to say that the resource problem has been temporarily eased by the application of new materials and new processes, how are we to view the increasing greenhouse effect, water pollution, ozone holes, species extinction, and so on over the past twenty years? Even if we look only at the resource issue, and say nothing about water resources, energy resources, and biodiversity resources, just looking at mineral resources — if the prices of chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten have indeed fallen as Simon said, then there may be two reasons: first, more resources have been discovered; second, more substitutes have been invented. The first point is by no means a good thing, because no matter how many undiscovered resources still remain, these nonrenewable resources are ultimately finite. Such relief is always temporary. Moreover, more extensive and deeper excavation, on the one hand, increases mineral resources, but on the other hand inevitably intensifies environmental pollution and ecological destruction; the second point — finding substitutes through technological development — sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? Not necessarily. Think about it: the invention of plastics did reduce demand for natural rubber, metals, and so on, but plastics, which are neither recyclable nor degradable, have become an even more troublesome headache; the invention of nuclear power can relieve the exhaustion of energy resources somewhat, but the disposal of nuclear waste has become an even more dangerous and troublesome matter…… It can thus be seen that the invention of substitutes may not only fail to completely solve some old problems, but may also bring new, unknown, and more irritating problems. In fact, it is precisely the economy and technology of the modern model that have caused this string of problems; relying on the very things that cause problems to solve them can at best only conceal the problems or shift them elsewhere, but can never touch the root of the problem!
Below, I will further reveal the limitations of the fantasies of the optimists from several different angles.
The Capacity of Nature to Endure
Some of the laziest optimists believe that resolving the crisis requires no human participation at all (of course, they may not acknowledge the existence of the crisis). For in their view, these interfering activities of ours can be fully borne by nature, and nature’s capacity to regulate equilibrium is astonishing. The current situation, such as global warming, is merely a temporary phenomenon in nature’s cyclical movement. For example, sandstorms in northern China have existed since the Han dynasty; the average temperature in China during the Han and Tang dynasties was several degrees higher than it is today. The problems of today are all perfectly natural; it is only that in recent years people’s environmental awareness has increased, and they have become more sensitive to environmental change, that these problems have come to seem prominent.
This way of thinking is naive. Nature’s capacity for self-balancing is indeed powerful, but that is only under the condition that interference does not exceed the limits it can bear.
How great is the intensity of human interference? “To take agricultural activity alone, the material moved by human beings each year can amount to 3,000 cubic kilometers, while the solid matter carried by rivers into the oceans each year is only one percent of that, and the growth rate of the modern oceanic crust is only one three-hundredth of it. At present, the new material used per person per year in developed countries is roughly 20 tons; the new material used by 1 billion people is equivalent to the total weight of all the material moved in the formation of oceanic crust, erosional action, and orogeny in the Earth’s natural processes. Another example: human beings produce about 70,000 kinds of chemical substances every year; these man-made compounds participate in the material movement processes of the global system, constituting serious pollution of land, water, rivers, and air. The degree of influence of the human sphere on the layered systems of the Earth’s surface far surpasses the changes brought about by natural processes themselves. In a certain sense, the role of the human sphere has already become a tremendous force that transcends the Earth’s natural powers.”[30]
Of course, this does not mean that human power has surpassed natural force; that is absolutely impossible. However, the “drastic changes” brought about by human activity do indeed exceed the changes that nature can accommodate; and that is to say, they also exceed the changes that human beings themselves can accommodate. Natural change is slow, spanning millions of years, whereas by comparison human change is far too abrupt. Petroleum, which took tens of thousands of years to form in nature, began to be declared exhausted after only a little over a hundred years once it was widely adopted by human beings; the diverse species and vast primeval forests that took tens of thousands of years to form in nature have been almost half destroyed under human influence……
In the face of such facts, to still say, “human transformation is only a small matter for nature; nature can keep itself in balance,” in a “humble” manner, is unquestionably absurd.
Conversely, when interference exceeds nature’s capacity, nature’s influence can sometimes be more likely to “add fuel to the fire.” For example, in ecologically fragile zones, if one digs a one-meter-wide pit in a patch of grassland, after a year it will not, as people usually imagine, always be automatically restored; it is equally likely to become an even bigger pit, until it swallows up large stretches of grassland. Likewise, piling up a small mound of sand in the desert may become a future great sand dune…… Or, as the theory of the “feedback loop” points out, if the Arctic is warmed, thawing permafrost will release more carbon dioxide (and methane), thereby further accelerating the warming process.[31] In addition, the water vapor increased by warming is also a potential greenhouse gas.[32] It can be seen that human interference may not only be “balanced” or “digested” by nature, but may likewise be amplified, especially when the interference is so great that nature’s balancing power fails. In fact, the impact of human activity today can no longer be adequately described by the word “interference”; it is such that one can say it is “destruction” and “annihilation.” To still fantasize about relying on nature’s capacity to endure in order to get through the crisis is unrealistic.
Economic regulation is indeed an effective way of alleviating resource and environmental problems, but it is definitely not the fundamental way. Many economists, however, over-idealize the power of economics, which can in turn be divided into two views: one believes that a market economy can spontaneously play a regulatory role and resolve the environmental crisis by means of the “invisible hand”; for example, scarcity of resources leads to price increases, which prompts people to seek substitute resources or new technologies. Another, more rational view holds that the current economic model does indeed need adjustment, but that the fundamental way to resolve the crisis is still through economic means.
I believe that both of these views are wishful thinking.
The essence of modern economics is the endless pursuit of the growth of wealth: “The essence of capitalism has not changed; its essence is the endless pursuit of profit, the endless pursuit of capital增殖, that is, the endless pursuit of economic growth.” “Capitalism is built on the basis of individual greed.”[33] Capitalism rationalizes “greed” and makes it into human nature and the fundamental driving force of social development. The basic economic theory of capitalism is that when everyone pursues the maximization of利益, that is when the development of society as a whole is most beneficial. Thus, “liberal economists often sneer at the hypocrisy of moralists; they place excessive faith in the regulating and integrating functions of the market, and believe that people who do not讲道德, more precisely, people who do not possess virtue, can contribute more to others and to society than people who do possess virtue. In their view, human beings have no need to cultivate so many virtues; under the impulse of greed, one can create a prosperous and powerful society”[34] Of course, their view has its basis: capitalism is indeed the system that has been most able, throughout history, to ensure prosperity and strength. But the key issue is people’s understanding of the meaning and value of society. If one simply regards the meaning of society as nothing more than endlessly accumulating wealth, then perhaps their view is right. But is human existence only for material wealth? Human beings become materially affluent, yet spiritually hollow; they possess wealth but do not know what to do with it, so they spend wealth in order to obtain wealth—people call this behavior “investment.” Thus people fall into a vicious circle: the purpose of wealth is investment, and the purpose of investment is wealth…… Of course, as a result people obtain a luxurious life, and they enjoy material abundance, yet they can never feel satisfied. “Because we are blinded by consumerist culture, we have been futilely attempting to use material things to satisfy the indispensable social, psychological, and spiritual needs.”[35]
It looks as if I am about to become the kind of moralist mocked by liberal economists…… well, let us set morality aside for the moment, set aside the spiritual crisis as well (we will return to discuss it later), and look at whether economics is truly sufficient to deal with environmental problems.
Like many sciences, one of economics’ basic problems is “abstraction” and “formalization.” It seeks to simplify complex real-world problems into abstract models that can be calculated mathematically. This is certainly necessary for scientific analysis, but when facing social reality, such abstract thinking becomes a certain congenital deficiency of economics. As the author of Earth, My Homeland says: “In economics, mathematization and formalization have become increasingly precise and artificial. One defect of this tendency is that it leads to abstraction detached from social, cultural, and political contexts. Economics has won formal precision, yet forgotten the complexity of its actual situation—that is, forgotten everything else that is interdependent with the economy.”[36]
Abstraction and formalization require economics to quantify and dispose of the value of everything: environment, resources, biology, and even human beings themselves all become commodities; all value can be described with numbers, that is, converted into money. Only in this way is model-based analysis possible. Thus, “modern economics does not distinguish between renewable and nonrenewable materials, because it converts everything into monetary prices.”[37] The result of this is that there is no difference in nature or in fundamental significance between using renewable resources or nonrenewable resources, using environmentally friendly materials or polluting materials; there is only the question of how much they cost. Of course, people of insight can still discern the difference, because some practices may yield higher returns in the short term while being unfavorable in the long run. But, as the dilemma revealed to us by the “tragedy of the commons” shows—in a group competing for利益, when one person sacrifices immediate利益 for long-term利益, because others move faster, he may not even get the long-term利益; yet when everyone focuses only on their own immediate利益, the entire environmental resource base will tend toward collapse. Economics, which emphasizes individual freedom, inevitably has to confront this problem.
The achievements of modern Western countries in economics are built on plunder, exploitation, and shifting the burden elsewhere. Japan does a very good job of environmental protection, but if it did not have its mines in the Philippines, if it did not fell forests in Indonesia, if it did not import paper and disposable chopsticks from abroad, its natural environment would absolutely not be what it is now. And now, some Westerners and some Easterners are advocating the application of the Western economic model on a global scale; this is utterly unworkable!
The United States accounts for 5.6% of the world’s population, yet consumes 40% of the world’s resources[38]. Clearly, “the American level of high resource consumption cannot be extended to the entire world, which has 4 billion people.…… Like most development plans, any development plan that explicitly or implicitly takes the promotion of the American model of economic development as its goal is purely unrealistic.[39]” As early as decades ago, Gandhi gave a wise answer to the question of whether India, after independence, would attain the living standard of the former colonial powers: “Britain used up half the world’s resources to reach its present level of prosperity. How many earths would a country like India need?”[40] Yet in China today more and more people are setting their sights on Western affluence, not only hoping that production will catch up with the West and wealth will catch up with the West, but even that luxurious lifestyles should be on a par with the West. This is unquestionably a kind of unrealistic stupidity.
Although blindly pursuing economic growth is shortsighted, the reality is that poor countries nonetheless have to demand economic development. According to the 1996 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme, the poorest 20% of the world’s population witnessed their share of global income fall from 2.3% to 1.4% over the past twenty years, while at the same time the share enjoyed by the richest people rose from 70% to 85%.[41] The rich want luxury and waste, which damages the environment; the poor want to survive, and likewise have no choice but to damage the environment; the widening gap between rich and poor brings a series of social problems, and these social problems in turn cause environmental destruction. Rich countries, in order to make their lives even more luxurious, want to shift environmental damage onto poor countries; while poor countries, in order to narrow the gap with rich countries, are also compelled to use every possible means to pursue development. This predicament of “one willing to hit, one willing to take the blows” is unquestionably something economics cannot solve.
In fact, one important root of the current crisis is precisely modern economics. Economics, of course, cannot solve on its own the problems caused by its own inherent defects. But since we know that economics is one of the cruxes causing the crisis, we should seriously reflect on economics, and through cooperation between economics and science, sociology, politics, and ethics, ultimately make economics a key link in resolving the environmental crisis.
The development of science and technology
Science and technology are among the most admirable and proud achievements of human civilization, especially in the modern era. The rapid development of science and technology has made human society change with each passing day, and people are more dependent on, and more trusting of, science and technology than ever before.
Science and technology are indeed trustworthy, but are they sufficient to resolve the crisis?
Many people deeply believe this. They think that the unleashing of humanity’s powerful technological potential will turn many of today’s difficult problems into trivial matters in the future, and that technological development will always find an appropriate and bright way out for humanity. For example, in the face of the energy crisis, “some people fantasize about producing a ‘catalyst’ through which, for instance, seawater can be split into yang gas and hydrogen gas.[42]” In the face of a polluted and depleted Earth, people fantasize about fleeing into space and opening up colonies on Mars or even beyond the solar system…… Of course, if fortune is good, these dreams may of course be realized. But what if they are not realized? What if, after we have exhausted resources, we still have not found a substitute? What if, when we have polluted the Earth to the point that it is no longer livable, we still have not built a space home? Betting the future on a huge gamble is certainly not an attitude worth advocating.
Because the explosion of technology is itself one of the important roots of today’s crisis, relying on technology to respond to this crisis may even have the opposite effect. As Moltmann said: “The protective measures people take can even encourage the spread and deepening of the crisis. For example, if an external object invades an organism, that organism often produces a process of autoimmunity. This protective mechanism temporarily protects the organism, but from a long-term point of view, it damages the organism itself. Thus, the process of autoimmunity often leads to fatal disease. Likewise, in our society there often arises a resistance to the ecological crisis, but in fact it causes the crisis to expand and deepen. For example, people ‘unrealistically believe that the ecological crisis can be solved by technological means. But reducing the crisis to a minimum not only suppresses the suffering caused by the crisis; it also evades the necessary transformation of the whole life system. As a result, people become increasingly indifferent to the chronic death of nature.’”[43]
On the other hand, any attempt to solve environmental problems purely by relying on technology is, in a certain sense, “robbing Peter to pay Paul”: that is, filling today’s cost with environmental costs in another place, or in another way, or at another time. For example, “to produce a catalytic purifier for treating exhaust gas requires 2 to 3 grams of platinum. And in order to obtain so little of this precious metal, about one ton of ore must be mined and processed.”[44]
Let us give a more concrete example: “agricultural modernization” has alleviated the shortage of arable land and the scarcity of grain. Compared with the small-farm economy of feudal society and the slash-and-burn economy of primitive society, the high yields of modern mechanized large-scale agriculture are indeed something to be proud of. But is modern agriculture really so worthy of praise? Some things are not as simple as they appear on the surface. In fact, “slash-and-burn cultivation has a lower ‘absolute cost’ than irrigated agriculture[45]” and, “burning makes the land more fertile, the great trees breathe more air, and a regular, planned, controllable fire cultivation reduces flammable vegetation and thereby prevents the occurrence of truly vicious forest fires.”[46] From this perspective, compared with irrigated agriculture, fire-based agriculture is not something to dismiss either. So what about mechanized, modern agriculture?
Of course, slash-and-burn agriculture is obviously a kind of energy waste: it burns down trees that took hundreds of years to grow and damages the humus layer in the soil, while the fertility it brings is fleeting. But let us compare modern agriculture from another angle and ask what it depends on. — Machinery, chemical fertilizer, pesticides! Where do the power that drives the machinery and the raw materials for making fertilizer come from? — Oil! When we laugh at slash-and-burn economies for burning down forests that took decades to form (forests, after all, are still renewable resources) and call that wasteful and backward, the “high-yield” and “advanced” modern agriculture we praise is “burning through” oil that took millions of years to form! We mock slash-and-burn economies for making such a fuss and burning a whole forest only to raise soil fertility for a few short years, calling them inefficient; yet modern agriculture needs fertilizer applied several times a year and is constantly causing topsoil to erode. Is this efficiency actually higher or lower? Only one thing is quite clear: the damage to the land caused by the residue of pesticides used in modern agriculture can indeed persist for quite a long time…
Of course, our age has already become inseparable from science and technology; to deny modern technology in principle is unrealistic, and to deny the great achievements of human beings in science and technology is also improper. The key lies in how we understand these achievements. Modern people are too pleased with themselves over the achievements of science and technology, yet they have forgotten what the significance of developing science and technology really is. Mr. Qian Mu put it well: “To board an airplane and soar through the sky is only to be a little faster; it does not necessarily mean that the person riding the plane will undergo any great change deep in his heart. If one speaks of the subtle stimulation that rises within the heart, sometimes riding an airplane is not as good as riding a sailboat or a mule cart, and sometimes not even as good as walking. To put it plainly, the invention of the airplane, the invention of electric lights—such progress in the mind seeking knowledge is something to marvel at and boast of; but riding in an airplane and using electric lights remain a kind of material life, still superficial, with little depth, just as eating a sumptuous feast and wearing gorgeous clothing likewise cannot raise the value of your life.” [47]
The progress of science and technology is unquestionably an important manifestation of the progress of human civilization, but when modern people understand such achievements, they take the materialized things of enjoying science and squandering technology as capital for arrogance, and this completely distorts the true meaning of technological progress. As Mr. Qian Mu said, inventing the airplane is indeed something worth being proud of, but we have no reason to become arrogant and secretly delighted merely because we ride in airplanes and fly fast.
Of course we must develop science and technology, and we should vigorously promote their development. However, what is even more crucial is to set right the meaning and place of science and technology for humanity. Science is not an all-powerful magic charm, still less an supreme creed. Science and technology, like philosophy, art, religion, and so on, all arise from human beings’ pursuit of beauty and nobility. Only science that returns to the humanistic can cooperate with all other kinds of means and become a key force in resolving environmental problems. As for the subject of science, I will discuss it in greater depth in the sixth part.
As the final sentence of the whole book The Economic System of Nature — A History of Ecological Thought, Donald Worster says: “Only through recognizing the ever-changing past — the past in which humanity and nature were always a unified whole — can we, with the help of human reason that is not perfect, discover what it is that we regard as valuable, and what it is that we ought to guard against.” [48]
When people face confusion and crisis in reality and do not know what to do, they will always think of looking back at the past and seek inspiration from the changes that have happened in the past. To see clearly the predicament humanity faces today, such as the roots of the environmental crisis, one must first examine history.
What is “history”? This question seems simple — history is not just an object of study and inquiry made up of past events, dead people, and vanished time, is it? Yet history absolutely should not be such a “dead thing” for people to verify and excavate. “History cannot be understood only in the sense of ‘things that happened in the past’; history is always, in some sense, alive, becoming an organic part of the circumstances of human life.” [49]
One influence of instrumental reason on modern society is that it makes us forget history: people care only about the present, while the past is forgotten or even denied; the sages of antiquity seem to know less than today’s middle-school students, the rites and laws of old seem unbearably boring and stupid… The role of history, at most, is to provide some raw material for film and television production and some sights for leisure travel.
Indeed, a person afflicted with amnesia [50] can still live a life that appears completely normal; he only needs to remember the necessary skills of daily life, but we all know the emptiness and sorrow of such a life. We all silently pity the amnesiac, and yet on the other hand we happily and tirelessly revile the sages of the past, deny traditional culture, and belittle our ancestors… As the world is “disenchanted,” history is also being “disenchanted.” People no longer know who they are; they have become a pitiful amnesiac who does not know where he comes from and remembers only the techniques of survival, yet still blindly exults in knowing that little bit of miserable skill.
A person cannot understand natural science unless he understands history. [51]
Philosophy has an unfortunate tendency: it becomes excessively enamored of history — not truly living history, but rather an obsession with verifying, listing, and inductively compiling the writings of the ancients, clinging to the analysis of earlier thinkers while weakening the exploratory spirit and concern for real-world problems. Science, on the other hand, excessively ignores history, forgetting the path humanity has walked and the experience and lessons contained in it, looking down on the thoughts of predecessors and ancient traditions, becoming blindly self-important and losing its roots.
A living history contains two aspects: wisdom and truth, and experience and lessons.
Let us first speak of experience and lessons. We say that the environmental crisis and a series of other problems the world faces today are products of the age, things no earlier age ever encountered and could not imagine. So, can we still look to history for experience and lessons when facing these problems? Of course. Modern civilization has brought about earth-shaking changes in human society, and we may not be able to find direct analogues in history. Even so, the living lessons of history will not lose their force. Only by deeply understanding and recognizing history will we avoid falling into the cycles of history, step out of the errors of the past, and obtain development. I do not wish to dwell on this point; let me simply cite one example for analysis: if we examine the changes in population in ancient China, according to statistical population figures, the population of China in the early Han dynasty was about 4 million, rose to about 50 million by the end of the Western Han, stood at 21 million in the early Eastern Han, about 56 million by the end of the Eastern Han, then fell to about 8 million by the end of the Three Kingdoms, rose to 46 million in the early Sui, fell again to about 10 million in the early Tang, and in the flourishing Tang rose to 52 million… [52] This is a curve of violent change, of huge rises and falls. Of course, a major reason for the sharp decline in population was that large numbers of people, because of war and chaos, drifted outside official statistics; but in any case, the ups and downs of this curve are beyond dispute. We can see what force in ancient times controlled population growth so that it did not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment — it was war and plague, disasters balancing the limits of population. To say things like, “The ancients didn’t practice family planning or control population, so wasn’t everything still developing quite well?” is simply nonsense spoken entirely outside history. Population control in ancient times did indeed not rely on law or morality, but on “natural and man-made disasters.” But in the modern age, can we still imagine wiping out two-thirds of a population of 6 billion through a war or a plague? In fact, similar situations were not rare in ancient times; the dynastic changes of ancient China and the outbreak of the Black Death in the West both caused massive population loss. Of course, modern times are different from antiquity. We can no longer face such disasters; our civilization (or is it nuclear weapons?) has prevented a Third World War, and our science and technology have broken through nature’s limits. All this has caused endless population growth to lose the force that restrains it. But population cannot, after all, grow without limit; the next bottleneck will eventually arrive, and if no substitute force can be found to control it, disaster will sooner or later occur. And the only possible gentle force of control is human beings’ own reason. We shall return to this topic later in the text.
It is worth noting that the method people usually adopt when examining history is itself problematic — people often separate natural history from social history, and traditional historians love to attribute the causes of social change to political factors, economic factors, and so on, while rarely considering the factor of the natural environment. Yet this is precisely the primary factor and internal root behind many historical turning points, in China and abroad, in ancient and modern times. Scholars who study the natural environment, however, often ignore the existence of human beings. Yet, as Moskovici said: “We can only think about the nature or history that we ourselves have created.” [53] To leave human history aside when examining nature is not only improper, but impossible.
Marx pointed out: “History itself is a real part of natural history — of the process of nature becoming human. Natural science will in time include the science of man, just as the science of man will include natural science: there will be one science.” [54] Neither natural science nor the humanities can separate themselves from “history”; they merge together within “history.”
Finally, let us speak of the wisdom history leaves us — the treasure left to us by the sages through their profound insight and extraordinary thinking. As De Waal and Sessions say in Deep Ecology: “What we need is not merely reform. Many philosophers and theologians are now calling for a new ecological philosophy for our times. Yet we believe that perhaps what we need is not some new philosophy, but rather a reawakening of very ancient philosophies, a reawakening of our wise understanding of the earth.” [55] Whether or not we need to create a new philosophy, one thing is beyond doubt: reflecting on ancient philosophy will bring profound illumination to those of us lost in confusion.
Below, I will, along two lines — West and East — begin from the source of wisdom and examine the lessons in history and apprehend the wisdom in history.
People usually think that in the West, anthropocentrism has a long history. As John Cobb says: “Western ethics, like Western thought in general, is thoroughly human-centered.” [56]
Of course, many traditional Western ways of thinking and many ideas about the relationship between humanity and nature do bear some responsibility for today’s ecological crisis. However, we should not view the problem in too absolute a manner. Moskovici points out that we repeat too easily the stereotype that “Western thinking is dualistic”: “In fact, even among these heavyweight figures active on the stage of thought, the opposition is far from so clear-cut; even they themselves do not know that what is being staged is a false drama.” [57] Although the mode of thought that opposes subject and object, and the ideas that oppose humanity and nature, are indeed more clearly manifested in Western intellectual history, we cannot generalize from a part to the whole. In traditional Western thought, there are not only negative factors that sever the relationship between humanity and nature, but also positive factors that can serve as reference for people today. For Westerners themselves, in particular, it is necessary, on the basis of a profound reflection on their inherited thinking, to firmly avoid a total negation of their traditional culture; while criticizing the past, one should pay even closer attention to excavating its positive significance for reality.
Below, I will briefly trace the Western intellectual tradition concerning the relationship between humanity and nature.
Ancient Greek natural philosophy is one of the major sources of Western thought (of course, one could also say that the essential starting point of Western culture should properly be found in the medieval Christian world, with the Greek tradition added later after the Renaissance). Ancient Greek philosophy is the starting point for examining Western culture.
From its birth, ancient Greek philosophy differed greatly from Chinese, or rather Eastern, philosophy. Eastern philosophy from the very beginning emphasized the whole, taking the “whole” as its object and “synthesis” as its method; the West emphasized dissection, taking the “first principle” as its object and “analysis” as its method. Chinese philosophy values “relations” and has never had an ontological demand; Western philosophy from the very beginning tended to “isolate,” “abstract,” and “reduce” its objects.
“When the physicists of Ionia asked ‘What is nature?’, the question immediately turned into another: ‘What are things made of?’” [58] Confronted with a whole, they always wanted to break it down into its constituent parts; and for each part, they then asked after its more basic constituents, pursuing the question again and again until they found elements that could no longer be broken down. This habit of reductionist thinking continued to influence the modern West: on the one hand, it propelled the development of modern science; on the other hand, it also brought many negative effects.
However, ancient Greek natural philosophy was not only reductionist. “The Greeks also had another precious intuition: that the world is an organism, self-living, pervaded by divinity, and in a continual process of growth, and that all things in the world grow out of this organism. The most original concept of ‘nature’ refers precisely to this process of growth.” [59] Along with the rise and development of natural philosophy, the concept of “nature” gradually began to differentiate; however, “fortunately, they did not discard the ‘original’ idea that ‘the world is an organism growing and developing.’” [60] “Greek natural science was founded on the principle that nature is permeated or filled with mind. Greek thinkers regarded the presence of mind in nature as the source of the laws or order of nature, and it was precisely the existence of that order that made natural science possible. … Greek thinkers held that nature is not only alive but rational; not only a great animal with its own soul or life, but an animal with its own mind.” [61] What the Ionians pursued was the “first principle,” that is, the source from which all things grow, rather than a mere “first basis.” By the time of Plato, the idea of the world as an organic whole was being stated even more clearly: “This universe, as a living being, possesses soul and reason. (Timaeus 30 B)” Ancient Greek natural philosophers told people of the interactions within nature as a whole; in this sense, natural philosophy in those days was ecological philosophy. [62]
In addition to holding that the universe as a whole has life, Greek philosophers did not regard natural things as soulless dead matter either. Plato said: “He sowed them (the souls), some on the earth, some on the moon, and some on other time-bodies (celestial bodies).” (“Timaeus” 42 D) In Plato’s view, the earth was only one of the more honored planets; like the earth, every star in the sky was a divine being. These ideas stand in sharp contrast to the later Western anthropocentric and geocentric ways of thinking.
Of course, we should also see that Greek philosophy contained some negative aspects. Aristotle declared that “plants exist for the sake of animals, and other animals exist for the sake of human beings…” [63] Protagoras held that “man is the measure of all things,” and so on. However, the “anthropocentrism” in Greek philosophy was not centered on human interests or desires, but on human rationality and virtue. Greek philosophy emphasized the pursuit of the “good” and advocated that human beings, as the most noble creatures, ought to restrain greed and seek truth; only then would they accord with the status and dignity of being human. Therefore, the so-called “anthropocentrism” of ancient Greece was also utterly different from the “anthropocentrism” of modern industrial civilization.
2. Christianity and Ecological Theology
Lynn White believed that: “Christianity is the most anthropocentric of all religions.” [64] In his 1996 lecture entitled “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” he pointed out: “The current increasingly severe destruction of the earth’s environment is the product of active technology and science; this cannot be historically understood apart from the explicit attitude toward nature deeply buried in Christian doctrine.” [65] Indeed, Christianity brought about a turn in Western conceptions of nature: “Christianity greatly lowered the status of ‘nature’; the Greeks’ conception of nature as awe-inspiring and full of divinity was rejected. The natural world is forever only God’s work, without self-discipline; it is God’s other-being, something external.” [66]
In Christianity, on the one hand, human beings are God’s servants and sinners; on the other hand, they are the masters of all natural things. As Aquinas declared: “Since animals are by nature to be used by human beings, this is a natural process. Accordingly, by God’s will, human beings may wield them as they please; they may be killed or otherwise made to serve.” [67] The idea that nature possesses divinity or spirituality was denounced by Christianity as heresy. Nature is a material existence created by God for human enjoyment, while human beings are created by God in his own image, the only creatures with souls and the only ones who may attain salvation, God’s beloved children. What Christianity cares about is the Last Judgment and the “other world”; the earth that nourishes humankind, as the “this-side world” that will ultimately move toward the end of days, is merely a medium through which humans atone for sins and pass the test on the way to heaven, and thus has not received serious care.
However, we cannot therefore reject Christianity wholesale. Lynn White, who offered a profound critique of the Christian tradition, also believed that we “need a religious reformation,” and by no means advocated overthrowing it. This requires us to pay greater attention to excavating the rational content within traditional religious thought and to carry forward the positive significance of religious theology. Schweitzer pointed out: “If thinkers like this continue to emerge among people, men who, on the basis of the spirit of Jesus, understand faith in Jesus by making use of the achievements of the world-view of their time, then Christianity will remain a living truth for generation after generation. So long as Christianity becomes a traditional faith that merely demands simple acceptance by the individual, it will lose its connection with the spiritual life of the age… then the truth and sincerity of Christianity fall into difficulty.” [68]
Now is precisely the time for us to re-understand faith in Jesus on the basis of the spirit of the age. As Nash put it, “The reinterpretation of biblical revelation is an endless process. Modern Christians no longer use the Bible to prove the legitimacy of slave ownership: in the same way, people may also be reinterpreting the relationship between humanity and nature.” [69]
On the one hand, Christianity, as the main pillar of Western worldviews and values for nearly two thousand years, has faced a severe challenge from ecological thought and has been forced to take a new look at its own transactions and scenery; on the other hand, Christianity has also followed the ecological tide and creatively developed a rich and varied ecological theology, which in turn has made a distinctive contribution to ecological thought and ecological ethics. [70]
Ecological theology, arising under the concern for ecological crisis and reflection on traditional theology, includes the “stewardship” school, which regards human beings as the “stewards” rather than masters of nature; “process theology,” inspired by Teilhard de Chardin, Whitehead, and others; Moltmann’s ecological doctrine of creation, and so on. In various ways, they all reinterpreted Christianity and contributed to the religious transformation required by the times.
For example, Bell’s stewardship theory holds that: “A mature Christian should neither despise nor worship nature. The natural environment is like an apartment rented by human beings; God is the owner of this apartment, and he hopes that human beings will observe certain rules of etiquette when using his creation.” [71] The stewardship school believes that God created all natural things for human beings to “till and keep” (“Genesis” 2:15), not to dominate them. “God creates it, we protect it—that’s that.” [72]
Process thought, represented chiefly by Whitehead, “can also make a distinctive contribution to environmental ethics. … Traditional theology emphasizes transcendence (though it does not ignore immanence), but process thought emphasizes God’s immanence in the world (while not ignoring transcendence), thereby inspiring greater respect for nature.” [73] “In process thought, God is both the source of order and the source of novelty. God presents new possibilities to the world, while leaving room for other possibilities.” [74] Process theology seeks “a form of human-nature progress that simultaneously allows the convergence of the various needs of actual human beings and the renewed development of a rich and complex biological realm. Therefore, it first opposes that kind of ‘progress’ that continues to destroy other species on a large scale, thereby damaging their enjoyment and the enjoyment of future human beings. It also opposes the ideal of returning to the early stages of human development.” [75] Process theology opposes opposition and emphasizes relations, which is highly consonant with ecological ideas in modern and postmodern contexts. Of course, since process theology does not rely on the Bible and abandons much of traditional theology, its idea of God as internal to, or even identical with, the “cosmic process” is a drastic overthrow of traditional views, and thus it has become a “radical” theology whose Christian standing is often questioned.
The German theologian Moltmann, starting from Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, and eschatology, constructed a systematic theology concerned with nature. Moltmann proposed that “God is immanent in the world”: “God creates the world, and at the same time enters into the world. He causes the world to begin to exist, and at the same time reveals himself through the existence of the world. The world lives by the power of God’s creation, and God in turn dwells within the world. Therefore, if the Creator God stands opposed to his creation, then he is also opposed to himself. If the creature stands opposed to its Creator, then God is once again opposed to himself. The God who transcends the world and the God who is immanent in this world are the same God.” [76] Moltmann further pointed out that human beings are closely linked to the natural environment through spirit; through spirit, humanity and nature together form an integrated, spiritual “ecosystem.” Moltmann believed that human beings ought to “extend spiritual consciousness into as many spiritual combinations as possible, enlarging individual consciousness according to what we call the organizational principles of spirit (pride and integration, self-preservation and self-transcendence), so that it extends into social, ecological, cosmic, and divine consciousness. In this way, individual consciousness enters into higher, more complex, and multi-layered forms of spiritual organization, and reaches a more diverse and higher mutual alternation of life. In this way, the divine, cosmic, social, and personal spirit will also attain a further and higher recognition of its self in human beings.” [77]
Contemporary ecological theology takes many forms and is extraordinarily rich in thought; there are also mutual debates and criticisms among the various schools of ecological theology. Owing to limitations of ability and space, I am unable to give a more detailed account here.
Besides theoretical innovation, “in practice, Christianity’s contribution to the environmental movement is even more significant. It is estimated that Christians account for about one-third of the world’s population, and as much as 80 percent of the population in the United States; their participation in environmental protection has already become an important force in the contemporary ecological movement.” [78] According to a 1996 survey, “71% of Americans agreed with the statement: ‘Nature is created by God, and people should respect God’s work.’” [79] In addition, from Emerson to Thoreau, from Muir to Schweitzer, and to the environmental-ethics pioneers and leaders active in academia today such as Rolston, all of these early figures and leading representatives of environmental ethics have deep Christian backgrounds. It is evident, then, that religion plays a decisive role in overcoming the environmental crisis.
Religious theology is not only of great significance for overcoming the environmental crisis; it also plays an irreplaceable role in addressing the spiritual crisis faced by contemporary people.
What is the meaning of religion? Freud pointed out that “religious belief is a thought-product that takes wishes for reality; they hope to escape reality, retreat back into childhood, and thereby seek security in a hostile world.” [80] Marx’s statement that “religion is the opium of the people” in fact contains a similar meaning. Teacher Zhao Dunhua believes that “the reason it is opium is that human beings live in a ‘heartless world,’ and their suffering needs spiritual comfort. ‘The opium of the people’ is a narcotic that the people themselves manufacture, possess, and use, not a drug manufactured by a minority for the people.” [81] As an aside, I once proposed that religion be compared to “wine.” Like drugs, wine can also become a narcotic and can be addictive; on the other hand, wine can also become a stimulant that inflames people to frenzy, and it can also become a nourishing thing, even a medicine, that soothes and heals the human spirit. All of this depends on what attitude and standard one uses in consuming it.
Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, also affirmed the necessity of religion, saying: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” [82] Only when reason and faith are combined can society be healthy. Science can only tell people “what is,” but it cannot tell people “what ought to be”; it cannot help people comprehend the fundamental meaning and ultimate purpose of the world and life. Einstein believed that the authority of ethics cannot be “stated and justified merely through reason”; “in a healthy society they exist as powerful traditions… they exist alive, and the legitimacy of their existence is self-evident. They are not established through proof, but through revelation, through the influence of great figures of authority. One should not try to prove their legitimacy, but should simply and clearly feel their essence.” [83] Of course, the religion Einstein revered was religion as faith itself. In his view, “a person inspired by religion has already liberated himself to the greatest possible extent from the shackles of selfish desires and is wholly concentrated on those thoughts, feelings, and aspirations that possess transpersonal value and are upheld by him. What seems important to me is the power of this content that transcends the individual, and the depth of the belief in its profound significance beyond everything else, rather than whether one has ever tried to link that content with a divine being.” [84]
David Griffin defines theology as “rational reflection on what we regard as sacred, that is, rational reflection on those things that we regard as ultimate concerns for their own sake.” [85] As I mentioned earlier, the loss of “ultimate concern” is a major problem facing the spiritual world of modern society. Theology, whether built upon the foundation of traditional theology or carrying out critique and subversion of tradition, has as its core task the thinking and reestablishment of the beliefs toward which people are directed by “ultimate concern,” and the search for an outlet for the spiritual emptiness and helplessness of modern people.
3. The Instrumental Rationality of Industrial Civilization
Although anthropocentric thinking has a long history, in ancient Greece people emphasized virtue and stressed the use of reason to restrain desire, while in the Middle Ages asceticism was even more strongly advocated and desire was regarded as evil. For this reason, the idea of human supremacy in the Western tradition never developed into the conquest and plunder of nature. Even by the Renaissance, the mystery of nature had not yet been completely torn away by human hands. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, still regarded nature as a living organism: “We may say that the earth has a growing soul; its flesh is the soil, its bones are the structures of the laboratory……its blood is the lakes……the ebb and flow of the sea are its breathing and pulse.”[86]
It was not until industrial civilization unfolded that this contradiction was fully exposed. The rapid development of science and technology stripped nature of its mystery, while the secularization of religion liberated human desire, twisting human nature into material craving and greed. The effects of these two things were profound: “Apart from bringing about a predatory ethics (an ethics that manifests itself first in relation to ‘nature’ and then in relation to other people), another consequence of the ‘disenchantment of the world’ is the loss of that intimacy between human beings and nature, and the loss of the meaning and satisfaction brought by communication with nature.”[87] In addition, “although the traditional idea of God has been refuted, the negative consequences of a complete loss of faith in God far outweigh the positive significance of that refutation in every respect.”[88] The disenchantment of the world and the withdrawal of God both stem from the rise of instrumental rationalism. These two things constitute the roots of the series of environmental and spiritual crises facing modern people,
From Descartes onward, the mechanistic view has filled people’s minds and formed the habitual framework through which they think about all problems: “From Descartes to Newton, from Hobbes to La Mettrie, the machine metaphor ruled the early modern mind; not only the material universe, but also society, animals, and even human beings were regarded as different kinds of machine, lacking any vital impulse.”[89] Spinoza, for example, boasted: “I shall think human actions and passions in the same precise manner as if I were thinking about lines, planes, and solids.” La Mettrie declared: “Let us boldly draw the conclusion that man is merely a machine, while the entire world is only one variegated, transformed substance.”[90] The consequences of this mechanized picture of the world are easy to imagine— the world no longer holds any mystery for human beings, and human beings no longer feel awe toward nature. Moreover, since human beings themselves are also machines, respect for human beings themselves has in fact been distorted; noble virtue no longer inspires admiration, and the elevation of one’s self-cultivation is meaningless. What people pursue is only material achievement—exploitation, possession, and conquest.
On the other hand, the secularization of religion and the development of the capitalist economy have led to the release of “desire.” “Desire” is not merely released; it is further taken to be the fundamental driving force of economic development, and even comes to be regarded as the rational, natural essence of human nature.
The disenchantment of the world and the secularization of religion arise together and influence one another, ultimately leading to the decline of virtue and the release of greed.
People who have broken free from religion and ethics and gained “freedom” need constantly to satisfy desires that can never be satisfied, and this leads to endless “conquest.” First comes the conquest of man by man: “Ever since Western culture rose over the past nearly three hundred years, wars of global, international aggression and plunder have never stopped.”[91] In fact, the principle that “backwardness means getting beaten” really only emerged after the rise of the West. If one examines most of the history of human civilization, and examines the four great ancient civilizations, especially the history of China, it is obvious that there is fundamentally no such law that the backward must be beaten; on the contrary, it is always the more advanced agrarian civilizations that have repeatedly suffered raids from backward, barbarous nomadic peoples! Plunder and aggression were originally the deeds of barbarians. So, after all, did the rise of the West reverse this original rule, or is it that Western civilization has in essence never moved beyond barbarism?
In any case, the strength of the West has been irresistible; while conquering and enslaving one “backward” people after another, its conquest and plunder of nature naturally became even more effortless. Such conquest and plunder have never ceased; this habitual activity has continued all the way to the present day.
Of course, we should also note that the thought forms of any age can never be singular. In the modern era, when mechanism and instrumental rationalism were in full swing, the existence of opposing forces such as organicism, naturalism, mysticism, and romanticism should likewise not be ignored. The industrial age was both the period in which the antagonistic relationship between human beings and nature came sharply into view, and also the beginning of people’s reflection on themselves and their call to return to nature.
Eastern thought differs from Western thought in every respect—its mode of thinking, its objects of reflection, its theoretical forms, and so on. Western thought is characterized by subject-object dualism, emphasis on reductive and mathematical methods of analysis, and a focus on abstraction and isolated experiments, whereas the East is the exact opposite in all these respects.
Mr. Qian Mu pointed out: “Eastern people place moral life first, whereas Western people place religious life first. The strength of Western people lies in being able to forget the self and throw themselves into outward phenomena, engaging in a kind of purely objective pursuit.……The main spirit of the Chinese people, however, lies in being able to grasp the self intimately, and then directly fuse the self with external things.”[92] The strong point of Westerners is that they are able to “forget the self,” that is, to distinguish the thinker from the object of thought, the researcher from the object of research, and to separate human beings from nature into two mutually independent parts. This way of thinking has played a certain positive role in the development of Western science, but from the perspective of the modern ecological view and the new scientific view, its negative impact is also enormous. Thus, more and more Westerners began to pay attention to Eastern thought and tried to draw inspiration from traditional Eastern ideas.
However, the cultural crisis of the West must ultimately be resolved by rebuilding Western culture itself; Eastern culture can at most provide them with reference and inspiration. As Professor Wu Guosheng has said: “The overcoming of a cultural crisis is usually mainly achieved by activating one’s own internal mechanisms of repair and healing. Other cultures may possibly play an auxiliary role, and this auxiliary role can only be brought into play through creative interpretation of the mother culture.”[93] But for China, the significance of these traditional cultures is extraordinary, because these are our “mother culture,” the source of our abundant wealth and our unique advantage.
Russell put it well: if Chinese civilization were thoroughly Westernized, it would lead to the complete erasure of “whatever national character they have possessed up to now; the world would merely gain one more tireless, clever, industrialized, militarized state, and these states are tormenting this unhappy planet.”[94] Chinese people should remain calm under the impact of Western thought, and actively excavate and carry forward the precious wealth within their own culture.
Below, I will simply sort out some of the valuable ideas in the Eastern tradition concerning the relationship between human beings and nature.
The idea of harmony between Heaven and humanity has a long history in Chinese thought. In the myths of ancient China, almost all the deities are half-human and half-animal: Pan Gu had the head of a dragon and the body of a snake, Nüwa had a human face and a snake body, the Queen Mother of the West had a leopard’s tail and tiger’s teeth, Huangdi had the head of an ox, and Yu was the “double-bright bird.” In Chinese mythology, “it seems that divinity is the combination of humanity and animality.”[95] There are mountain gods on the mountains and river gods in the rivers; all natural things are imbued with divinity, and the entire cosmos is also the incarnation of the god Pan Gu. Compared with ancient Greece, this simple form of animism was more firmly established and had a more far-reaching influence.
As early as the Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods, ecological ethics in harmony with nature had already been part of the “virtue of the former kings.” The Xia dynasty proposed the famous ancient injunction: “In the spring’s three months, do not use axes and hatchets in the mountains and forests, so as to foster the growth of plants and trees; do not cast nets or traps into rivers, lakes, marshes, and ponds, so as to foster the growth of fish and turtles.”[96] And King Tang of Shang was even respected by the feudal lords because of the “supreme virtue” of “opening the net on three sides.” “Destroying the gifts of Heaven” became one of the crimes listed by King Wu in his campaign against Zhou Xin of Shang. It is clear that in the Chinese tradition, extending moral concern to all things in nature was from the very beginning a natural matter.
Of course, Confucianism is the main current of Chinese traditional culture, so any examination of China’s ancient ecological outlook should begin with Confucianism.
People generally believe that Confucian thought is human-centered, and this is not wrong, but it cannot therefore be said that Confucianism is “anthropocentric.” A human-centered mode of thinking does not necessarily lead to “anthropocentrism,” just as believing in science does not necessarily lead to “scientism”; a way of thinking and viewing things is a completely different concept from an “-ism,” and I will mention this again later. In fact, Confucian thinking is not fixated on what should be at the center, because Chinese philosophy has never had much of a habit of binary subject-object opposition. Confucianism emphasizes the “unity of Heaven and humanity”; to place human beings at the center is also to place Heaven at the center. In fact, even Xunzi, with his claim of “controlling Heaven’s mandate and using it,” was not an “anthropocentrist.” He also proposed the doctrine that “ritual has three roots”: the “root of life” (nature) is no less important than the other two roots, the “root of kind” (ancestors) and the “root of governance” (ruler and teacher).[97] If we look at Confucian thought through the “framework” of Western binary opposition, its “human-centeredness” appears rather one-sided.
Since Confucianism revolves around “human beings,” let us first examine related topics within Confucianism concerning “the place of human beings in nature.”
Human beings are the most honorable among Heaven and Earth. Xunzi stated very clearly the distinction between human beings and other natural things: “Water and fire have vital force but no life; plants and trees have life but no awareness; birds and beasts have awareness but no righteousness. Human beings have vital force, life, awareness, and righteousness, and thus are the most precious under Heaven.” (Xunzi, “The Rulers’ Standard”) Yet human nobility does not lie in having some supreme benefit or unique dominion, but in having “righteousness.” Human beings are able to “encompass all things and be the spirit of all things.” (Collected Writings on the Supreme Ultimate and the Cosmic Order, “Outer Chapter on Observing Things”) If a person is “without feeling and without righteousness,” then he does not deserve to be called the spirit of all things; “worse than birds and beasts” refers precisely to such unrighteous people. “The difference between human beings and birds and beasts is very slight; the common people cast it aside, but the gentleman preserves it.” (Mencius, Li Lou II) — Human beings differ from birds and beasts by only the slightest margin, and it is precisely this slight difference, preserved and cultivated by the gentleman, that becomes the key to what makes human beings noble.
The benevolence and righteousness emphasized by Confucianism are very naturally extended to other living beings. Mencius said, “Be affectionate to your kin and then be benevolent to the people; be benevolent to the people and then love things.” (Mencius, “Jin Xin I”)[98] Of course, in Mencius there is a distinction between “benevolence” and “love”; nevertheless, that the gentleman should of course care for and cherish living beings is beyond doubt. Regarding the saying “be benevolent to the people and love things,” Wang Yangming’s explanation is relatively detailed: “Birds and beasts, and plants and trees, are all things one loves. To use plants and trees to nourish birds and beasts, can one not bear it? Human beings and birds and beasts are both things one loves. To butcher birds and beasts to nourish one’s parents, and to supply sacrificial rites and entertain guests, can one not bear it? One’s closest kin and passersby are both things one loves. If, as with a bowl of rice or a bowl of bean soup, getting it means life and not getting it means death, and both cannot be preserved, then being able to save one’s closest kin and not save a passerby—can one not bear it? This is because the principle should rightly be so. Even with my own body and my parents, one must not distinguish between this and that or between greater and lesser closeness, for it is from this that benevolence to the people and love of things all arise.” (Instructions for Practical Living, part II) Here Wang Yangming expounds the ethical principle of “love with distinctions.” Here, plants, trees, birds, and beasts are all objects of “love,” only the degree of care people extend to them differs in level and priority.
The reason people are able to show care for birds, beasts, plants, and trees is not because these things possess some kind of rights, or because human beings bear some kind of duty toward them, but because of human nature—that is, the compassion and pity inherent in being human. On this point, Wang Yangming’s formulation is the most precise: “The fact that the great man can regard Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body is not something he intends to do; it is simply that the benevolence of his heart is originally like this. His being one with Heaven and Earth and the myriad things—how could this belong only to the great man? Even the heart of the petty man is not without this; he merely belittles himself. Therefore, when he sees a child about to fall into a well, he will surely feel alarm and compassion; this is his benevolence becoming one body with the child. The child is still of the same kind as himself; when he sees birds and beasts crying in sorrow and trembling, he will surely feel an unbearable heart; this is his benevolence becoming one body with birds and beasts. Birds and beasts still have awareness; when he sees plants and trees being broken, he will surely feel pity and reluctance; this is his benevolence becoming one body with plants and trees. Plants and trees still have the intent of life; when he sees tiles and stones being destroyed, he will surely feel concern and cherish them; this is his benevolence becoming one body with tiles and stones. This one-body benevolence is something even the heart of the petty man must surely possess. It is rooted in the nature endowed by Heaven’s decree and is naturally lucid and not obscured; therefore it is called ‘bright virtue.’” (Great Learning Questions) Sympathy is not something deliberately manufactured by human beings; it is innate in human nature. Human beings possess a “heart of alarm and compassion,” and this is no exception whether one is a gentleman (a great man) or a petty man. The advantage of the gentleman (the great man) lies in being able to unfold and bring forth this human nature, thereby “regarding Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body.”
Here we have spoken of the Confucian view of nature, namely, “regarding Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body.” This is the meaning of the “unity of Heaven and humanity.”
Expressions of “the unity of Heaven and humanity” are very common in ancient Chinese philosophy, such as: “As for the utmost benevolence, then Heaven and Earth are one body, and all the countless forms and things between Heaven and Earth are the four limbs and hundred members; how could a person fail to love the four limbs and hundred members?” (Collected Sayings of the Chengs of Henan) “Heaven, Earth, and human beings are the root of all things. Heaven produces them, Earth nourishes them, human beings bring them to completion……the three correspond to one another as hands and feet, and together form one body; none can be absent.” Spring and Autumn Annals with Luxuriant Dew, “Establishing the Original Spirit”
And within this “body of Heaven and Earth,” the place of human beings is that of the “heart” — “Human beings are the heart of Heaven and Earth, the beginning of the five phases.” (The Book of Rites, “Liyun”) Zhang Zai had the saying, “Establish the heart for Heaven and Earth.” Note that “establishing the heart for Heaven and Earth” is different from “establishing law for nature.” As Ge Zhaoguang has pointed out: “‘The unity of Heaven and humanity’ actually means that all the rationality of ‘Heaven’ and ‘humanity’ is fundamentally based on the same basic ground.”[99] In other words, the “human way” and the “Heavenly way” are unified. “Establishing the heart for Heaven and Earth” does not mean establishing a law to dominate nature. As Meng Peiyuan put it: “‘Human beings establishing the heart for Heaven and Earth’ presupposes that ‘Heaven and Earth take giving life to things as their heart.’”[100] Zhu Xi expressed this point as follows: “Heaven and Earth take giving life to things as their heart, and the birth of humans and all things is each in turn to obtain that heart of Heaven and regard it as one’s own heart.” (Mean, “On Benevolence”) Yet Cheng Hao also said: “The constant way of Heaven and Earth is that its heart is to spread everywhere among the myriad things, and yet it has no heart.” (Collected Sayings of the Chengs of Henan) — Heaven and Earth are both “with heart” and “without heart”; the heart of Heaven and Earth is precisely established through human beings.
Lü Feng believes that “as explained by Mr. Tang Yijie, the Confucian idea of the unity of Heaven and humanity does not regard Heaven and humanity as two separate things, nor does it regard the relationship between Heaven and humanity as an external one. It holds that Heaven is completely revealed through human beings; without human beings, Heaven has no meaning. Therefore, human beings must establish a mind for Heaven and Earth. The core of Confucian thought lies in emphasizing that the relationship between Heaven and humanity is an internal relationship rather than an external one. The Way of Heaven is the Way of humanity…… It can be seen that Chinese Confucianism relatively lacks a clear awareness of human limitation, and does not have reverence for powers and orders above humanity.”[101] The first half of this statement is extremely precise; however, I do not agree with the claim that Chinese philosophy is therefore limited because it “does not have reverence for powers and orders above humanity.” This is because Chinese Confucianism extends human self-awareness to oneness with Heaven and Earth, which is precisely a profound insight that transcends human limitation. As Mr. Zhang Dainian pointed out in *Culture and Philosophy*: “Only by acknowledging that ‘there is nothing in Heaven and Earth and the myriad things that is not myself’ can one truly know oneself.”[102] In Confucianism, respect for human nature is also reverence for nature. This idea of the “unity of Heaven and humanity” coincides with modern deep ecology’s holistic view of “humanity-nature” and theories of self-realization, reflecting the profound wisdom of ancient Chinese culture. As Wang Zhengping put it: “With the intuitive thinking of life, the ecological ethical wisdom deeply revealed by China’s ancient sages, though bearing a certain naiveté and immediacy of intuition and sudden enlightenment, undeniably possesses a ‘miraculous profundity.’”[103]
2. Daoism, Buddhism, and Others
In fact, Western environmental ethics has paid more attention to Chinese culture in the form of Daoist thought and Chan Buddhist thought. The significance of Confucian thought for ecological philosophy has not yet received sufficient attention from the academic world, including the Chinese academic world. Therefore, in the foregoing discussion I spent more ink introducing ecological thought in Confucianism. Owing to limits of space and my own level, the following introduction to Daoism, Buddhism, and other Chinese philosophies will have to be much briefer.
Obviously, Laozi, who first proposed “returning to nature,” and Zhuangzi, who first proposed “all things are one and the same,” seem more like naturalists than the Ru thinkers. Of course, it is likewise inappropriate to regard Daoism as “non-anthropocentrism.” What Daoism emphasizes in saying that it “nourishes all things without mastering all things” refers not only to the fact that human beings cannot master all things; it also speaks of nature, saying that all things originally have no center or master. Confucianism and Daoism proceed from different angles—the former emphasizes ren and righteousness, the latter emphasizes the Dao; the former stresses the human way, the latter the Way of Heaven—yet in the end they arrive at the same destination by different routes, and the essential point of both is the unity of the human way and the Way of Heaven.
Laozi says that “the Dao follows what is natural”; in fact, this also means that “human beings follow what is natural,” and “following what is natural” is precisely the “non-action” of “letting things be.” “The Dao is constantly non-active, yet there is nothing it does not do. If lords and kings can hold fast to it, the myriad things will transform of themselves.” (Laozi, Chapter 37) “It gives birth to them and nourishes them; it gives birth to them but does not possess them; it acts, but does not rely on its own power; it grows them, but does not rule over them. This is called mysterious virtue.” (Laozi, Chapter 10) To hold fast to the Dao is to be non-active, but the “non-action” emphasized by Laozi is not doing nothing at all; rather, it includes “giving birth to them and nourishing them.” “Non-action” refers to “not contending”: “The Way of the sage is to act without contending.” (Laozi, Chapter 81) The attitude of conforming to nature and acting without contending is precisely the precious aspect of Laozi’s ecological thought.
Zhuangzi went further, putting forward many ecologically philosophical ideas of far-reaching significance, such as the egalitarian idea that “all things are one and the same”: “From the standpoint of the Dao, things have no nobility or baseness; from the standpoint of things, each values itself and belittles others.” (*Qiu Shui*) Human beings are also one thing among things, and the reason things are ranked noble or base is that human beings look at them from their own perspective. But if one transcends the human standpoint and “views them from the standpoint of the Dao,” then “all things are one and the same; who is long, who is short?” (*Qiu Shui*) In addition, Zhuangzi may already have, in substance, touched on the environmental-ethical distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value: “All men know the use of the useful, but none know the use of the useless.” (*Ren Jian Shi*) Zhuangzi’s philosophy of equality is in fact an effort to break down the boundaries between subject and object, between inner and outer, and to elevate the spiritual realm of human beings and all things into “one body.” Therefore, he opposed the utilitarian mind, opposed opposition between human beings and all things, and even more opposed the “using” and “employing” of all things.[104] “The mind of clever calculation and profit-seeking must inevitably make one forget the human heart.” (*Tian Di*) Zhuangzi’s warning still gives us much to ponder today!
Originating in India and flourishing in China, Buddhism has drawn considerable attention from Western environmental ethicists. For example, Rolston believes: “Zen Buddhism has a most admirable respect for life. This Eastern way of thinking sees no boundary between fact and value, or between human beings and nature. In the West, nature has been stripped of its intrinsic value; it has only instrumental value, a value that increases along with the development of science and technology. Nature is merely a resource for human exploitation, but Zen is not anthropocentric; it does not isolate and exploit resources. Zen Buddhism understands that we must grant wholeness to all things without depriving individuals of their special meaning in the cosmos; it knows how to unite the science of life with the sanctity of life.”[105] Of course, to say that Buddhism “is not anthropocentric” does not mean that Buddhism is biocentric or ecocentric. In Buddhism too, human beings and nature form a whole; Buddhism emphasizes that “the dependent and the proper are not two,” and opposes ways of thinking that set human beings against nature.
When thinking of Buddhism’s ecological thought, people often first recall the Buddhist idea of the equality of all sentient beings. Buddhism not only insists on vegetarianism and caring for animals, but also extends compassion to all things in the universe. “Heaven and Earth share the same root with me; the myriad things and I are one body.” (*Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthy Masters*, juan 9) The idea that “the myriad things and I are one body” here echoes Confucian and Daoist thought without prior agreement. From this it is only natural to extend the idea to “all grasses and trees are also possessed of Buddha-nature.” (*Treatise on the Mahayana Xuan*) juan 3. Thus Buddhism further developed the aspiration to “deliver all sentient beings,” as in *The Diamond Sutra*, Chapter 3, “Orthodox Meaning of the Mahayana”: “All the kinds of sentient beings, whether egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, metamorphosed-born, whether with form, without form, whether with thought, without thought, whether neither with thought nor without thought, I will cause them all to enter nirvana without residue and be liberated.”
Although Buddhism emphasizes the equality of all sentient beings, it does not confuse human beings with natural things. Human beings are still distinct from animals. Among the “six realms,” humans are those “most endowed with Buddha-nature.” The Buddha instructed his disciples in the *Agama Sutras*: “All Buddhas and World-Honored Ones emerge from among human beings, not from heaven.” So where does human superiority lie? Buddhism believes that human beings have the following advantages: “superiority in recollection, superiority in pure conduct, superiority in courage.”[106] That is, human beings possess thought and memory, and are therefore capable of creation and transmission; they possess a sense of shame and conscience, and thus morality; and they have a steadfast will. These “superiorities” are incomparable with those of other sentient beings. Human beings therefore occupy a pivotal position among the ten realms; if people cannot cherish and uphold what is unique to being human, they may fall into the realms of animals, hell-beings, or hungry ghosts. But if human beings can preserve the dignity of being human and strive to do good, only then can they become sages or Buddhas. The *Samyukta Agama Sutra* even uses the image of “a blind turtle meeting a floating log” to explain how difficult it is to obtain human life: in the deep sea there is a blind turtle that surfaces only once every hundred years, while in the sea there drifts a piece of floating wood with a round hole in its center. “The difficulty of obtaining human life is just like the blind turtle entering that hole.” Buddhism speaks of the “suffering” and “emptiness” of life, but it does not simply negate the meaning of human existence; rather, it emphasizes the preciousness and rarity of human life, and warns people to cherish this precious life in order to accomplish sacred undertakings.
Buddhism believes that today’s ecological crisis originates in a crisis of human mentality and the pollution of the mind.[107] “When the mind is pure, the land is pure.” Buddhism regards “mind and environment as mutually conditioned.” Buddhism has always regarded “greed” as the chief culprit harming the human spirit and as the evil root cause of today’s ecological crisis.[108]
The *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp*, juan 13, records the following story: a monk once asked Chan Master Caoshan Benji, “What is the most precious thing in the world?” Caoshan said, “The head of a dead cat is the most precious.” “Why is that thing the most precious?” “Because no one has set a price on it.”[109]—This story, in ironic form, exposes the emptiness of worldly values. Seen in this light, the mentality of modern people who speak of value only in terms of money is even more shallow to the extreme in the eyes of Buddhism.
Another point worth mentioning is Buddhism’s view of nature, in which the individual and the whole mutually penetrate and reflect one another, and all things in the world mutually contain and permeate one another. This idea is deeply expressed in the Buddhist metaphor of “Indra’s net”: “What is now called Indra’s net is used as a metaphor by the net in the palace of Indra. To use the net in the palace of Indra as a metaphor, one must first understand what the form of this net of Indra is. It is like many mirrors reflecting one another, with the reflections of all mirrors appearing in one mirror. Within these reflections, countless reflections again appear, and in each and every reflection countless reflections again appear, layer upon layer without end, making it endlessly endless.” *The One Vehicle and Ten Profound Gates of the Huayan Sutra* In Indra’s net, every jewel reflects all the other jewels, just as all things in the world are never isolated in existence, but are always in a complex and interwoven network of relations in which “you are in me, and I am in you.” In every part one may glimpse the whole, but if part and whole are separated, not only can the whole no longer be glimpsed, but the part is no longer the original part either. No wonder Rolston exclaimed: “The metaphor of the Buddhist net of Indra helps people understand the wholeness of the concept of the biotic community.”[110]
The three currents of Chinese ancient philosophy—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism—certainly have theoretical differences, but they also share many commonalities. In terms of ecological wisdom, these commonalities are especially prominent. As Needham pointed out: “For thousands of years the Chinese mind, in general, did not feel the need for metaphysics: the physical natural world and everything it contains at the highest level was enough. The Chinese were extremely unwilling to separate the ‘One’ from the ‘many,’ or to set the ‘spiritual’ against the ‘material.’ Organic naturalism was their ‘perennially green philosophy.’”[111]
These characteristics of Chinese philosophy are not unrelated to the environment in which Chinese civilization developed. China’s agricultural civilization is the foundation of ideas such as “the unity of Heaven and humanity” and “following nature by non-action”: farming activities require interfering with nature as little as possible; trying to help seedlings grow by pulling them upward only results in more harm than good. By contrast, for Western maritime civilization, it is hard to imagine a boatman saying “let things take their course” and allowing the vessel to drift in wind and waves. Thus, “traditional Chinese philosophy has a deep reverence for nature and a sense of gratitude toward it.”[112]
Many people have pointed out that China’s ancient ecological thought is ultimately one-sided—this seems to be a widespread habit of abusing “dialectics”: no matter how much praise one lavishes on the thought of the ancients, in the end one always habitually adds the line “…after all, it is one-sided…”. Regarding China’s traditional ecological thought, people point out that such reverence for nature was in the final analysis nothing more than submission and compliance before powerful natural forces, arising from the ancients’ weak capacity to transform nature; or else they reduce it outright to a kind of primitive mystical worship. But when we face the ancient ideas of “leaving a net open on three sides,” “all things are one and the same,” and “deliver all sentient beings,” can we still, with complete disdain, dismiss the ancients’ modesty as submission and denounce their spirit of universal love as mysticism? Of course, traditional culture certainly contains some outdated ideas, but we need to understand what attitude we ought to take toward traditional culture. If one takes a fault-finding attitude, one can certainly seize upon those dross elements and harangue them endlessly; but what now has gone wrong is us modern people. It is we who are facing the ecological crisis, and ancient wisdom is the source and treasure trove that offers us inspiration. Only if we hold a mentality of “treasure hunting,” “seeking our roots,” and “inheriting the tradition” can we better transform the dross while preserving the essence and bringing it to fruition.
Whether out of profound thought and insight, or out of intuitive experience and realization, the deep significance of traditional Chinese philosophy cannot be denied. Mr. Ji Xianlin once pointed out: “In short, I believe that Western metaphysical analysis is approaching its end, while the Eastern synthesis seeking wholeness will inevitably replace it. Western culture, based on analysis, will also decline accordingly, and what will rise in its place must be Eastern culture, based on synthesis…… The 21st century is the age of Eastern culture……”[113] I am not as optimistic as Old Ji. Even if Western culture declines somewhat, it is after all almost impossible to expect Westerners themselves to accept Eastern culture wholesale; Westerners will also seek a way out from within their own traditions. The key issue is whether we Easterners can carry forward our own precious culture and make it flourish.
In the foregoing, I have reviewed the origins of the ecological crisis and the spiritual resources of ecological philosophy. Below, I will truly “enter the main topic”: first examining the Western response under the crisis of modernity and the rise of environmental ethics, and then expressing my own views. In addition, since I already wrote incidentally about “ecological theology” in the preceding discussion of Christianity, I will not repeat it below.
Another point needs to be explained: as I said, this paper aims to express my own views. Therefore, because of limits in my level and the length of the paper, the various ecological ethical ideas discussed below will inevitably appear very rough, and what I focus on is, in the process of citing those ideas and expressing support for or opposition to some of their views, to thread through my own subjective preferences.
Faced with the various crises brought about by modern industrial civilization, people of insight have begun thinking and reflecting in succession, and have proposed strategies for reform. In my view, the first to make a comprehensive and profound reflection upon and critique of industrial civilization was Marx.
Marx and Engels, living in the nineteenth century, had not yet experienced the severe ecological and cultural crises of modern civilization; nevertheless, their profound insight transcended their era, and they likewise revealed with great depth the many problems of today’s society, providing important inspiration and rich intellectual resources for overcoming the crisis.
Because Western Marxism, and even ecological Marxism, ecological socialism, and other currents of thought that developed under the inspiration of Marx are complex in content, and because of limitations of my own ability and the length of this paper, I shall not discuss them for now. Below I will mainly examine Marx’s own ecological wisdom.
One of Marx’s greatest creations is the “materialist conception of history,” or so-called “historical materialism.” Today we do not much care to hear the term “materialism,” because once the boundary between subject and object has been broken, there is no longer any dispute between materialism and idealism. However, it should be noted that although “Marx’s method of explaining how society evolves is fundamentally materialist. This does not mean that Marx is an ‘ontological’ or ‘epistemological’ materialist.”[114] Engels pointed out: “As we learn day by day to understand the laws of nature more correctly… the more people will once again feel, and recognize, their unity with nature, and the absurd, anti-natural view that sets spirit and matter, humanity and nature, soul and body in opposition to one another will become all the more impossible to maintain.”[115]
Marx himself also had formulations that transcended the binary opposition between materialism and idealism: “A thoroughgoing naturalism or humanism, both distinct from idealism and from materialism, is at once also the truth that unites the two. We also see at the same time that only naturalism can understand the action of world history.”[116] It is precisely through “history” that Marx unified subject and object, natural science and social science, humanity and nature into one. Marxism holds that: “There is no separation between nature and humanity; they are each a part of the other. In a circular, mutually influencing relation, they continually permeate and act upon one another.”[117]
In The German Ideology, Marx says: “We know only a single science, the science of history. History can be examined from two sides; it can be divided into the history of nature and the history of humanity. But these two sides are closely linked; so long as people exist, the history of nature and the history of humanity condition one another.” Marxist philosophy is organized around “human beings,” but human beings must and inevitably do remain closely connected with nature, because “history itself is a real part of natural history, the real process of the transformation from nature into human beings. But natural science will later include the human sciences, just as the human sciences will include natural science.”[118]
Regarding the relation between humanity and nature, Marx discussed more often the “humanization” of nature, and we certainly cannot therefore conclude that Marx was a “human-centered” thinker. In fact, in this respect Marx is somewhat similar to the Confucians of China: both start from the human and emphasize the unity of humanity and nature. Marx held that: “Nature, insofar as it is not the human body itself, is man’s inorganic body. Man lives from nature. That is to say, nature is the human body with which man must remain in a continuous, reciprocal, and ongoing process in order not to die. The claim that human bodily life and spiritual life are linked with nature is nothing other than the claim that nature is linked with itself, because man is a part of nature.”[119]
On the one hand, nature is “man’s inorganic body”; on the other hand, “man is a part of nature.” So what, after all, is nature in reality? Marx opposed abstract, speculative “philosophy” that is addicted to metaphysics and unable to face the real world. Marx did not investigate an abstract, self-sufficient metaphysical “nature” existing outside human beings; rather, he focused on real, historical, human nature — “Nature as generated in human history, that is, in the process of the formation of human society, is man’s real nature.”[120] Marx pointed out: “The human essence of nature exists only for social man; for only in society is nature for man the bond that connects man with man, his being for others and the being of others for him, only in society is nature the basis of his own human existence and the real life element of man. Only in society is the natural basis of human existence the real life element of man. Only in society does nature, as the basis of human existence, become for him his own human existence, and nature becomes man for him. Therefore society is the completed unity of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.”[121] Clearly, Marx is not a “non-anthropocentrist” who advocates the “intrinsic rights of nature” — although we can also find in Marx some statements about the rights of natural things, such as “land ownership already includes the landlord’s right to exploit the land, exploit underground resources, exploit the air, and thereby exploit the maintenance and development of life.” “To appropriate a living tree, one must violently sever its organic connections; this is a manifestly injurious act against the tree.”[122] But when Marx considered value and rights, he still did so more from a human standpoint. And yet Marx’s thought accords with deep ecology’s organic whole of “humanity-society-nature”!
The New Marxist Grondmann believed that: “The root cause of ecological crisis lies in the lack of human self-development.”[123] In fact, the fundamental pursuit of Marxism lies in the “liberation of human beings,” or rather “the all-round development of human beings,” and Marx’s inquiry into human nature is thought-provoking. Marx believed that the boundless plundering and destruction of nature by human beings, as well as the exploitation and enslavement between people, are precisely the result of the “alienation” of human nature. Marx pointed out that alienated labor leads to: “the species-being of man — whether nature or the spiritual species-capacity of man — becomes an alien being to man, a means for his individual existence. Alienated labor alienates from man his own body, likewise nature outside him, his spiritual essence, his human essence.”[124] Marx also pointed out in Volume III of Capital that in dealing with nature people should “rationally regulate the material interchange between themselves and nature… carrying out this material interchange under conditions most worthy of and most appropriate to their human nature.”[125] In Marx’s view, the way to live in harmony with nature lies precisely in being faithful to the nature of human beings as human. When humanity truly eliminates alienation, regains the essence of humanity, and upholds the dignity of being human, that is when humanity and nature become harmoniously united as one.
The Reform of Anthropocentrism
Many people trace the intellectual roots of the ecological crisis to traditional anthropocentrism, and reflection on and reform of traditional ethical ideas has likewise begun from anthropocentrism.
Although traditional anthropocentrism is regarded as “defective,” many influential thinkers still hold this position and attempt to respond to the ecological crisis by reforming anthropocentrism.
Environmental ethics of anthropocentrism include Passmore, McCloskey, and others who uphold traditional anthropocentrism and present modern versions of it, as well as Norton, Modi, and others who advocate reforming traditional anthropocentrism and propose “weak anthropocentrism.”
Passmore believes that attributing the root of ecological problems to anthropocentrism is to miss the target; he thinks the environmental crisis is a cultural crisis of humanity, and that its root lies in “human despotism” rather than “anthropocentrism.” Human beings should care about environmental issues because human survival and social development must rely on nature, and protecting nature is for the sake of protecting one’s own interests.
Norton, by contrast, proposes distinguishing between two kinds of anthropocentrism, namely strong and weak forms. He believes that theories which take the satisfaction of individuals’ sensory desires as the standard of value are strong anthropocentrism; whereas taking the satisfaction of rational desires as the standard of value is weak anthropocentrism.
Before further discussion, it is necessary first to clarify this key concept — what exactly is “anthropocentrism”?
Understanding the concept of “anthropocentrism” also includes understanding three related concepts — namely, what is “human beings,” what does “center” mean, and what counts as “-ism.”
The concept of “human beings” would seem easiest to grasp, but in fact it is not simple. “Human beings” can refer to individual persons, with individual rights and freedoms at the center; it can also refer to society as a whole, with the interests and development of the entire society at the center. The former maintains that each person’s rights and interests are sacred and inviolable, while the latter upholds collectivism, so that at the appropriate time some individuals ought to sacrifice their own interests for the development of the whole. In addition, the concept of “human beings” in the latter, holistic sense can itself be further distinguished: one kind considers only the interests of existing people, while another extends ethics to future human beings. The former holds that we can only have duties to present human beings; as for future human beings, they are absent as moral objects — we do not know whether they will exist, and even if they do, we do not know their needs; even if we care for them, they cannot possibly repay us on equal terms. The latter rejects this narrow view and maintains that preserving the healthy continuation of humanity and ensuring the interests of future generations is a duty of human beings. It is clear that different understandings of “human beings” lead to several very different value systems.
What does “center” mean? If one says “human-centered,” then exactly what of humanity is at the center, and at the center of what? This too is a question. To be human-centered can be understood in cosmological, teleological, epistemological, and axiological senses, among others. For example, Webster’s New World Dictionary holds that anthropocentrism has two meanings: “first, to regard man as the central entity or end of the universe; second, to regard all things in the universe according to human values.”[126] Traditional anthropocentrism contains cosmological and teleological elements: people believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that human beings were the ultimate end of all creation, and Copernicus and Darwin shattered this arrogant fantasy of humanity. Anthropocentrism in the epistemological sense is in fact unavoidable: human beings always observe the world from the standpoint of human beings — of course, humans can sometimes think from a non-human standpoint, but this empathic mode of thought still rests on the human self, and non-anthropocentrism does not oppose “anthropocentrism” in the epistemological sense. What is currently receiving attention and debate is often anthropocentrism in the axiological sense: both traditional and modern anthropocentrism maintain that value can only be embodied in human beings, whereas non-anthropocentrism maintains that there is “intrinsic value” in nature. It is worth noting that Modi, of weak anthropocentrism, has already admitted that “there is no need to regard human beings as the source of value, and still less to rule out the intrinsic value of natural existence.”[127] He regards human beings as “a constituent element of a meaningful whole, and each of our actions has decisive significance for the self-realization of the evolutionary process of humanity itself and for the increase of world value.”[128] Here, Modi creatively links the significance of the individual and the whole, and links the value of humanity and nature; in a certain sense this view has already gone beyond ordinary anthropocentrism, and my own view is similar in this regard. But Modi, who still adheres to anthropocentrism in a biological sense, has not escaped the Western traditional habit of dualistic thinking — that is, he has not escaped an attachment to the “center.” These are matters for later; I will explain them in detail below when setting out my own view.
Finally, there is the matter of “-ism,” which I have already mentioned: to say “Darwin’s theory” and to say “Darwinism” express completely different meanings, and believing in science does not lead to “scientism.” Likewise, for Europeans, being Europe-centered, or thinking about issues from a Europe-centered standpoint, is unexceptionable; but once it becomes “Eurocentrism,” the meaning is quite different. “Taking … as the center” is one perspective from which to think about problems, whereas “-ism” goes a step further and indicates that this is the only perspective from which all problems are to be thought about; obviously these two attitudes are not the same. One should not simply equate, under certain conditions, “human-centered” with “anthropocentrism.” Anthropocentrism cuts humanity off from nature and regards nature as the “Other” (similarly, that part of “non-human ‘centrism’” which alienates humanity itself into the “Other” and severs humanity from nature is likewise one-sided). By contrast, the Confucian and Marxian “human-centered” position by no means views human beings as rulers or as tools; rather, it takes human beings as the point of departure and the destination. Taking human beings as the end can equally well support the idea of the harmonious unity of humanity and nature, without thereby denying the value and significance of nature.
Regarding “human-centered,” I first affirm the idea of taking human beings as the center of ethical judgment. “If no one approved or disapproved of things, if no one called things right or wrong, there would be no science of ethics.”[129] Of course, in regulating ethics and morality, human beings must conform to the laws of nature; in a certain sense, the human way is the heavenly way. However, ethics studies the human way rather than the heavenly way. Natural law is a reference point for moral law, but not a constraint. Natural things do not engage in moral action; only human beings engage in ethics.
Wang Wei believes that: “Ecological ethics confuses the distinction between biological ecological laws and human moral principles… because from the standpoint of human ethics, the ‘ecological laws’ of organisms are not all morally proper.”[130] This is of course not a complete understanding of ecological ethics, but from a certain angle, his criticism does indeed strike at some real problems.
If we are to take all nonhuman beings as moral subjects as well, then what sort of moral concern ought humans to show them in order to count as reasonable? Does that mean that the correct course is to impose absolutely no interference on them? If so, then domestic dogs, pigs, and the like, once separated from human beings, may well be unable to survive; what, then, should be done for them? If one says that humans may interfere less with nature, where, then, does the limit lie? Bees promote the reproduction of flowers and trees by spreading pollen, birds by dispersing seeds; in that case, is it not equally reasonable for human beings, by means of modern large-scale agriculture or even genetic technology, to promote the reproduction of plants? Or one may tell you that the mutual interference among species in general, and things like the law of the jungle, arise out of their needs for survival, whereas human interference with the outside world exceeds the needs of survival and is therefore inappropriate. But is it really true that all mutual interference among nonhuman beings is for the sake of survival? For example, my family once kept cats, and I know that cats often tease birds for fun. Generally speaking, cats cannot catch birds, but once they do pounce on one, they are quite likely to toy with and torment it to death, even though cats do not like to eat bird meat; should such behavior also be morally condemned? Clearly, we do not impose any moral restraint on a cat, because we understand perfectly well that only human beings talk about morality, and therefore only human beings are qualified to formulate moral rules—even if such rules can at times refer to nature, they will by no means use natural law to prescribe human law. Moral rules are products of human civilization and wisdom, not something external to humanity. We say that humanity and the Way of Heaven are “internally” unified, but we cannot leave the human way behind and go searching for ethics in the Way of Heaven. So to talk emptily about morality while abandoning “human-centeredness” is equally narrow-minded.
In fact, some modern forms of anthropocentrism are precisely cases of failing to distinguish natural law from moral law, and trying to use natural law to argue for the legitimacy of their ethics. Mo Di, for example, holds that human beings cannot exist apart from their own interests: “Man, as a matter of course, is centered on human beings, just as spiders can only be centered on spiders.”[131] This view is of course unobjectionable from an epistemological standpoint, and it is certainly not wrong to say that human beings cannot be detached from their own interests. But to overemphasize these points in order to prove that human beings ought only to consider their own interests is one-sided; such a view in fact belittles human beings themselves, reducing them to the level of irrational animals that care only about interests within their own species. Yet in fact, even among animals, such “benevolence” is not necessarily confined to their own species: infants abandoned by human beings are raised by wild wolves, loyal dogs, horses, and the like sacrifice themselves to save their masters—such cases are by no means rare. In these cases, can we shamelessly say that those animals have eyes only for themselves? Can we self-deceptively say that the wild wolf raises the human infant out of its own needs for survival? To infer from the so-called “animals center on themselves” that human beings too ought to be selfish and self-interested is even more like stopping one’s ears while stealing a bell, absurd to the extreme! Human beings possess a higher rationality than animals; how could they be satisfied with animal requirements? What is more, at certain times, the conduct of certain people is not even as “selfless” as that of animals.
I believe that some forms of anthropocentrism actually exalt human status while diminishing human dignity. Although “human-centeredness” in the biological sense and in the epistemological sense is to some extent unavoidable (though it can be transcended), it is also inappropriate to overemphasize these issues; they fail to see the genuine transcendence possessed by human wisdom. These topics will be developed further below.
Nonhuman-Centered Environmental Ethics
Before the 1970s, the mainstream of ecological ethics was anthropocentric. As the environmental crisis further intensified, however, more and more ecologists began to reflect on anthropocentrism, and people were no longer satisfied with discussing issues within the traditional theoretical framework of anthropocentrism: “Many people engaged in ecological ethics research always try to break free from the constraints of traditional interpersonal ethics, to seek an independent theoretical space for study, and to create a new conceptual and categorical system, in the hope of bringing about a new ‘ethical revolution.’”[132]
Before proceeding with the discussion below, however, it is still necessary to examine the concept of “nonhuman-centeredness.”
What is “nonhuman-centeredness”? One possible interpretation is “not ‘human-centeredness,’” in which case anything that does not advocate “human-centeredness” can be included in it[133]; but in fact, what the academic world usually means by “nonhuman-centeredness” is “‘nonhuman’-centeredness,” that is, taking things other than human beings as the “center.” For example, in various introductory works on related environmental ethical schools, this “‘nonhuman’-centeredness” is usually divided into three types: animal-centeredness, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. But I believe that, understood in this way, “nonhuman-centeredness” should by no means be simply equated with the “complement” of “human-centeredness.” Many people like to make such a division: if it is not “anthropocentrism,” then it is “non-anthropocentrism.” In fact, this habit of thought still continues the dualistic mode of thinking of modern rationalism’s subject-object division. It is like asking “which came first, the chicken or the egg,” insisting on finding some fundamental, central thing. Why must there be a center at all; or why could there not be both humans and ecology as centers? For this reason, I have not placed ancient Chinese philosophy, Marxism, deep ecology, or my own views under either human-centered or nonhuman-centered positions. Indeed, I do not even fully acknowledge myself as a “non-‘human-centered’” thinker, because I likewise do not want to draw a clear line separating myself from “human-centeredness.” In fact, my views already run through many of the discussions in this article, and in the final part of the essay I will concentrate some of my own thoughts. As for which school the reader assigns these thoughts to, I do not much care.
Below, I will briefly describe the basic situation of the “‘nonhuman’-centeredness” of Western environmental ethics. Here, I will place deep ecology, social ecology, ecofeminism, eco-theology, eco-Marxism, and so on outside “nonhuman-centeredness,” and, as is customary, discuss them by dividing them into three categories: animal liberation/rights theories, biocentrism, and ecocentrism.
1. Animal Liberation/Rights Theory
It is easy to imagine that, when human beings began to extend moral concern beyond humanity to other beings, animals were the first to benefit. After all, animals are the closest to human beings, and human beings are animals too, so people can more easily empathize with the suffering animals endure. Of course, some scholars have pointed out that animal rights/liberation theory does not belong to environmental ethics, and this is not unreasonable, because animal rights/liberation theory did not arise out of concern for environmental or ecological issues. It is concerned only with individual animals and does not care about matters such as species extinction. Thus, whether in terms of its starting point, its focus, or its theoretical form and practical claims, animal liberation/rights theory differs considerably from ordinary environmental ethics. But I believe that, as the pioneering theoretical exploration that first attempted to extend moral concern beyond the human and first threw itself into practical movements, animal rights/liberation theory has had an important influence on the development of environmental ethics and ecological philosophy and has made substantial contributions to the modern environmental movement. To include it within environmental ethics is entirely proper.
In modern Western thought, the first person to consciously and explicitly apply moral concern to animals was the utilitarian philosopher Bentham. In his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), he clearly stated that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the amount of pleasure or pain it brings; animals can feel pleasure and pain; therefore, when judging whether human actions are right or wrong, the pleasures and pains of animals must also be taken into account.[134]
Singer’s animal liberation theory is obviously influenced by utilitarianism, and Singer often cites Bentham’s arguments in his writings as well. Singer likewise takes “pain” as the standard for measuring interests: “Since stones cannot feel pain, they cannot be said to have interests; no matter what we do, we cannot possibly have any effect on their welfare. But the capacity to feel pain and pleasure is not only a necessary condition for a living being to have interests, but also a sufficient condition: the most minimal interest at the very least is not to suffer pain.”[135]
Regan’s animal rights theory differs considerably from Singer’s animal liberation theory, and the two also attack each other theoretically; but it is likewise a supporter of utilitarianism, as Regan says: “The great attraction of utilitarianism lies in the uncompromising egalitarianism it displays.”[136]
I do not support utilitarianism. I believe that pain and pleasure are not the standards by which value is measured; the meaning of life is by no means merely the pursuit of pleasure, and it is especially one-sided to consider only sensory, bodily pleasure and pain. Moreover, utilitarianism also has many problems in practical application, such as how to measure the degree of pain or pleasure, how to compare individuals and groups, and how to compare different species, and so on.
Nevertheless, I support the animal liberation/rights theory’s claim that animals should be treated with compassion.
How do we know that animals other than human beings can perceive pain? “You are not a fish; how can you know the pain of fish?” “We cannot directly experience the pain of any other, whether that other is our best friend or a stray dog.”[137] But we can obviously feel the pain of others; this is an inwardly arising kind of experience, this unwillingness to bear another’s suffering, this feeling of pity—“even the heart of a petty person is not without this.” Yet many people always “turn a blind eye” to this; they do not believe the living facts before them, but only the experimental data written on paper. In fact, trying to use scientific means to prove whether animals can feel pain is itself a meaningless activity. In truth, even the question of how human beings themselves perceive pain has not been thoroughly analyzed, and yet we care about the pain of others. When others suffer pain, people often imagine that they too are suffering the same pain, and thus compassion arises. This compassion arises from human nature itself and never needs scientific proof. Just as, before we figure out the function of sleep (a question that still has not received a satisfactory scientific explanation), we still have to sleep—our actions that spring from our nature never need to rely on science[138]. In the same way, compassion toward animals does not need scientific proof in order to be reasonable.
Another reason offered against animal rights is that animals cannot possess a moral status equal to that of human beings. In fact, Singer draws an analogy between liberating animals and liberating slaves, women, and Black people. I think this is not a simple inference: when we liberate slaves, women, or Black people, we are in fact placing them on an equal footing with the original subjects of society, that is, while granting them equal rights, we also require their conduct to be integrated into the social body, so that their obligations are also consistent with those of others. It should be noted that before their rights are recognized, there is no talk of obligations; the coercive labor imposed on slaves and Black people was not a moral demand upon them. The ancient Chinese saying “punishment does not reach the ministers, ritual does not descend to the common people” expresses a similar point: when one removes the “punishment” imposed upon the common people, it must be accompanied by requiring them likewise to observe “ritual”; only then is it reasonable. In short, logically speaking, the inference from slave liberation to women’s liberation to Black liberation does not necessarily yield the liberation of nonhuman beings.
The idea that rights and obligations should correspond to one another is meaningful; it opposes the mentality of sitting back and enjoying the benefits and of getting something for nothing, and emphasizes the equality of gain and contribution. Yet its stance still resembles the thinking of economic exchange of interests, with a tendency to view morality as a commodity. In fact, morality of course transcends commodities; as the saying goes, “When you confer a favor, do not expect repayment.” A morality that clings to “exchange” and “equivalence” is always superficial. Of course, from another angle, since the idea of the equivalence of rights and obligations has deeply entered people’s minds, we may as well avoid this vexing issue and shift from talking about “human obligations toward the other” to discussing “the concern humans ought to show toward the other.”
Biocentrism not only extends moral concern to animals close to human beings; it even argues that “all living beings” possess intrinsic value.
An early version of biocentric ethics was represented by Albert Schweitzer.
Schweitzer believed: “Good is to maintain life, to promote life, to bring the life that is capable of development to its highest value. Evil is to destroy life, to injure life, to suppress the development of life. This is the necessary, universal, and absolute ethical principle.”[139]
It should be noted that, unlike ethical forms such as utilitarianism, contract theory, and deontology, the ethics of reverence for life is not a normative ethical rule, but rather a return to a more ancient philosophical tradition, namely virtue ethics, which emphasizes “moral character” rather than “rules of conduct” (an ethics of virtue)[140]—“Schweitzer did not take reverence for life as an ethical rule. Reverence for life is an attitude we take toward the world. In this sense, Schweitzer’s ethics is not focused on answering the question ‘How should I act?’ but rather ‘What kind of person should I become?’”[141] Schweitzer said: “Because of the ethics of reverence for life, we establish a spiritual relationship with the universe. The inner life we thereby experience gives us the will and ability to create a spiritual, ethical culture, a culture that will enable us to live and act in the world in a higher way than before. Because of the ethics of reverence for life, we become different people.”[142]
Precisely for this reason, many people find it difficult to accept the ethics of reverence for life. Schweitzer himself also acknowledged: “The worldview of reverence for life is ethical mysticism.”[143] Nevertheless, as a lofty attitude toward life, the worldview of reverence for life is indeed worthy of respect, and Schweitzer himself, through his legendary life, explained to the world the nobility of reverence for life. He was not only an innovator in theory, but also a model in practice; his theory, like his personality, was admired and valued by people, and deservedly so.
After Schweitzer, Taylor became the representative of contemporary biocentrism. Taylor believed that every form of life has a “good of its own”: “The notion of a teleological center of life is that its internal functions and external behavior are purposive, enabling the organism to maintain its existence so that it can successfully carry out biological activities, reproduce offspring of its species, and adapt to a constantly changing environment. It is these functional connections of an organism, aimed at making its good a reality, that make it a teleological center of action.”[144] Taylor further formulated four principles for the practice of his ethics: the principle of nonmaleficence, the principle of noninterference, the principle of fidelity, and the principle of restitution, and analyzed specific ways of making choices when conflicts arise among the principles.
In addition, scholars such as Atfield and James Stibbe have also proposed revisions and further developments to biocentrism. Space is limited, so I will not dwell on them here.
However, biocentrism is still individualistic; it also fails to take into account species and ecosystems as wholes. As Taylor puts it, “inherent worth applies only to individual organisms; people have no direct duties to ecosystems, nonliving objects, or species.” [145] Thus biocentric ethics still cannot be counted as true ecological philosophy.
Ecocentrism not only goes beyond anthropocentrism, but also beyond animal liberation/rights theories and biocentrism. Its defining feature is that it is a holistic rather than individualistic ethic.
Ecocentrism emphasizes viewing ecosystems as wholes rather than as mere collections of individuals. It recognizes the importance of the interconnections among living beings, and between living beings and their environment, thereby making the ecosystem as a whole—not some particular animal or plant individual—the object of moral concern.
“When a thing tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, it is right; when it tends otherwise, it is wrong.” [146] Aldo Leopold is regarded as “the most influential master of environmental ethics in the development of ecocentrism” [147]. In *A Sand County Almanac*, Leopold’s land ethics—his call to “think like a mountain”—marked the beginning of environmental ethics’ turn from individualism to holism.
Leopold did not think that treating the land as a living whole was his own invention. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, this organic holistic view already existed in ancient Greek natural philosophy and continued into the naturalism of the Renaissance. Of course, the development of modern ecology provided further support for this holistic view. For example, in 1972 the British scientist James Lovelock, while thinking about the detection of extraterrestrial life, proposed the famous Gaia hypothesis: “The Earth is a vast living organism; the atmosphere, oceans, and all forms of life themselves are its bodily functions.” [148]
Criticism of ecocentrism has also mainly focused on its disregard for individual organisms. Regan, for example, pointed out that land ethics “clearly entails this prospect: for the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, individuals must be sacrificed to the ‘good’ of the larger biotic community. In an argument that may properly be called environmental fascism, it is hard to find an appropriate place for the idea of individual rights. … Holism offers us a fascistic understanding of the environment.” [149] Singer, meanwhile, argues: “A species, as a species, is not a conscious entity, and therefore it has no interests beyond or above the interests of its individual members.” [150]
This divergence actually stems from interpersonal ethics: does a family have interests that transcend those of any one member? Does a nation have value beyond that of any individual? Is the continuation of a culture more meaningful than the continuation of some single individual life? These questions are very easy for Easterners to understand, but from the Western perspective, which emphasizes the sacred and inviolable nature of individual freedom, they are not so easily accepted. And once one accepts these questions, it is not difficult to extend these perspectives to species and to nature as a whole. Besides, holism does not ignore individuals; when people truly come to experience moral responsibility toward the whole, moral concern for the individuals within it naturally arises. I will return to these topics later.
In addition, I believe that neither a human-centered nor a non-human-centered approach is deep enough. Ordinary anthropocentrism holds that human beings stand above nature, while ordinary non-anthropocentrism holds that nature (or natural things) stands above human beings; yet humans and nature are one, and to say that one stands above the other is not quite appropriate.
Ecophilosophy moves from abandoning the distinction between primary and secondary to rejecting centrism altogether. [151]
The view that treats human beings as rulers standing above all things in nature, or the view that treats human beings as a tiny, dispensable part of an infinitely small natural order, in essence both sever the relationship between humans and nature from different angles. The idea of “the unity of Heaven and humanity” is precious: that is to say, human beings belong to nature, and nature also belongs to human beings; the two are wholly one, inseparably joined in flesh and bone.
Saying that “nature also belongs to human beings” may cause some misunderstanding. In fact, this notion of “belonging” is entirely different from the narrow view that “nature is a tool for human beings” or “nature is a resource for human beings”; nor is it the same as saying that “nature is the mother of human beings,” because for a child who has left the mother’s arms, the mother is also an external “other.” I believe that humans and nature are in a relationship of mutual interiority, and I will also leave discussion of this point for later.
Deep ecology is a holistic ecological philosophy first proposed by Naess in the 1970s. It drew on the latest developments in ecological science and began to investigate from the most fundamental level of philosophy. Deep ecology “seeks to trace the roots of the environmental crisis back to basic philosophical causes. The solution can only be a transformation of fundamental worldviews and practices. Such basic questions include: ‘What is human nature? What is the relation between humans and nature? What is the nature of truth?’” [152]
The two final principles of deep ecology are self-realization and biocentric equality. Self-realization is the process by which people, in the course of knowing themselves, come to know the connection between their own existence and nature. Biocentric equality means that all living beings and human beings are equally rightful members of an interconnected whole and therefore possess the same inherent value. [153]
“Self-realization” is an extremely important concept in deep ecology. Through “self-realization,” that is, by uncovering the good within the human heart, deep ecology seeks to achieve identification between humans and nature. Naess points out: “The paradigm of identification is something that can evoke strong sympathy.” [154] In fact, the word “sympathy” itself already carries something that is not oppositional or dualistic, as one can sense from the Chinese character tong 同, “same.” When we see the suffering of the “other,” and stand in the position of the “self” to feel it, “a sympathetic feeling of suffering arises; this is self-identification with the other.”
The “self” in deep ecology is not the “self” as a biological individual, but a “Greater Self” that fuses me with the other. Naess points out: “(Through the theory of self-realization) the opposition between self and other is transcended; the pursuit of self-realization and growth of the Greater Self accomplishes what altruism seeks to accomplish. Therefore the distinction between egoism and altruism is also transcended.” [155]
The “Greater Self” of deep ecology not only extends the self to human collectives—family, social community, and even the human community as a whole—but also extends the “I” to the entire ecology. Deval and Sessions write: “In preserving the spiritual traditions of the world’s religions, the deep ecology of self-realization goes far beyond the definition of self in modern Western thought. The self defined by modern Western thought is mainly the isolated self striving for hedonistic satisfaction; this is a narrowly social-programmatic self. The narrowly social-programmatic self, or social self, departs from the self as we ought originally to define it, and it leads us to follow fashion. Only when we no longer understand ourselves as isolated and narrowly defined, mutually competing individual selves, and begin to integrate ourselves into family, friends, other people, and ultimately our species, will spiritual sublimation or manifestation begin. But the deep ecological meaning of self still needs further maturation and development; one must recognize that there is also a nonhuman world beyond the human.” [156]
This theory of self-realization, which expands the “self,” along with the holistic view that treats humans and nature as one, is also precisely where deep ecology is often criticized. Val Plumwood, for example, argues: “Deep ecology’s ‘expanded self’ is not the result of a critique of egoism; rather, it is an enlargement and extension of egoism.” [157] — and of course this criticism is not unreasonable. But it should be recognized that even if deep ecology is some kind of egoism, this “egoism (Self)-ism” is entirely different from narrow “egoism (self)-ism.” When we regard the little self and the other as a whole, we display this kind of “egoism”; and when, in analyzing concrete problems, we separate out the “other” (not severing it), that broad sense of “egoism” can appear as “altruism.” All in all, this broad “egoism” is not only far nobler than narrow egoism, but also wiser than obsessive “altruism.” Here there is no longer any need to draw a clear distinction between egoism and altruism, because the boundary between “self” and “other” has already been broken down. Again, to emphasize: no boundary does not mean no distinction. While there is a blending and interweaving of “you in me, me in you,” the concepts of “you” and “I” are still preserved; “you” and “I” can be distinguished, but cannot be extracted.
In addition, treating humans and nature as one whole will not lead to “ecological fascism,” because fascism completely pits the self against the other, the inside of the community against the outside of the community. Treating humans and all things as one is the opposite: it emphasizes wholeness and unity, not only unifying humans and all things within one community, but also making the parts within that community into a relationship of flesh and bone within the same body, inseparably linked.
Of course, from a holistic perspective, one should not ignore or even erase the differences and particularities between me and the other. “You” and “I,” though neither can be extracted or torn apart separately, can still be distinguished—imagine the Chinese yin-yang diagram: yin and yang interpenetrate one another; within yin there is yang, and within yang there is yin. The whole system is always in a state of flow and never reaches a state of identical fusion, yet we cannot allow either yin or yang to exist apart from the whole. Here the difference between yin and yang is not erased; indeed, we may even say that the relation between yin and yang is one of complete opposition, but they exist within a harmonious whole that cannot be severed. Likewise, to say that humans and nature are harmoniously one does not mean that the two have no opposition; even if we go a step further and say that humans and nature are completely opposed, as incompatible as fire and water, it still in no way prevents us from placing them within a unified whole.
Another criticism says that “deep ecology is too abstract.” In a sense, that may indeed be true, because deep ecology begins with a reflection on the foundations of metaphysics and is a kind of ecological philosophy. Since it has risen to the level of philosophy, abstraction is unavoidable. But like other ecological ethics, deep ecology is also concerned with real-world problems, and its theory must ultimately be carried into reality.
As for deep ecology, I have relatively little material on hand—especially since few of its original works have been translated into Chinese—so it is difficult for me to describe it in greater detail. However, because the issues and modes of thought that deep ecology concerns itself with have many points in common with my own, including basic topics such as “What is human nature? What is the relation between humans and nature? What is the nature of truth?” and so on, which are precisely the matters I value, I will later explore these questions myself, or perhaps I may unexpectedly coincide with some of deep ecology’s views.
Social Ecology, Feminism, Postmodernism
Social ecology and ecofeminism both believe that deep ecology’s reduction of the environmental crisis to a question of philosophical foundations is too abstract. They hold that the roots of environmental problems lie not merely in defects in traditional ethics or philosophy, nor in overpopulation or the development of science and technology, but in specific social factors; more concretely, in problems with the traditional socio-political system. Social ecology holds that one should not simply blame environmental problems on the development of science and technology or population growth; the fundamental cause of environmental problems is the “anti-ecologization” of social, economic, political, and cultural mechanisms. [158]
Murray Bookchin, the founder of social ecology, believes that: “Virtually all of our present ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. In fact, if we do not deal with problems within society thoroughly, we cannot clearly understand the present ecological problems, much less solve them.” [159] Ecofeminists, meanwhile, draw an analogy between the human domination of nature and the traditional domination of women by men, pointing out that overcoming the ecological crisis requires changing male-supremacist ideas and social institutions.
Of course, while opposing abstract philosophical inquiry, social ecology also criticizes traditional philosophical worldviews. Social ecology likewise opposes both the narrowness of traditional anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism. Bookchin points out that “…in this ‘either/or’ hypothetical mode of thinking, society is either separated from the organic world, or it recklessly identifies itself with the organic world, producing two extremes: an incomprehensible dualism and a naïve reductionism. … Social ecology believes that the view which severs human and nonhuman existence is bound to fail, because it cannot think systematically, and cannot approach evolutionary phenomena in a developmental way.” [160]
In short, social ecology and ecofeminism not only reflect on ecological crisis from ethical and philosophical angles, but also strive to initiate change in social culture and political institutions. One could say that they are a radical ecological philosophy, and they have exerted an important influence both on theoretical inquiry in ecological philosophy and on the concrete actions of environmental movements.
Finally, let me mention “postmodernism,” which also had an important influence on ecological philosophical thought.
Postmodernism is not a unified school of thought, but a general term for certain intellectual trends in the second half of the twentieth century that concentrated on reflecting upon and criticizing modernity. Postmodernism includes both deconstructive and constructive strands, and there are quite a few disagreements among different postmodern thinkers regarding various problems of modernity. However, in many respects postmodernism shares common ground: the various positions it holds are always sharply opposed to so-called modern ways of thinking.
Postmodernism has profoundly exposed the spiritual crisis of modern civilization. Griffin points out: “The essence of the Western spiritual crisis lies in the fact that human creative energy—now being misused for destructive ends.”[161]
Postmodernism opposes isolation and emphasizes wholeness and relation—“According to the modern view, the relations between human beings and others, and between human beings and other things, are external, ‘accidental,’ and derivative. By contrast, postmodern writers describe these relations as internal, essential, and constitutive.”[162]
Postmodernism opposes mechanism and emphasizes organicism: “In the postmodern cosmos, our understanding of human beings and nature is bound up with hoped-for practice. The formal conditions of this postmodern cosmology include reintegrating human beings—essentially life as a whole—into nature, while at the same time regarding not only all living beings as means to our ends, but also as ‘ends’ in themselves.”[163] “There is a world of difference between this postmodern consciousness, which merges with nature, and the modern consciousness of utilitarianism. Because individual beings at different levels in nature are all endowed with some degree of purposive freedom, acknowledging human thought or soul as wholly natural does not mean that human beings are ‘kings of creation,’ with everything else made for their use, nor does it mean that the intrinsic value of human beings can be placed on a par with that of a little insect. In this way, the postmodern view gives rise to a spirit that combines special concern for human well-being with ecological consideration.”[164]
In addition, postmodernism has absorbed the latest developments in modern science—including quantum physics, chaos theory, ecology, and so on—thereby profoundly influencing and changing many modern ideas and paradigms. Griffin says: “These postmodern scientific initiatives lead to the conclusion that a new paradigm is needed, one that philosophically will be more reflective, scientifically more complex, ethically more sensitive, and ecologically more sound.”[165]
According to Griffin: postmodern thought is thoroughly ecological; it provides philosophical and ideological grounds for the enduring insights advocated by the ecological movement.[166]
My own view has also been influenced by some postmodern thought, and this will be reflected in what follows.
Fifth Part — Heaven and Humanity
The previous four parts were narrative in nature, mainly recounting history and various related ideas from modern times, with my own thoughts running through them as I expressed support for or opposition to those views. The following three parts, by contrast, are expository: I will express my own impressions directly (of course, still drawing on quotations and evaluations of various related arguments to develop them).
First, I will examine some basic conceptual issues concerning nature, human beings, and the relation between human beings and nature. Clarifying these concepts is crucial both for placing human beings properly within nature and for regulating human conduct in nature.
Let us first look at a famous example from Zhu Guangqian—the three attitudes toward an ancient pine tree: suppose you are a timber merchant, I am a botanist, and another friend is a painter, and the three of us are looking at this ancient pine tree at the same time. We can all be said to “perceive” this tree, but what we each “perceive” are three different things. You cannot get away from the habits of mind of a timber merchant; what you perceive is only a piece of timber worth so much money for some use or other. I also cannot get away from the habits of mind of a botanist; what I perceive is only a flowering plant with needle-shaped leaves, spherical fruit, and evergreen foliage. Our friend—the painter—does not care about anything else; he cares only about aesthetics, and what he perceives is only a towering ancient tree of emerald green. Our three reactions and attitudes are also not the same. In your mind you calculate whether it is suitable for building a house or making tools, and think about how to buy it, cut it down, and transport it. I classify it into some family or other, note the differences between it and other pines, and wonder how it has lived to be so old. Our friend, however, does not think this and that; he merely gazes with intense concentration at its emerald color, its lines twisting like dragons and serpents, and its proud, upright, unbending bearing.[167]
What is nature? Modern people often cannot make sense of this most basic question. “The more transparent technology’s disclosure becomes, the more profound nature’s concealment grows. Precisely in an age when technology is flourishing, recollection of nature becomes an extremely difficult task.”[168] It is precisely because modern people have too many “habits of mind” that they are unable to see real nature.
In ordinary understanding, “environment” is often equated with “nature,” or even more strongly, “nature” is taken to be part of the “environment.” In fact, this is a distortion of the concept of “nature.”
Teacher Wu Guosheng believes that in the history of Western thought, “nature” underwent an evolutionary process from “growth,” to the “origin” of all things, then to the “nature” or “principle” of natural things, and finally to the “collection of natural things.”[169] We can see that “nature,” from its original organic concept of life, to the ultimate existence of all things, to the Dao immanent in the world, finally became lifeless, demystified “dead things”—this is precisely the process of the disenchantment of nature. Ecological philosophy seeks to break the idea of regarding “nature” merely as an “object” (for observation, research, exploration, and extraction).
Lu Feng points out: one of the fatal mistakes of modern thought is to confuse nature with natural things; environmental ethics must strictly distinguish nature from natural things. Natural things are concrete and can be known by science, whereas nature is transcendental and can only be intuited through thought. … Human beings have conquered many natural things and thus mistakenly think they have conquered nature; this is a foolish error![170]
Cao Mengqin writes: “The natural world belongs to the material world, to the collection of natural beings; nature, however, is the essence or inner nature of the natural world.”[171] I feel there is no need to distinguish too rigidly between the natural world and nature, because in current usage nature also refers to the natural world, and in Western languages it is even the same word. What matters is whether, when we speak of the “natural world,” we still remember nature’s most original and most fundamental meaning, or whether we regard the natural world only as a simple aggregation of natural things.
The distinction between nature and natural things is similar to the distinction between Being and beings. Cao Mengqin believes: “Within both anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric horizons, people are busy dealing with beings, defining human value, existence, and moral obligations in terms of the relation between human beings and beings, while the relation between human beings and Being remains obscure. Being remains in a state of concealment or oblivion. Yet to forget Being also means to forget human beings; to sever the unified relation between human beings and the natural world is also to sever human beings’ own authentic existence.”[172] Here, a simple and undifferentiated denunciation of all anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism is somewhat arbitrary, but the principle it points to is not wrong. It is improper both to regard nature as a collection of “natural things” to be conquered and to try to maintain harmony with “natural things” rather than with “nature.” The former one-sidedly emphasizes the antagonistic aspect of the relation between human beings and nature, while the latter ignores the necessarily conflictual relation between human beings and natural things. Both fail to see the difference between nature and natural things.
Teacher Zhang Shiying points out: “To say that human beings struggle with nature means to say that they struggle with natural things, not that they struggle with natural law … Human beings can struggle with natural things and make natural things adapt to human beings, but human beings must conform to natural law; natural law is something human beings cannot contend with or struggle against. In a word, if human beings are to live in harmony with nature, that means conforming to natural law by transforming natural things so that natural things adapt to human beings.”[173]
Many people’s criticism of the view of “the unity of Heaven and humanity,” or rather the view of “humanity and nature as a harmonious unity,” is precisely based on such an understanding: that “Heaven-human unity” overemphasizes the similarity between human beings and nature while neglecting its contradictory and conflictual aspect. In fact, the critics have failed to see the difference between “nature” and “natural things,” taking “the essence of human beings is consistent with nature” to mean confusing human beings with natural things. Of course, there do exist theoretical positions that reduce human beings to natural things for examination, but in my own theory, nature and natural things are fundamentally different: the former is abstract, essential, and transcendental, while the latter is concrete, actual, and empirically accessible. Just as regarding an individual person as a unified whole does not mean confusing the front limbs with the hind limbs, when we speak of human beings and nature as a whole, this does not negate the differences and conflicts that necessarily exist among human beings, between human beings and natural things, and between natural things and natural things.
In the natural world there is on the one hand a balance of mutual coexistence and mutual flourishing, and on the other hand a struggle in which the weak are prey to the strong. So which is it, harmony or conflict? Which is more fundamental?
As early as 1926, Henry Gleason challenged the traditional theory of ecological succession: “We live in a world that is in frequent flux and extremely non-permanent, rather than in one that tends toward stability.”[174] Moscovici also pointed out: “Ecology has long taught us that nature cannot be understood as a stable organic whole that is always in a state of harmony. Even without human participation, nature is also in a state of constant change.”[175]
In fact, nature is not “stable,” “constant,” or “balanced” in the ordinary sense, but unstable, changing, and chaotic, just like all the characteristics possessed by a highly ordered “dissipative structure” system that persists in moving away from disorder.
Modern nonlinear science offers a new path for understanding the natural world.
For example, physicist Robert May, drawing on chaos theory and persuasive experiments and observations, put forward a subversive view: “The greater the number of species, the more fragile the entire system.”[176] Because the more species there are, the more complex the entire system becomes; a slight disturbance may either be resolved quickly or, through chaotic effects, be amplified layer by layer until it produces catastrophic results. The higher the complexity, the higher the uncertainty.
Prigogine’s theory of dissipation holds that living things and some inanimate things have dissipative structures that exchange energy with the outside world. When fluctuations in energy exchange are small, the system maintains balance through negative feedback; but when energy fluctuations are large and the system is unable to self-regulate, positive feedback begins to operate, and under the impact of energy fluctuations that are continually strengthened and amplified, the system either collapses or reorganizes itself. … Negative feedback leads to stagnation, while positive feedback induces evolution.[177] The conditions under which a complex system can evolve from disorder to order are: first, a certain openness; second, suitable fluctuations; third, a state far from equilibrium; fourth, the occurrence of internal nonlinear interactions.[178]
Rather than saying that ecology is a system in a state of equilibrium or dynamic equilibrium, it is more accurate to say that it is a self-organizing system of dissipative structures in development.
If we compare the four conditions of dissipative structures with the characteristics of ecological systems, then first, openness is obvious: ecological systems cannot be closed, and the Earth as a large ecological system must draw energy from sunlight; second, suitable fluctuations are also easy to imagine: if the Earth did not rotate, if there were no alternation of day and night; or if there were no moon, no tides, life might not appear at all, let alone the maintenance of ecological systems. In ecological systems there must also be fluctuations of appropriate magnitude, such as alternating increases and decreases in species numbers (to regard this kind of fluctuation as “dynamic equilibrium” is in fact a misunderstanding); the occurrence of internal nonlinear interactions refers, in fact, to the complex, intertwined relations among species and between species and the environment, relations that cannot be simply quantified by formulas. An ecological system must certainly be composed of intrinsic complex relations. Finally, there is “far from equilibrium,” which at first glance is harder to understand, because what we are used to hearing are expressions like “ecological balance” and “maintaining ecological balance.” How are we to understand an ecological system as not only being in a non-equilibrium state, but in a state far from equilibrium? Yet the fact is indeed so: an equilibrium state—whether static or dynamic—means a lack of change and difficulty in development, whereas an ecological system is full of change and constantly developing, just as Moscovici pointed out: “We must move from a balanced, static ecology to a vital, moving ecology, in which disorder and order are intertwined, and growth thus becomes possible.”[179]
The impression of “stability” that ecological systems leave us is relative. If we are to call it “balance,” then it is also a relative balance that is changing, moving, and uncertain. To avoid ambiguity or excessive verbosity, we may use a specialized term coined by Cannon: “homeostasis”—“it does not indicate a fixed and stagnant state, but rather a state of relative stability maintained amid change.”[180]
Based on the above ideas, one may infer that a composite ecosystem of “humanity—society—nature” that includes human society is likewise non-equilibrium and in motion. As Moscovici put it: “Only by upsetting the balance of nature, like all other species, can human beings achieve evolution and development.”[181] “In short, however one understands society, society is fundamentally a kind of anti-nature.”[182]
Admittedly, any organism is not merely adapting to nature, but always has a strong tendency to transform nature so as to suit itself. Microorganisms and plants have transformed the atmospheric and soil environments, animals have in turn transformed plants, and human beings are now transforming every one of the above environments. This, in itself, is a natural thing. The problem is that this “transformation” has now become so crazed that it is no longer really “transformation” but almost “destruction.”
Mr. Qian Mu put it well: “Human beings bring culture forth from nature, and from the outset that already carries the posture of resisting and dueling with nature. Yet culture must ultimately draw near to nature and turn back toward nature.”[183] Human beings resist the natural world, yet they must also return toward nature and harmonize with it. This is not determined by human biological nature, but is a necessity of culture. In this section I am discussing nature; the topic of the relationship between human beings and nature is only touched on here, and will have to be taken up again later in the section “Human Beings in Relation to Nature.”
It is very interesting to regard nature as a living organism. This idea can be traced back to the organic conception of nature in ancient Greece, Buddhism, the cosmic living beings in ancient Indian legends, and so on, all the way to modern ideas such as the “Gaia hypothesis.” In these theories, nature is not only symbolically but in fact a living organism.
The development of modern biology, atmospheric science, and astronomy has all provided support for nature as a living organism. The American biologist Lewis Thomas compared the earth to a “cell”[184]; in the Gaia hypothesis of Lovelock and Margulis, the entire terrestrial ecosystem is a huge, breathing, self-regulating living organism.
The founder of what is called developmental mechanics, Wilhelm Roux, held that the characteristics of life are: (1) metabolism, (2) growth, (3) active motion (including irritability), (4) reproduction, and (5) heredity.[185] Considering that the earth is an independent super-organism surviving over the long term, reproduction and heredity may be left aside for the moment, and we find that the earth as a whole possesses the first three conditions of life. In addition, modern nonlinear dynamics regards life as a kind of turbulent negative entropy, and in this regard the earth too conforms extremely well.
I think the Gaia analogy is apt. On the one hand, this view of nature accords with scientific observation; on the other hand, this organic, holistic view of nature helps people change the traditional mechanical view of nature and offers new approaches for rethinking nature and humanity’s position within it.
Moreover, there are many ways to understand Gaia. To think that Gaia’s self-regulating capacity can dissolve all of humanity’s “suicidal” efforts is clearly an overly naive fantasy. Of course, Gaia’s vitality is tenacious enough when compared with human power. Even if humanity were to use nuclear weapons to “die together” with the entire biosphere, it would surely still be unable to destroy those tenacious life forms that exist in the depths of the oceans and the depths of rock layers—for example, beneath the Mariana Trench at a depth of over ten thousand meters, there are also hundreds of species of bacteria in the sea-floor mud where the pressure is nearly a thousand times that at the ocean surface; for example, the radiation-resistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, which can survive under a radiation dose of 1 million rads (human beings do not survive more than a few weeks under 1,000 rads); the thermophilic bacterium Pyrolobus fumurii, which can survive in temperatures above 110 degrees; the crustal autotrophic biological ecosystem SLIMES that can exist deep in the earth’s crust entirely independently of other life systems[186]…… As Lovelock said, “Even a full-scale nuclear war is not fatal.”[187] One can imagine that these life forms could ensure that Gaia still retains the chance of rebirth after the most thorough destruction. But to display Gaia’s vitality in such a way is obviously not something human beings would welcome.
As for how to understand Gaia, and how to understand humanity’s position within Gaia, I will expand on this later when discussing the relationship between human beings and nature as well as a holistic worldview.
The fundamental question posed to humanity by the ecological crisis is “What is the human being?” It demands that human beings answer what it is that they are in essence before the face of nature. Going further, the ecological crisis in essence proclaims a crisis of human nature.[188]
The Russian philosopher Berdyaev pointed out: ethics should also become a doctrine of human vocation; it should first of all recognize what the human being is, where the human being comes from, and where the human being is going.[189] Ethics is, in essence, a discipline that inquires into what it means to be human and how to be human. Below, I will make some discussion of this question.
Human Beings in Relation to Animals
Intuitively, we all believe that human beings are obviously different from animals, and that human beings are clearly superior to animals. However, some people have put forward different opinions, pointing out that human beings really have nothing all that superior about them. Compared with animals, humans certainly have greater powers of thought and language, yet in terms of strength, speed, sensitivity of the senses, and so on, they are weak. Every animal has some unmatched advantage of its own; so why say that these advantages of human beings are the highest? Why say that human value is higher than animal value? In Taylor’s view: “Killing a person is not a greater moral wrong than crushing an insect or uprooting a plant.”[190]
Some even go further and think that human beings are worse than animals—because humans are the greediest, the most shameless, the most base, and the most destructive. Human beings are destroying this planet, whereas other animals do not. So for these people, “I would rather kill a human being than a snake.”
These denigrating views of humanity, like blind conceit, are equally obsessive and one-sided. Forgetting the difference between humans and animals is as dangerous as forgetting their commonality. As Moscovici said: “The disenchantment of human beings seeks to eliminate the distinction between animality and humanity, reducing the two aspects of nature (the passive and the active) to a single mechanical principle.”[191] The root of the ecological crisis confronting modern humanity lies, on the one hand, in human beings having exalted their own status, and on the other hand in human beings having lowered their own nature. Originally, human beings occupied a position between gods and animals, but industrial civilization has turned human beings into “animals” with “the status of gods”! In reflecting on the ecological crisis, it is extremely important to clarify the similarities and differences between human beings and animals.
Before discussing this, it must first be made clear that what we are exploring are the characteristics of human beings as a “species,” not an examination of individual persons. For instance, finding a universally applicable trait that includes infants, the intellectually disabled, the mentally ill, the vegetative, and so on has nothing to do with our discussion of the similarities and differences between humans and animals. Infants are, after all, human beings who have not yet fully grown; the intellectually disabled and the mentally ill are not “normal people”; and the vegetative, as the name implies, have already lost some human characteristics and become “plants.” None of these people can express the “normal” nature of human beings. Only by regarding human beings as a whole “species” can one grasp the true characteristics of human beings.
Human beings stand at the absolute top of the biological chain, and this alone is enough to show how different they are. That is human “strength,” which other animals cannot compare with. Of course, this point by itself still cannot distinguish human beings from animals.
Marx believed: “Man is directly a natural being. As a natural being, and as a living natural being, he is on the one hand endowed with natural powers, vital powers, he is an active natural being; these powers exist in him as talents and as abilities, as impulses. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective being, he is a suffering, conditioned and limited being, like animals and plants.”[192] At the same time, Marx also clearly distinguished human beings from animals: “Animals are directly one with their life activity. They do not distinguish themselves from it. They are that life activity. Man makes his life activity itself the object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determinacy with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity.”[193] “Conscious life activity” is uniquely human. Thus, “animals merely build according to the standards and needs of the species to which they belong, while man knows how to produce according to the standards of every species, and knows how to apply the inherent standard to the object everywhere; therefore, man also constructs according to the laws of beauty.”[194] It should be noted that the meaning expressed by Marx’s sentence is completely different from “man is the measure of all things.” The latter holds that there exists in the world only one standard, namely the human standard, and that all others require human measurement before they can have value at all; Marx’s view, by contrast, is that every species has its own characteristic standard, and humanity’s special strength lies in not being limited to its own standard, but in being able to experience the standard of others and to apprehend the standard of nature. Thus human beings can consider not only themselves, but also other living beings and the beauty of nature. On this point, Marx is unquestionably profound.
I believe that “culture” is the most important characteristic of human beings.
“Human beings differ from jackals and bats in that when they are naturally born into the world they are unfinished, and only through culture do they become what they later are.”[195] If a wolf is born apart from the wolf pack, it will of course lose some of its wildness, but when it has the chance to return to nature, it will still adapt and behave without much difference from other wolves. Human beings are completely different. Human performance, besides being related to hereditary factors, depends more—and chiefly—on cultural factors. Rolston exclaimed: “The creation of culture is a phenomenon as astonishing as creation in the natural world; it is the most astonishing creation in the natural world. Genes transcend themselves.”[196]
Because of culture, human beings have thus acquired a “sense of dignity,” or one might also say a “sense of shame.” In the story of Genesis, Adam and Eve stole and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus became aware of the shame of nakedness. In fact, discernment of good and evil and a sense of shame are inseparable. It is precisely because human beings possess wisdom that they come to understand shame; only then does the distinction between good and evil arise, and only then are they distinguished from animals.
Toynbee pointed out: “Human beings are in such a troubled and perplexed situation that they are animals, and yet at the same time spiritual beings with self-consciousness. That is to say, because human beings have a spiritual aspect in their nature, they know that they have been endowed with a dignified aspect that other animals do not possess, and they feel obliged to uphold it. Therefore, when one is reminded that in physiological terms one is of the same kind as beasts, one naturally feels embarrassed about bodily organs, functions, desires, and the like that damage human dignity.”[197] Animals have no “sense of dignity.” For them, certain instinctive desires, such as eating and drinking, excretion, and sexual intercourse, are all perfectly natural. Even if animals sometimes appropriately control their behavior, they never feel ashamed of it or cover it up. Yet even those few people who claim that human beings are no different from animals, or even inferior to animals, surely would be extremely unwilling to go naked in public to excrete or have sex. This “sense of shame,” like those “desires,” also arises from human instinct. And clearly, the sense of dignity and shame that restrains desire is, compared with desire itself, a higher human nature, the place where human beings stand above animals. Human beings are by nature beings of desire, but even more so beings of dignity!
Because of dignity, human beings have thus acquired reason. Human reason was originally meant to overcome desire, yet modern people use “reason” to restrain the sense of shame. When people feel sympathy for the suffering endured by animals and nature, “reason” tells them that they do not feel pain, so there is no need to care. When people sincerely marvel at and revere the beauty and strangeness of the universe and life, “reason” tells them that these are merely combinations of atoms and electrons, so there is no need to care. When people feel ashamed of their greed and their desire for material enjoyment, “reason” tells them: greed is human nature and the driving force of social development, so there is no need to care… In short, the meaning of “reason” has been completely reversed, and human reason, which was born to restrain animal desires, has instead been driving the release of desire!
Because of strength, because of wisdom, because of the ability to sense others, and even more because of culture and dignity, human beings have become the “spirit of all things”—and not the “master of all things.” The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. Since human beings have become the strongest among the earth’s creatures, they should not forget their responsibility and mission. Noble human beings ought to have a spirit that transcends themselves, ought to treat all things well, and ought to feel gratitude toward nature. Only in this way can human distinctiveness be truly manifested. Human beings do need a little bit of arrogance, or more precisely, human beings need appropriate self-respect. Excessive humility, on the contrary, will become a pretext for human beings to evade responsibility. Human beings are the favorites of nature, the animals of dignity; we should face this squarely and cherish it.
Human Beings in Relation to Nature
I have already mentioned that whether one places humanity’s status above nature or nature’s status above humanity, both are views that sever and oppose human beings and nature. Human beings and nature are one body; the relation is not one of above and below, but one of mutual interior and exterior, mutually interpenetrating and blending.
Rolston believes that environmental ethics should “focus on eliminating any fixed boundary between human beings and the world.” “Human vascular systems include not only arteries and veins, but also rivers, oceans, and currents of air; clearing away a pile of garbage and filling a cavity in a tooth are not essentially different. The self, through metabolism, interpenetrates with the ecosystem (at least in a metaphorical sense), and the world and I become one.”[198]
The topic of the unity of human beings and nature will be discussed later in the section “The Integration of Human Beings and Nature.” In the previous section, I emphasized the strikingly distinctive status of human beings; in this section, I want to take the opportunity to speak in passing about another equally important point—human beings are a part of nature.
Human beings are a part of nature. This is something people often forget. Not only do the destroyers of the natural environment forget this; some of those who advocate protecting the natural environment also forget it.
Human beings are a part of nature, and this means that human beings are one of nature’s creators of beauty. But many “naturalists” dislike humankind; they try to seek out scenes of “pure nature,” believing that only that is the most beautiful. Little do they know that humanity and nature have long since become inseparable—where is there still any pure nature? Wilderness, you say? “Facts have already shown (through pollen analysis) that the so-called ‘wilderness’ in the American West, which people praise, was actually produced under the influence of the fire-agriculture economy of the Indians.”[199] In the age of hunting civilizations, human footprints had already covered all the land on Earth where human beings might possibly survive; let alone in modern times, where would there still be any pure nature detached from human presence? … Even if there were places no one had ever set foot in, once you walked into them, the nature there would also merge with you.
When a person appreciates nature, he is likewise appreciating himself. As Rolston says: “But if we examine a little more deeply. ‘I’ discover that ‘I’ as evaluator am myself surrounded by a ‘scene’ … My whole evaluative activity, including the openness of this evaluation, is itself a natural event. … We must now examine how this whole event, which includes both subject and the object evaluated by the subject, occurs within a natural environment.”[200] To remove oneself from the world and take up a position outside nature in order to appreciate nature is not only difficult to do; it is also not a good way to appreciate natural beauty.
Paul Shepard points out: “The imagination that crosses boundaries … sees man as a part of the natural scene, and makes him appear noble and expansive rather than threatened, because the beauty and complexity of nature are continuous with us.”[201] Only when we truly recognize that the beauty of nature is continuous with ourselves do we truly experience natural beauty.
Since we ourselves are also a part of nature, then our own existence is the most direct way of manifesting nature.[202] We cannot stay away from nature, but neither should we stay away from human beings themselves. Human beings are not only one embodiment of beauty in nature, but also the most important appreciators of natural beauty. Wang Yangming once said: “Without human intervention, the flowers in the mountain, though still in bloom, bloom in silence.”[203] Human beings possess an especially fortunate and invaluable ability: we “know how to appreciate” nature, and our activity of appreciation itself also infuses nature with vitality and energy.
Having discussed the proper position of human beings among all things and within nature, let us now turn back and repeatedly examine that original question: what is the essence of human beings? For this is a question of too much importance.
Human life arises from nature, and in human nature there must naturally remain quite a number of traces left by natural evolution—for example, human beings are born greedy, jealous, aggressive … Of course, even if we consider only human animal nature, it is not always so unsightly. “Observational studies of young children in many Western social-psychological works have also proved that human beings are innately inclined toward altruistic behavior: ten-month-old infants will clearly try to comfort injured parents or siblings, … and when they see another child injured, they tend to show the same pain as when they themselves are injured.”[204] On the other hand, and more importantly, human beings are not merely biological, bodily beings; even less can we ignore that human beings are spiritual beings. Ikeda Daisaku points out: “If we assume that the role of the spirit is regarded only as something empty, as a fabricated phenomenon, then the dignity of human beings, and the ways of action that human beings establish in order to obtain dignity, will all become absurd things.”[205] The various problems modern people face—including crises of faith, society, and nature—are all caused by people’s neglect of their own spirituality. Human beings have taken God’s place only to become animals; this is the most dangerous thing.
In facing the ecological crisis and seeking its roots, some people see only humankind’s arrogant side and not its self-deprecating side, and thus try to reconcile with nature by further degrading human beings. For example, the British biologist Goldsmith believes: “The fundamental way for human beings to avoid confrontation with nature is to return to primitive life.” The American philosopher Feinberg declares: “If human beings in some way destroy themselves, and at the same time bring no harm to the rest of earthly nature, then that would not violate the rights of other life.”[206] Such proposals are not only absurd, they would make matters worse!
Rolston points out: “In environmental ethics, in a deeper sense, the human mind grows to the fulfillment of its own nobility through proper respect for the nonhuman values in the natural world; here human beings are above the whale.”[207] Human beings should respect nonhuman value precisely because of human nobility.
To completely equate human value with natural beings, to stress that human beings are ordinary members of the biotic community, ordinary citizens of the land community, ordinary species within the ecosystem, likewise carries the tendency to degrade human beings into animals and make them lose the dignity of being human.[208]
Some non-anthropocentrists, by acknowledging the equal status of natural things and human beings in order to elevate the value of natural things, are in essence doing so at the cost of lowering or sacrificing human dignity. To use an imprecise analogy: it is like a family in which I have elderly, ill parents above me and young children below me. According to traditional individual-centered thinking, I am the master of the family, and everyone else has to obey my orders and serve me; this of course is unreasonable. But on the other hand, if I were unilaterally humble, overemphasizing the equality of every member in the family, even stressing that I am their appendage, would that not arouse suspicion of “shirking responsibility”? A better understanding should be this: although I do not have any outstanding capital to be arrogant about, it cannot be said that I do not have an outstanding role, because I must bear the greatest responsibility—I am the head of the family; this is a mission, and I should not evade responsibility.
Finally, let me mention in passing a new and striking “research result” by George Williams and William Hamilton—the “selfish gene.” They claim to have discovered the essence of all biological behavior: “Plants and animals are not born to serve their own species or themselves; everything they do is for their genes.”[209]
In this brand-new theory, no behavior of animals can have any other purpose; its fundamental purpose is simply to continue its genes. For example, 50% of a child’s genes come from the mother, and that is the root of “maternal love”; or if cousins may share 25% of their genes, then mutual support among siblings arises from this…
Williams explains: “When a modern biologist sees some animal busily working for the benefit of other animals, he has only two guesses: one is who instructed this animal to do so; the other guess is that this animal is very cunning, and while busily engaged in its own affairs (increasing the survival rate of its own genes or the success rate of gene replication), it lets the other animals see none of it at all.”[210]
This theory was quickly extended further to human beings. The advocates of the “selfish gene” then went on to discover the “selfish embryo”[211]: on the one hand, the mother hopes the fetus will be born at term, because that way she can pass on her genes to the next generation; the fetus, in turn, hopes the mother will be safe and healthy, otherwise it will lose its own life. Yet on the other hand, David Haig’s research shows that apart from certain shared interests between mother and fetus, “each one’s genes also harbor ambitions of their own; the fetus uses hormones to direct the flow of blood to the mother’s bodily tissues so that it can obtain more blood, while mother and child together are striving to produce two hormones with opposite effects and are waging a battle for blood sugar…” I want to ask: what are they trying to show by emphasizing such findings? To use them to confirm the rationality of human nature’s “selfish” essence? Could it be that, in those scholars’ view, humanity with several thousand years of civilization history is still in the “embryo” stage, not even as good as infants? Primitive human beings in the pre-civilizational period and their relations with others and with nature may perhaps be compared with so-called “selfish embryos,” but now that human culture has developed to such a height, even if one says we have not yet “come of age,” we ought by rights to have long since left the infant stage behind, should we not?—we should be learning how to “be human”; how absurd it would be to keep comparing us with the behavior of infants or even fetuses! The scholars’ thinking has never escaped the infant stage. They know only the human being’s “biological” nature, and never consider the social and cultural factors in human nature.
In Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and in Alexander’s work, human nature has been discarded; human beings have become animals, or even not animals at all—genes have become the essence of human beings. Those occasional acts of genuine altruism by human beings are also denounced by them as “an evolutionary mistake.”[212] Human beings are selfish and only selfish; baseness is one kind of selfishness, and nobility is another, more clever or more cunning kind of selfishness … It must be admitted that, to some extent, their view can be made self-consistent—since those truly altruistic cases can be regarded as exceptions, there is not much factual basis left to rebut them.
The problem, however, is that they never consider the fact that human beings possess culture; in the construction of their theory, there is no need for the element of “culture.” They see only the evolution of human beings as biological genes, while ignoring another kind of evolution unique to human beings as human beings, namely cultural evolution. Even by their own logic, their perspective is one-sided—they only notice the tendency of human beings to “let their own genes continue to multiply and persist,” while ignoring another tendency, namely the effort to preserve and continue one’s own culture, or more specifically, the expectation that the opinions and ideas one identifies with should live on. People always fantasize about “being remembered for a thousand ages”; they are always enthusiastic about spreading their language, knowledge, experience, morals, and thinking to others and teaching them to the next generation, rather than merely being satisfied with reproducing offspring.
Of course, neither genetic evolution nor cultural evolution is sufficient to express the ultimate meaning of life. I believe that the fundamental pursuit of life lies in “self-affirmation” (self-realization). Continuing genes or transmitting culture are both ways of affirming the self, while the more essential pursuit lies in affirming the value of human existence as human existence. Living a dignified life, one that accords with human nature, is precisely the best way to affirm human beings as human beings. This issue will also come up later in the text.
Human beings are above animals precisely because they are not selfish. Human beings not only know how to receive and take, but also know how to create and give. Griffin points out: “We receive creative gifts from others, and this receptivity, together with many other receptive values (such as food, water, air, aesthetic and sexual pleasure, etc.), constitutes a basic aspect of our nature. But we are also creative beings; we need to realize our potential, to obtain certain things through our own efforts. Furthermore, we need to make contributions to others. This motive, like receptive needs and achievement needs, is also a basic aspect of human nature.”[213]
In short, the essence of human beings can be summed up not only by “the rational animal,” “the symbolic animal,” or “the social animal.” More importantly, human beings are “the dignified animal”—human beings know shame and pursue nobility.
Toynbee points out: “To say that man is dignified is limited to cases in which he is selfless, altruistic, compassionate, emotional, and willing to dedicate himself to other living beings and to the universe. As long as one carries out aggression for the sake of greed, man will not have dignity.”[214] Human beings should protect other species and preserve the ecosystem precisely because this is necessary for realizing their own dignity and value.
The Integration of Human Beings and Nature
Having separately examined the concepts of nature and human beings, let us finally look at some questions concerning the relationship between human beings and nature.
Earlier in the text I repeatedly expressed the idea of the unity of Heaven and humanity. I believe this idea is at once scientific, ecological, ethical, and religious, and it provides a way out for reexamining the relationship between human beings and nature.
If human beings and nature are one, then the survival of nature is the survival of human beings; conversely, the continuation of human beings is the continuation of nature. Of course, you may say that without human beings, nature would still continue to exist, and that is certainly true. But nature having lost human beings is tragic, just as it is tragic for a species to disappear from the natural world; the extinction of humanity is an even greater sorrow—far from what a few extreme environmental ethicists say, namely that human beings should return to primitive life, or that it would be a great thing if humanity destroyed itself in some way that brought no harm to nature. This kind of thinking is absurd. Human wisdom is the crystallization of nature’s infinite mysteries, something that urgently deserves cherishing; to protect humanity is to protect nature. Hatred of humankind, by one-sidedly emphasizing the perfection of nature untouched by human interference and treating human activity, and even human existence itself, as unreasonable, goes on to completely negate human modern civilization. Yet it fails to see that human beings are not an existence external to nature; human civilization is also one expression of nature’s wondrousness. In the final analysis, they still sever human beings from nature and set them in opposition to it.
As noted earlier, likening nature as a whole to a living organism—Gaia—is, in my view, quite apt. This immediately gives rise to another question, namely the place of human beings within Gaia. This is also a question that often sparks controversy. In my view, treating humanity as a completely insignificant and irrelevant burden, or even as a tumor that ought to be eradicated, is plainly to belittle humanity too much—that is, to underestimate far too greatly the wondrous wisdom and painstaking labor of nature, which has created or brought forth human civilization. On the other hand, treating humanity as the “brain” that controls the whole of nature is too arrogant—my metaphor is the “rational part of the brain,” that is, the “heart-mind.” The value of human beings does not lie in their forceful power to dominate nature, but in the uniquely human capacity to “think” nature, “feel” nature, and “appreciate” nature.
In fact, many scholars hold similar views. Lovelock believes that “since human beings are the only members of this community with moral consciousness, the brain cells of Gaia, they possess a uniquely gifted ability, namely the ability to regulate themselves in a way consonant with the lasting well-being of the Earth to which they belong.” [215] Lewis Thomas said that “our role is that of the nervous system of the entire organism.” [216] Edward O. Wilson said: “If the other living things besides human beings are the body, then we human beings are the brain. From the ethical point of view, our task in nature is to consider all living things and protect this vibrant Earth.” [217] Yang Tongjin likewise said: “Humans are ‘the finest of heaven and earth,’ the nerves and conscience of nature.” [218]
In my view, it is very interesting to compare the relationship between humanity and nature to the heart-mind and the body of a living organism. Beyond its symbolic significance, this analogy can also be extended to some concrete issues as a source of inspiration. For instance, on the question of the relative standing of species, I liken human beings to “the rational part of the brain” within the natural organism—that is, to “the heart-mind of heaven and earth.” One should note that this part is not indispensable for the survival of the organism, but we can still say that reason is one of the most precious parts of the whole organism. For human beings, this is because reason is something that human beings have formed only through long ages of evolution; knowledge is what a person acquires after undergoing the experience and tempering of martial arts. We cannot bear to give up our reason; we cannot bear to erase our knowledge and memory! It is the same for Gaia, the natural organism: human civilization is what she has nurtured over billions of years and finally brought into being, and in human beings her greatness and wonder are concentrated and made manifest! Therefore, human beings should cherish themselves, cherish this hard-won wisdom, and not sink willingly into degeneration, nor abandon themselves in despair. Of course, human beings should not be too arrogant either. After all, human beings may not be the most important link in the entire natural organism. For example, relative to the head, the heart, blood, breathing, and so on may be more important, because life can exist without wisdom but cannot exist without a heartbeat or breathing; for nature, water, plants, air, and microorganisms, and so forth, are even more crucial. Of course, because of a certain psychology of self-respect and the pursuit of value, we often—or would rather—prefer to suffer from arrhythmia or breathing difficulty than to suffer mental derangement, even though the first two seem more important for survival. But we hope such a situation will not occur. The other parts of the body, too, each perform their own functions and coexist in cooperation. Of course, when we must make a choice between two impossible alternatives, the differences in importance among the various parts are forced to reveal themselves—for example, the throat is more important than the tongue, the tongue more important than the incisors, and so on. There are also some parts, such as hair and earlobes, that may not have utilitarian value but do have aesthetic value; and there are even some, such as the appendix, that perhaps cannot even be said to have aesthetic value, yet no one in their right mind insists on destroying those parts, because they exist naturally within the whole and have an intrinsic value of their own. To injure any part of one’s body for no reason is stupid and mad, and in a certain sense, what modern human beings have done is precisely this sort of stupidity and madness.
The relative value of the various parts of the body can be distinguished gradually, and can be distinguished in concrete issues; but as long as we first establish this notion of being one with heaven and earth, our attitude toward nature will change. We will do our best to cherish nature, just as we cherish our own bodies.
Of course, the place of human beings in relation to nature is far weaker than the place of the mind in relation to the individual person. Quite often, human beings do not have the power to manipulate the “body,” but are more often simply feeling and thinking. Thus some scholars also compare human beings to nature’s “nervous system.” Clearly, as a “nervous system,” we have become far too numb, so that when nature is harmed we cannot promptly feel the pain that ought to be felt; and when our will gradually becomes able to control the operation of a small part of nature’s “body,” we again become too carried away, too impatient, and even more stupidly and madly vent our petty bit of power through “self-mutilation.”
In addition, one must be careful not to misunderstand my view as saying that “nature is the body of human beings (understood in the narrow sense as human beings themselves).” That would reverse the relation of subordination. Just as, for a person, the concept of “I” is always a whole, and even though the organ used for thinking is the brain, no one ever speaks from the standpoint of the “brain” when speaking of “I”; likewise, if we say that nature is “my” body, then we are no longer confined to the standpoint of humanity. “I” then becomes the entire natural world. This is what it means to “think like Gaia.”
Some people criticize the way of thinking that sees humanity and nature as one for neglecting the differences and conflicts among concrete things. I have already mentioned this point: regarding humanity and nature as the whole “greater self” is an attitude. This attitude does not lead to a simple conflation of human beings and human beings, human beings and natural things, or natural things and natural things—just as when you regard your hands and feet as parts of the whole body, that does not lead you to confuse which part should wear gloves and which part should wear socks.
Of course, the holistic moral view of “thinking like Gaia” alone is not enough to explain why we should reduce cruelty to animals and the like. On this point, I have in fact already mentioned it: compassion and pity are part of human nature, and altruism is necessary for human beings to realize their own value and dignity. These issues will be mentioned again later.
This part will be a concluding one. I shall, from the three most basic questions of philosophy—worldview, view of life, and values—carry out a comprehensive transcendence of traditional thought.
Only by earnestly understanding the sky can we take root in the earth; only by earnestly understanding the earth can we make life take root on the earth; only by earnestly understanding life can we take root in life. [219]
How human beings understand the world is a decisive factor in how human beings regard themselves and how they live. A person’s attitude toward life in the world and his conduct fundamentally depend on his worldview. To separate ethics from worldview is absurd. As Griffin said: “Modernity even dismisses as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ the view that our ethics are grounded in our cosmology (that is, that how we ought to live depends on our understanding of the nature of things). Having labeled this view a ‘fallacy,’ modern people can continue to trumpet with complacency that fragmented, disenchanted, power-based, competitive modern worldview.” [220]
Teacher Liu Huajie puts it well: “As the saying goes, the ignorant know no fear; reverence comes from the sublimation and transcendence of knowledge.” [221] Those who know nothing about science and those who have a deep understanding of modern science alike are sure to marvel at the wonders of nature; and those who despise great nature while worshipfully bowing down before “science,” those blindly self-confident people, are often the very “half-bottle” types who have learned only a little of the skin-deep surface of science. For example, some scholars believe that nature has no mysteries worthy of awe: “With the mapping of the complete human genome, with humanity’s thorough deciphering of the ‘book of life,’ the ultimate mystery of life will one day surely be clearly displayed before people.” [222]—but I have never heard of a biologist with the courage to utter such a shamelessly grandiose claim. Such people are the most dangerous, because they think they understand science, and have seen through nature, when in fact their ignorance is even greater than anyone else’s. The power of science is indeed undeniable: for example, the law of universal gravitation and the theory of electron orbital transitions allow human beings to give refined analyses of motions as small as the way an electron moves around a proton, and as large as the orbital paths of a pair of celestial bodies. But the smallness of science appears alongside this—so long as we add to the above model only a single electron in an attempt to analyze the second smallest element in nature, larger only than hydrogen; or add only a single star, in an attempt to analyze a three-body system that seems only a little more complex than a binary system—all the rules fall into chaos, differential equations become unsolvable, and even roughly simulating these motions becomes exceedingly difficult… “The three-body problem is hard, even harder than hard.” [223] Any concrete event in the real world is far more complex than an abstract model of three-body motion; things and things are always entangled in mutual influence. We do not even need to invoke quantum theory in order to recognize the limits of human technology.
Moscovici pointed out: “If ecologists do not establish connections with people in the scientific community, they can occupy only a marginalized position in natural policy; if people in the scientific community do not cooperate with ecologists and analyze the crisis in science from the standpoint of nature, they cannot solve this thorny problem, because the crisis of science is also a crisis of culture.” [224] The development of ecological philosophy depends on close cooperation with modern science.
The development of modern science has brought a tremendous revolution to our understanding of the world. Starting from the ground up, these new sciences have completely overturned the traditional cosmology, and have also provided new avenues for reexamining the relationship between humanity and nature.
As I noted in the introduction, the new sciences of the twentieth century that fundamentally changed people’s worldview mainly refer to relativity and quantum theory: “Relativity requires strict continuity, strict determinism, and strict locality, while quantum mechanics requires the opposite—discontinuity, indeterminism, and nonlocality… and yet both agree that the universe is a complete whole, though in different ways.” [225] Holism is the most important part of the new worldview.
Compared with relativity, quantum theory is harder to understand, but its revolutionary significance is even more thoroughgoing. In traditional conceptions, matter appears either as particles or as waves; yet quantum theory tells us that whether it is particles or waves depends on whether we observe it. For example, in a double-slit interference experiment—which is introduced in junior high school physics textbooks: a beam of light from the same source passes through two small holes (or parallel slits) and is projected onto a screen. Because of the wave nature of light, what appears on the screen is not the simple superposition of light emitted separately from the two holes, but an interference pattern of alternating light and dark produced by the interference of the two beams from the same source.—if we slightly modify this experiment, it becomes a display of the mysteriousness of the quantum world: because light is also particle-like—that is, light is made up of photons one by one—light cannot be divided into units smaller than a single photon. Yet we can set the light source to emit photons one at a time (modern technology can do this), still let them pass through the double slits, and strike the screen; in this way, each photon may leave a little dot on the screen. After repeatedly firing a large number of photons one by one, if we superimpose all the light spots on the screen, astonishingly, the interference pattern appears again! In imagination, each photon either passes through the first slit or through the second. Then, in an experiment with a total of 2N photons, about N go through the first slit and the other N through the second. So if we cover the first slit and let N photons go only through the second slit, and then cover the second slit and let the remaining photons go through the first slit, shouldn’t such an experiment be equivalent to the previous one (with both slits open at the same time)? But in fact it is not, because in that case what we get is only the simple superposition of two spots of light. In other words, the truth can only be this: when a single photon passes through the double slit, it passes through both slits at the same time, and interferes with itself! Yet if we want to observe how exactly the photon passes through the double slit—for example, by placing a detector in one of them—we still see that the photon either goes through the first slit or through the second; but at the same time, with our observation, the interference pattern on the screen also disappears… This is only one of the most common and simplest experiments revealing the mysteriousness of the quantum world. Heisenberg said: “If one does not understand the meaning of the quantum revolution, one may feel that this revolution is not so ferocious. For in this field, the object of research and cognition is not nature itself, … but our relation to nature.” [226] Heisenberg further pointed out that “when we speak of the picture of nature, we are in fact no longer referring to a picture of nature, but to a picture of our relationship with nature… Science is no longer in the position of an observer of nature; it is itself also part of the interaction between human beings and nature.” [227]
Modern ecology likewise emphasizes holism. Wu Guosheng points out: “Ecological science, which directly faces the reality of worsening environmental degradation and ecological crisis, is the dawn of the new sciences. With living examples, it shows people the consequences of ignoring holism and calls for the comprehensive revival of holistic science. It can be expected that in classical mathematical sciences such as quantum mechanics, and in emerging mathematical sciences at the submicroscopic and macroscopic levels such as systems science, unified theories integrating existing achievements will emerge. They will join forces with ecological science to bridge the gulf between the physical sciences and the life sciences since the Scientific Revolution of modern times, the gulf between the natural sciences and the humanities, and the gulf between humanity and nature.” [228]
In ecology, no individual or species exists in isolation; everything is an existence of “relations.” Modern ecology goes further and compares biological individuals to a negative-entropy turbulence, that is, a self-organizing stream of negative entropy, a countercurrent movement within the overall tide by which the second law of thermodynamics drives entropy upward. To make a simple analogy, it is like a whirlpool in a river—the whirlpool itself can never be an isolated reality, only a mass of flowing water; and the reason a whirlpool becomes a whirlpool can only be brought out when it is viewed within the whole flow of water. Apart from being inseparable from their environment, various living beings are also interwoven with one another; it is absolutely impossible to speak of one species while leaving all others aside. In fact, “the mitochondria in animal cells are indispensable for animal survival, yet they are independent forms of life, just like the chloroplasts in plants; they all possess their own genetic information.”[229] Everything is mutually related; there is no other way but to consider things as a whole.
Human beings, whether as observers or as components, cannot be cut off from nature. The new scientific outlook provides support for the idea of the “unity of Heaven and humanity.” De Gier and Sainsins point out in Deep Ecology: “Ecology tells us that the whole earth is part of our ‘body’; we must learn to respect it as we respect ourselves, and to feel all forms of life as we feel our own being.”[230]
“Nature in itself” can of course exist apart from humans (in the metaphysical sense). However, Habermas is right to say: “‘Nature in itself’ is an abstraction we must take into account, but we always view nature only within the horizon formed by human history.”[231] Nature is not nature without humans; it is together with human beings, and it is only because humans are there that it is nature,[232]
David Bohm, a representative of the “hidden-variable” interpretation of quantum mechanics today and an American scientist, also believes that “the whole world, whether society or nature, is evidently internally connected through the inclusiveness within our consciousness and our thought processes.”[233] He further tells us that “the general way a person thinks about the whole, that is, his general worldview, is decisive for maintaining the overall normal condition of the human mind itself. If he regards the whole as something made up of independent fragments, then that is the way his brain will tend to function; but if he can consistently and harmoniously take various things into a total, undivided, complete, and boundaryless whole (for every boundary is a kind of division or split), then his brain will also function in the same way, and from this ordered behavior will arise within the whole.”[234]
The worldview revealed by science has a decisive influence on how people act. The Cartesian system proposed two parallel and mutually independent worlds, the spiritual and the material, and one could study one without advancing the other. Under such a worldview and view of science, the plunder of nature by human beings becomes only natural; and to overcome the ecological crisis, emphasizing and popularizing a holistic worldview is extremely crucial. Of course, insisting on holism alone will also produce some problems, but a holistic view does not contradict the discrimination of particulars; we will discuss these later.
The Integration of Science and the Humanities
If nature and human beings are to return to unity, then the reintegration of natural science and the humanities has also become the general trend.
For a long time, because of the separation of the view of nature and the view of history, the separation of social science and natural science, and the separation of science and morality, the scientific spirit and the humanistic spirit were regarded as completely different and therefore as separate. Views such as “scientific value neutrality” and “science for science’s sake” have in turn provided an explanation and theoretical support for this separation, until the separation became a tradition. In fact, this separation neither accords with the reality of the objective world nor with the internal logic of the development of natural science and the humanities; it is not conducive either to the healthy development and flourishing of science or to the progress and perfection of human morality.[235]
Science cannot solve all problems; indeed, if there is no humanities and no ethics, science cannot solve any problem at all, and science itself will even become the source of trouble. This is because “science knows how to do things, but it does not know whether they ought to be done; science describes what is now (what was/what will be), but it does not know what ought to be.[236]” Whitehead pointed out: “Science cannot discover individual enjoyment in nature; science cannot discover purpose in nature; science cannot discover creativity in nature; what it discovers are only some successive regularities.”[237]
As one of the greatest scientists, Einstein had an especially profound awareness of the limitations of science: “The attainment of objective knowledge is the highest aspiration of humanity; you will certainly not doubt that I wish to diminish the achievements of the heroic efforts made by human beings in this field. Yet it is equally true that knowledge of what is does not directly open the door to what ought to be. People may have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and still be unable to infer from it what goals we humans long for. … Knowledge of truth itself is great, but its capacity to guide action is so weak that it cannot even justify and validate the very desire for knowledge of truth itself.”[238]
Technology and science can benefit humanity, but they may also become forces that destroy humanity and damage nature. Scientific research can no longer take itself to be “neutral” and draw a clear line against morality. In fact, there has never been any spiritual realm of “science for science’s sake.” From ancient Greece onward, what has science sought? “Truth.” But what is truth? In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, truth is “the good”; that is the ultimate goal they pursued. The ancient Greeks did not distinguish science from the humanities; in their view, the “true” and the “good” were one. Modern people, however, have severed the “true” from the “good,” and foolishly think that pursuing so-called “truth” in a pure way, without considering what moral position is in line with so-called “scientific spirit,” is actually absurd beyond measure!
David Bohm points out: “Because we are indivisibly included in the world, there is no fundamental divide between matter and consciousness. Hence meaning and value are not only components of the world, but also components of ourselves. If people adopt an immoral attitude in using science, the world will ultimately retaliate against science in a destructive way. Therefore, postmodern science must eliminate the separation of truth and virtue, the separation of value and fact, the separation of ethics and practical necessity.”[239] “Scientists can no longer delight in seeing themselves as super-moral, neutral experts in knowledge; they must find their place in this world full of value and moral responsibility, and undertake the difficult task of bringing into harmony the thought of life and the activity of life. … A respectful, sympathetic, co-present relationship with the natural world can bring deeper insight, understanding, and knowledge than that detached, non-participatory consciousness which seeks control.”[240]
Of course, concrete scientific research really does require a cool head, the elimination of distractions, and concentration; however, Mr. Qian Mu said it well: “If you take this to be the whole, if you think that the outside world and human life are really just like everything in your laboratory—equally simple, equally capable of infinite repetition—then scientific knowledge is indeed useful, but that kind of mental habit of yours is greatly harmful. Moreover, the usefulness of the knowledge you obtain will not be able to compensate for the harms of the mental habit you have developed, and the latter will be deeper and greater.”[241]
While we devote ourselves to scientific exploration, or rather before we even begin scientific exploration, we should understand why we are exploring. Science is not morally neutral; like the humanities, science pursues the good. “All religion, art, and science are different branches of the same tree. Their purpose is all to make human life become elevated, to sublimate it out of mere physiological existence, and to lead people toward freedom.”[242]
Schweitzer put it well: “We must inspire people, from this moment on, to once again carry out a thorough reflection on these questions: what is the human being in the world? What is he to do throughout his life? If people once again feel this necessity, value the meaning that gives their existence significance, and thirstily pursue a satisfying worldview, then the spiritual precondition for our once again possessing the capacity for culture will already have appeared.”[243] How we regard our life unquestionably has a crucial influence on our behavior.
I do not believe in immortality. I do not place my hopes for life in eternal things, but advocate the flash of brilliance of life in transience. Of course, if you believe in eternity, that is a good thing; I admire your sincerity. Therefore, if you firmly believe in eternity, you may as well skip the uncomfortable line of argument in the next paragraph. My argument is aimed at those who waver on the question of whether eternity exists.
The vast universe itself will also sink into ruin; it came into being from nothing and therefore will certainly perish. … Living beings are all thrown into life without active choice, and they will likewise be cast into death under unwilling conditions. Before them is emptiness, behind them is also emptiness, and they are surrounded by emptiness in between. Not only will individuals disappear, humanity will sooner or later disappear as well; all traces of life and even the earth itself will eventually disappear. … Our universe has already irretrievably been lost; our universe will certainly sink into ruin; we are done for![244]
All that is born must die. Modern science has long since proved beyond dispute that life must have an end, and even the solar system and ultimately the entire universe must inevitably move toward an end. Yet many people still do not believe this and fantasize that humanity will eventually find a way to escape—escape the Earth’s exhaustion of resources, escape the aging solar system, even escape the irreversible entropic death of the universe, discover or create a new universe, and so on. Others stubbornly deny the facts elucidated by science and regard those unpleasant scientific predictions as deceptive lies. Many people, even if they accept that the individual human being will certainly move toward death, are still unwilling to believe that the entire human civilization must also one day come to an end—“human life is limited, but serving the people is unlimited …” Does anything “unlimited” really exist? Just as there is no infinitely short time, time also cannot be infinitely long! Below, I use a simple non-physical argument to explain the absurdity of infinite time: each day of human life ought to be fresh; what we see and hear each day ought to be different from any day in the past. We can imaginatively record what the eye sees and the ear hears in one day into a 24-hour film; clearly, there could not be two such films in a human life that are identical from beginning to end. However, film can be encoded as digital information. One day, 100GB should be enough, right? In any case, this is a finite number M; for example, one byte contains 8 binary digits, so the number of different possibilities contained in one byte is at most 28, that is, 256. Then the information of M is of course also finite, namely 2M, although this number is so enormous that for any number in reality it is effectively equivalent to infinity; compared with eternity, it is still finite after all. Using the most basic mathematical common sense—the pigeonhole principle—we know: if 5 apples are put into 4 drawers, there will always be one drawer with at least 2 apples; if infinitely many apples are put into a finite number of drawers, then some drawer will have infinitely many apples. If time is infinite, then among infinitely many days, certain situations will be repeated infinitely often—if a person really could live for infinite time, then he must be living in some absurd cycle. Likewise, human society is composed of a finite number of people, and the same reasoning applies. A more easily grasped perspective is the finitude of literature: a work, in terms of length, is ultimately finite, for example A characters, and the condition of each character is also finite—English letters are only 26, and Chinese characters are merely several tens of thousands, for example B kinds. Thus the total number of possible combinations in a work is AB, which of course is still finite. Then in a society of infinite time, at some point people will discover that no matter how they rack their brains, the articles they write must all be “plagiarisms” from some previous work from beginning to end … I call this absurdity generated in infinite time the “paradox of infinite time.” Perhaps someone already thought of this paradox long ago and simply disdained to raise it. In fact, this paradox is not really of much significance, because the numbers involved have already surpassed any finite number that can be imagined—Buddhist units of counting such as nayuta and asaṃkhya cannot compare with it. But the unit invented by Professor Skewes of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, named after himself in a paper on prime numbers, can express 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 3; such an immense imagination has already reached the point of triggering the “paradox of infinite time.” In reality, for example, the number required to exhaust all possible moves in a game of chess already exceeds the total number of all protons and neutrons in the universe (1080), and considering numbers even larger than that is meaningless. The significance of the paradox I have offered is only this: without considering any physical science, one can logically and intuitively feel the impossibility of infinite time. Infinity is not only absurd in the real world; it also cannot reasonably exist in the imagined world. Of course, absurdity does not always prove impossibility. For example, the moment of the universe’s beginning in the Big Bang theory also involves infinity and is full of absurd implications. Everyone may as well forget what I just said and still believe in the existence of infinite time; after all, to entrust meaning and value to infinite time is better than having no support at all.
One should understand that existence in the material world (and the material world itself) is purchased at the cost of decline, ruin, and unprecedented destruction; the existence of life must bear rare suffering, and human joy and happiness are also all purchased at the cost of decline, ruin, destruction, and suffering.[245]
However, in the face of death, people are far too panicked and helpless: “People are all firmly seized by a dying mentality. Everyone wants, as much as possible before dying, to eat a little more, drink a little more, play a little more, enjoy a little more, and be a little more merry; by contrast, all spiritual pursuits are instead regarded as impractical, extravagant, hypocritical empty talk. Rationalism treats all noble humanity as nothing but a fig leaf for naked human animal nature.”[246]
People should not sink into this. “Man is great because he recognizes his own misfortune.”[247] Human beings ought to unite and support one another, “not because we shall be saved, but because we are already lost.”[248] As Albert Lien said: “People come into the world, they laugh, they move, and then suddenly they stop moving. This terrible adventure and the disaster soon to come must surely arouse our mutual sympathy and concern; otherwise it would be incredible.”[249]
The author of Earth, Homeland points out: “In the unknown adventures we undergo, the dissatisfaction that propels this voyage will never weaken. We should bear bewilderment and unease; we should accept the fact of ‘Dasein,’ that is, ‘being here, yet not knowing why.’ In the future, the factors that cause fear will only increase, and so there will also be a greater need for participation, enthusiasm, and fraternity, so as to restrain fear (not eliminate it). Love is the counterattack and antidote to panic, not a response to it. As a basic, visceral human experience, love develops mutual interpenetration, self-excitement, and the stimulation of the other to their highest state, unless this interpenetration and excitement have already been distorted by possessiveness……”[250] It is precisely because death exists that we need passion, courage, and love all the more.
How does one wish to spend one’s life? Paulsen explains: “The goal desired by every animal is the normal functioning of the various life powers that constitute its nature. Every animal wishes to live a life in accordance with its own activity; this innate quality reveals itself in impulse and governs the animal’s behavior. This formula applies equally to man. He wishes to live a human life that contains everything human—that is to say, a spiritual, historical life in which room is left for all the spiritual forces and characters belonging to humanity to act. He wishes recreation and study, labor and harvest, possession and enjoyment, making and creating; he wishes to love and to venerate, to obey and to rule, to fight and to conquer, to write poetry and to imagine, to think and to investigate. He wishes, as far as possible, to do all these things, and wishes to experience the relations of child and parent, student and teacher, apprentice and master; in such a life his will finds the greatest satisfaction. He wishes to live as a brother among brothers; as a friend among friends; as a companion among companions; as a citizen among citizens; and at the same time to treat his enemies as enemies. Finally, he wishes to experience everything that a lover, husband, and father must experience; he wishes to raise and educate the descendants who will preserve and continue his life. After he has lived such a life and fulfilled his mission like an upright man, his wish is realized, his life is complete, and he awaits the end contentedly; his final hope is to die in peace.”[251]
Where there is life, there is death. The question of “how to regard existence” is in essence the question of “how to regard death.” To be satisfied, without regret, without remorse, to “die in peace”—that is the ultimate goal of life. How, then, does one make life satisfying? As Paulsen says, a satisfying life is a process of self-realization, that is, the realization of everything essential and valuable in oneself as a human being. Hegel says that man, as long as he lives, always wants to obtain the recognition of others; my view of “self-realization” is not the same as Hegel’s “self-realization.” Self-realization can be obtained not only by expanding the recognition of others, but also by expanding “self-recognition.”
Expanding self-recognition is far more effective than seeking recognition from others. Extending one’s awareness of the “self” to family, friends, nation, country, and even all humankind, and finally fusing with nature as one—through this process, people’s lives are enriched.
Of course, some may say: whether an individual, all humankind, or even the entire universe will eventually die, what meaning can such an expansion have? The matter is simple enough: “The life of humankind bears many similarities to the life of the individual. We do not approve of the way an individual squanders all his wealth in the short term, hastily enjoys everything life has to offer, and then quickly leaves this world; as a species, we likewise should not choose a mode of existence that uses up the Earth’s resources without restraint, making it difficult for humankind to continue on Earth.”[252] For an individual, the pursuit is to die satisfied and without regret; for humankind or the universe, it is similar. When people extend the fate of the “self” to the fate of all humankind, self-realization becomes the realization of human value. Humankind will indeed perish in the end, but how it will perish is wholly unknown. Is it not exciting to throw one’s own tiny, brief life into that journey filled with unknowns?
Human self-realization is not a matter of taking, but of giving. Modern people seek to gain recognition from others through possession of wealth, lavish consumption, power, and status—this is not self-realization. Schweitzer was right to say: “If we truly experience the truth of the saying, ‘Whoever loses his life shall gain it,’ then our existence acquires true value.”[253] Toynbee points out: “Life corresponds to egoism, death corresponds to altruism.”[254] This makes sense: existence means taking from the world, whereas death means giving everything back to the world. And human nobility lies in the fact that one need not wait until death to enjoy the sense of fulfillment that comes from giving, which one would otherwise feel only in death. Toynbee further points out that “the great religions and philosophies all hold that everything that is to have the correct purpose as something capable of surviving as life should overcome its innate egoism and eliminate it. That is to say, one must renounce the self. Since such an effort runs counter to nature, it is also very difficult. But at the same time, there is no other way to truly fulfill oneself, no other way to make oneself satisfied and happy.”[255]
The purpose of life is to seek inner “peace.” As the saying goes, “a peaceful mind and a clear conscience,” peace of mind and moral rectitude cannot be separated. If one wishes to die serenely and contentedly, one must live a life without guilt, a life in accordance with ethics.
All questions of worldview and outlook on life ultimately converge on one issue: what is value? What kind of attitudes and actions are meaningful?
Of course, axiology is not yet ethics. Axiology examines what is “good,” whereas ethics studies what is “right.” “Ethics expresses ultimate concern; it is the ‘voice of conscience.’ To be human, one must have this ‘voice of conscience’ within one’s heart, because all human actions contain the judgment of conscience; otherwise punishment would have no basis.”[256]
I have always avoided judging whether specific rules of conduct are right or wrong. I believe that determining whether an action is correct is a complex issue that requires different considerations in different contexts; however, as the foundation for distinguishing right from wrong, the concept of the good is important. A person who sincerely pursues the good from the heart may not be able to guarantee that every single thing is done with flawless correctness, but such a person can certainly live without shame before their own conscience.
Let me mention in passing the issue of the “naturalistic fallacy”[257]. I already brought this up earlier, and quoted Griffin’s criticism of the so-called “naturalistic fallacy.” Here it is worth citing once more: “Modernity even dismisses the view that our ethical outlook is based on our cosmology (that is, that how we ought to live depends on our understanding of the nature of things) as the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ Since they have slapped the label ‘fallacy’ on this view, modern people can continue smugly promoting the fragmented, disenchanted, power-based, competitive modern worldview.”[258] A serious misconception of modern people is that they have split apart the originally unified “truth” and “good,” separating the pursuit of truth from the pursuit of virtue into two independent undertakings—only to end up unable to do either! Separating worldview from values is in fact an attempt to “mathematize” ethics; the rise of so-called “meta-ethics” marks precisely this point. Of course, rigorous logic and convincing inferential argument are certainly necessary; I by no means deny the significance of meta-ethics. But can we therefore abandon virtue? Even for the most abstract and logical science—mathematics—Gödel proved that there is no closed and self-sufficient theoretical system; there are always some questions that can never be proven or disproven. Can ethical theory develop independently of the real world and subjective attitudes?
Of course, concrete facts in nature cannot simply be picked up and pasted into ethics. I have already pointed out earlier the distinction between “nature” and “natural objects.” The “Way of Heaven” that “humanity” should follow is not about following the behavior of natural objects, but about following the most fundamental laws of nature. This kind of “Way of Heaven” needs to be discovered and intuited by people. Rolston points out that “rather than saying that the ‘ought’ here is derived from the ‘is,’ it is better to say that in describing the ‘is,’ we simultaneously discover the ‘ought.’”[259]
First, let us set aside nature and turn to the question of human relations. How much responsibility do we actually owe our descendants?
In the Chinese tradition, which places great emphasis on family, this question almost never arises; without doubt, we have a responsibility to create sufficient conditions for the development of future generations. But some Westerners would object to this.
Why should we be responsible to those not yet born? When we discuss this question, they are not present; and when they are present, we will be absent. We extend care to future generations, but they will not repay us; more than that, we do not even know what future generations need. Perhaps they do not like what we think is good, or even more, perhaps future generations may not exist at all… Thus, our fulfilling obligations and bearing responsibility toward future generations may seem like something utterly meaningless?
And yet, all this is of course absurd.
First, it must be pointed out that modern people have been so deeply influenced by economic thinking that, when contemplating many issues, they consciously or unconsciously bring in an economic perspective. This is true when thinking about humanity and nature, and it is true when thinking about human beings and one another as well—rights must correspond to obligations, and what one gives must correspond to what one receives. It seems that only if you perform half a catty of obligations for me and I confer eight taels of rights upon you—only then does it count as reasonable? Of course, if you have fulfilled certain obligations toward me, I ought to feel gratitude. But if you have given me no benefit at all, does that mean I should accordingly be utterly stingy, refuse to help in a life-and-death situation, or even kick someone when they are down? The idea that rights and obligations must be equal is a matter for jurisprudence to consider, not a matter for ethics!
Even if we discuss fairness, does refusing to consider the interests of future generations really count as fairness? Human society is a fluid whole. What we are discussing is the responsibility owed to this whole, not the rights-and-obligations relationship between a few individuals. “Our happiness is built on the foundation of resources, knowledge, institutions, and so on, left to us by our predecessors; correspondingly, if we leave future generations a substantial foundation, that can fully be called fair and reasonable.”[260] Since we inevitably make demands upon human society ourselves (upon our ancestors), then we are likewise, by the same token, obliged to give something back to human society (toward our descendants); that is what justice means.
The values of agrarian civilization are concentrated in the “past”: the experience and spirit of the ancestors are the foundation of people’s survival, and the “past” is regarded as having the highest value; continuing the path of one’s ancestors is the goal of life and the destination of social change. By contrast, the values of modern industrial civilization have turned toward the “present,” concerned only with what is current, immediate, limited, and practical, with value concentrated solely in this life. The value outlook of ecological civilization, however, should face the future: not only attending to the interests of the present generation, but paying even greater attention to the interests of humankind’s future, with the highest value orientation being that humankind can continue to exist.
A quick aside: we must keep a long-term view and not limit ourselves to immediate interests, but to set one’s gaze too “far” into the future is also meaningless. For example, to fantasize right now about how human beings might escape Earth and even the solar system tens of millions of years later or even five billion years later, how they might open up space colonies, what new abilities they might evolve, and so forth—these are at most material for science fiction novels, not topics scholars ought to discuss. Whether humankind can escape the various crises that may arise within tens of thousands of years, thousands of years, or even hundreds of years is still unknown; to think about the condition of humankind millions, tens of millions, or billions of years from now is simply empty and ridiculous.
The Value Outlook of Self-Realization within the Whole
Finally, let me summarize my own values. In fact, all of the following views have already been revealed earlier in the text.
As the title of this section suggests, what I advocate is a value outlook of “self-realization within the whole.”
First, there is the “holistic view,” and this is extremely important. Traditional ideas always consider only the relations between individual and individual, while paying relatively little attention to the whole.
Extending concern to the whole may be hard for some people to understand. For example, William Frankena, a philosopher at the University of Michigan, believes that in a moral community, one simply cannot “care for the whole,” “at least not when the whole itself is not a conscious, sentient being.”[261] However, when people come to understand that any individual is necessarily a being within the whole, that the individual itself is constituted by relations, they will change the way they think about these questions.
David Bohm put it well: “The general way in which we think about this world will be a crucial factor in our consciousness and in our whole being. If we see the world as separate from us, made up of parts that are manipulated by calculation and are unrelated to one another, then we shall become isolated people, and our motives in dealing with others and with things will also be manipulation and calculation. But if we can gain an intuitive and imaginative sense of the whole world, seeing that it has an order that also includes us, we will feel ourselves fused with the world. We will no longer be satisfied with mechanically manipulating the world merely for our own benefit, but will love it from the heart. …… If we include the world within our consciousness and treat it with love, the world that includes ourselves will respond. This is especially evident in society—even nature itself will not, in retaliation, degenerate because of pollution and the destruction of forests, but will begin to operate in a more orderly and beneficial way.”[262]
When we truly take the world as a whole, concern for the whole naturally arises.
By the way, I should point out: it is worth noting that there are also two different perspectives within the social view of holism. One is to regard society as a machine, and each individual as a part of that machine (like a screw), a kind of mechanistic view that sees social production as an assembly line, in which the individual is reduced to a tool and loses subjectivity. The other view, the holism I advocate, is to compare the whole to a living organism—this may seem to differ from the former only in symbolic terms, but in fact the difference is fundamental. In this kind of holism, the subjectivity of the individual is preserved, while at the same time an additional subjectivity, that of the living whole, is added.
It should also be noted that in a holistic view, the “self” should always be included. The whole is not something standing above the individual; it is an expansion of the self. I believe that such a holistic view will not lead to the error of so-called ecological fascism: the anti-humanity of fascism is not manifested in its placing the community above the individual; the key lies in its placing the community of the “self” (as the “superior race”) above other communities (as the “inferior races”). And in order to avoid fascism, to avoid human chauvinism, one should precisely expand the community as the capitalized “Self.” To absorb the “other” as an equal subject into a part of the “self” can only bring harmony, and has nothing to do with fascism; of course, it does not thereby negate the rights of the individual either, just as identifying with the collective interests of the “family” does not cancel the independence of each family member. When you expand the “self” to the “family,” that does not mean that you “become the master of the family members”; nor do you necessarily have to be the most important person in the family. Rather, it means that you should think for the interests of the whole family as you would for yourself. Expanding the “self” to encompass the entire ecology is the same.
Humanity that truly cares for nature necessarily requires human beings to transcend the opposition between “self” and “not-self,” to incorporate the nature of the natural world into the self and make it part of the self, and thus to be loyal to nature as one is loyal to oneself, to protect nature as one protects one’s own humanity, and to take responsibility for nature as one takes responsibility for oneself.[263]
Many people have criticized the idea of internalizing nature into the “self.” The main view is that this way of thinking weakens human subjectivity. Thus Wu Guosheng, for example, believes that the tendency to internalize nature is mistaken: “It makes nature a part of human beings themselves, a component of the human body, or makes human beings a part of nature, a component of the natural body. The result of doing so will inevitably, in different forms, cause the loss of human subjectivity, and also harm human existence and activity. For example, a view that is currently popular both at home and abroad holds that the relation between human beings and nature is not a relation of the survivor struggling against his living environment in order to survive, but rather a duty and ethical relation of mutual responsibility. This view is a typical internalization of nature, and its consequences—the loss of subjectivity and the crisis of existence—are also extremely obvious: of course we advocate protecting ecology, but this is because protecting ecology can better protect human beings; otherwise, we would not protect ecology ethically.”[264]
I admit that what Wu Guosheng says here has some truth to it, just as I have also mentioned that human society, like any other species, should develop through struggle with the environment; but struggle is only the external manifestation, and this does not prevent an internal unity and harmony between human beings and nature. Just as “the Dao gives birth to yin and yang,” yin and yang are obviously opposed and in conflict, yet they are also of the same origin, internally united, and inseparable. And what is superior about human beings is precisely the ability to realize this inner unity beneath the struggle. Ordinary species obtain survival and development by upsetting the balance of nature and confronting the environment; this is a law of nature, and it also applies to human beings. But one must note that the actions of ordinary species do not exert such excessive influence as to endanger nature and themselves—nature can always, by certain means, hold them in check, so that their transformation of the environment never exceeds the environment’s capacity to bear it and thus heads toward collapse. But human beings are different. The power we possess is too great: we stand at the top of the food chain, and there is no natural enemy to restrain us; and even when an ordinary animal stands at the top of the food chain, the finiteness of environmental resources will still limit its unchecked development, whereas human beings can reclaim forests as farmland, build cities in the wilderness, and extract mineral deposits from deep within the rock…… supporting their unbounded expansion through the endless destruction of nature. Human beings’ power to transform nature is too great, yet there is almost no other force in nature that can balance it—this is the major difference between human transformation of nature and the transformation of nature by ordinary जीवs. But in the long run, endless expansion is impossible. Perhaps we must wait until a total ecological collapse, until a great catastrophe serves as the balancing force; or perhaps wait until the depletion of natural resources triggers the eruption of evil forces in the human heart, using humanity’s own power of mutual slaughter as the balancing force—in fact, both of these situations have left us painful lessons in history: the former is embodied in the decline and fall of ancient India, ancient Babylon, ancient Palestine, and the Maya civilization, while the latter, in China, appears in the historical fact of “long division leads to union, long union leads to division,” with warfare repeatedly being used to “knock out” surplus population. And clearly, neither of these two methods is something we would wish to see. So, is there another balancing force? I believe that this force still exists within humanity itself…… Fortunately, human beings are not only greedy but also wise. Human beings are the only species that does not have an external natural force as a gentle balancing power, and precisely also the only species that possesses the power of reason. The power of reason enables human beings to escape various external constraints, and at the same time becomes an internal constraint. Other creatures can only treat nature according to their own measure, whereas human beings can perceive the measure of nature; human beings can recognize that nature, composed of all kinds of local confrontations and competitions, nevertheless presents a perfect harmony in its totality. On the one hand, human beings need to struggle against the environment for survival and development; on the other hand, they can also discover their fundamental identity with nature, viewing human beings and nature as one. This is not only not a loss of human subjectivity, but on the contrary a manifestation, transcendence, and sublimation of human subjectivity!
Expanding the self into the whole does not require dissolving personal independence: the idea that we must completely abandon the concept of the independent individual is actually wrong too. Whitehead once pointed out that extreme relatedness and extreme individuality are essentially interconnected.[265]
In fact, I would point out that expanding the self is itself a kind of “self-realization.” Linking the fate of the individual with the fate of the whole of humanity and nature is precisely the best way to realize self-worth!
Criticisms of “self-realization theory” point out that it “places too much emphasis on the identity and connection between human beings and other beings, neglecting or even obliterating the differences and characteristics between the two,” that “self-realization theory has not reflected on or criticized the worldview of egoism,” and so on. I believe that endlessly emphasizing sameness or placing too much weight on the “self” is indeed inappropriate, but these are not necessary conclusions of “self-realization theory.” Those critics often still hold to some kind of “either/or” dichotomous perspective, assuming that emphasizing sameness must ignore difference, and that focusing on the self must necessarily disregard the other. In fact, self-realization theory emphasizes the “self” as a whole, but that does not mean excluding individual differences or altruism. What self-realization advocates is an inward, fundamental attitude toward life and a pursuit; this “attitude” helps people extend their moral concern, and this “pursuit” helps people search for the ultimate meaning and destination of life, but it has never claimed that the self is everything. It can coexist with other attitudes and pursuits, such as competition, development, freedom, altruism, and so on.
Like expanding the self, altruism of sympathy and dedication is also a necessary path to self-realization. “Of course, carrying the spirit of altruism into nature is not altruism for altruism’s sake, nor is it to make human beings merely tools serving nature. As a basic characteristic of human beings as human beings, the spirit of altruism is always closely related to the realization of human self-image and self-worth. It is a necessary link in the self-perfection of the subject. If altruism is detached from human self-realization and becomes merely a means to satisfy his or its needs, then human self-existence is negated.”[266]
So what, after all, is the center of the value orientation of “self-realization in the whole”? First, one can say that it is ecology-centered, as is the classification given to deep ecology in almost all relevant introductory works. But on the other hand, since ecology is the expansion of the human “self,” and nature is human beings themselves, then being ecology-centered also means being human-centered. Put differently, it is not “the other”-centered, but “self”-centered. Of course, it should be noted that when I speak here of what is “centered,” this is only a makeshift and convenient way of speaking, a response that must be made in the course of inquiry; but in the final analysis I oppose the very question of “what is centered.” The habit of dichotomous categorization, of either/or, inevitably brings about one-sided thinking.
Ecological philosophy was born out of crisis; from the very beginning it was destined to appeal strongly to practice, and to find it difficult to become a cold, detached discipline.
In academic circles, ecological ethics is generally classified as applied ethics. I believe that, on the one hand, ecological ethics contains reflection grounded in the traditional philosophical foundation, and is therefore beyond ordinary applied ethics—that is one of the reasons I titled the paper “ecological philosophy.” On the other hand, ecological ethics cannot, and should not, sever itself from traditional philosophical ethics. Philosophy has developed over several thousand years, with rich content and many schools; how could all those thoughts on the world, life, and value simply be overturned at a stroke? In reflecting on harmful ideas in the tradition, we are at the same time reviving the valuable ideas within that tradition. Therefore, ecological philosophy is, in a certain sense, “transcendent,” but not “subversive.” Ecological ethics is rooted in philosophy as a foundation, while aiming at applied ethics. Any attempt to detach ecological ethics from practical application, or from its philosophical foundation, will strip ecological ethics of its meaning and make it unintelligible.
On the other hand, ecological philosophy should not be about seeking to construct a rigorous and massive theoretical system. “It is not only a system of knowledge; it can also become a faith, a lifelong and thoroughgoing faith, an ultimate concern akin to religious faith.”[267] “If one hopes to fulfill the mission of revitalizing morality, one cannot simply bury oneself in concrete case analysis; one must work for the sake of awakening the power of faith.”[268]
Therefore, an important question is this: even if we have argued in ethics how clearly human beings should coexist harmoniously with nature, it may still have little effect on changing people’s current behavior. Because, in a certain sense, modern humanity can be said to have fallen into an age of faithlessness and moral decline. In this age, money is supreme and material desires run rampant; many people are simply indifferent to morality, and even scoff at moral preaching. No matter whether it is some humanist moral view or some naturalist moral view, none is as persuasive as money. In such a situation, the reconstruction of values and the revival of moral constraints are the most urgent tasks. Before discussing what kind of moral outlook the public ought to uphold, the public should first be people who value morality and observe morality. In a society saturated with materialism, lost in spiritual aspiration, and in which moral restraint has already yielded to law and economics, the pressing task should be the recovery of faith and the rebuilding of values. We must recognize this soberly; otherwise all argumentation on ethical theory will be nothing but empty talk!
How to Deal with Disagreements
As an emerging field, ecological philosophy (or environmental ethics) is marked by many schools and many controversies. From the standpoint of disciplinary development, disagreement is a good thing; if there is only consensus and no argument, then the discipline has no room to grow.
However, being fixated on disagreement is also inappropriate. Some issues can be seen more clearly through debate, while for others the opposite is true: clinging to argument may cause one to sink ever deeper, moving farther and farther away from the mission that ecological philosophy ought to bear. Ecological philosophy carries the mission of responding to the human crisis, both the natural environmental crisis and the crisis of the human spirit. This requires scholars not to stop at theoretical conceptual disputes. Whether human-centered or non-human-centered, naturalist or humanist, individualist or holist…… theoretical debate is necessary, but that is by no means the mission of ecological philosophy.
It should be admitted that, in the real social environment, human-centered environmental analysis has greater impact on the immediate crisis and is also more effective in the popularization of environmental awareness; this deserves recognition. However, at present, a few human-centered scholars, when it comes to environmental issues, have not put effort into promoting or protecting ecology, but have instead wasted more of their breath on condemning non-human-centered thinkers. Of course, this situation also exists among non-human-centered scholars. We must clearly recognize that ecological ethics can absolutely not follow the example of many previous philosophical issues and degenerate into disputation buried deep within academia and unknown to the public. Environmental issues require not only all scholars—including those holding all different views, including scholars of any scientific or humanistic discipline—but should also welcome any ordinary person—all people closely connected with ecological issues and with the fate of humanity—to participate in discussion and practice.
Discussion of ecological philosophy is open to everyone, and this brings another problem: “People’s value concepts are also becoming increasingly diversified, and this is a basic social fact that we must face.”[269] People care about different issues and hold different value orientations; how, then, can one establish a set of ecological ethics that can be widely accepted?
It is difficult to establish a set of ethical theories that might be widely accepted, so difficult that it is almost impossible to achieve. I believe that, in fact, we do not need to establish such a universally accepted ethical system.
Suppose we ask doctors this question: among all your therapeutic skills, which one best guarantees recovery of health? The most likely answer is, none—or all of them. No single method is best in all circumstances, but each is best in a specific circumstance. Perhaps we should also think about ecological philosophy in this way. No ecological philosophy is correct under any and all conditions, but each brings something important to ecological ethics. Each helps us, from a different angle, understand the value and place of human beings in nature.[270]
Here, Des Jardins’s proposal is very interesting—“environmental pragmatism strictly adopts moral pluralism, expressing a middle ground between monism and relativism.”[271] Pragmatism is neither monism nor does it lead to relativism; it is an attitude of “seeking common ground while reserving differences” — “the pragmatist method is not some special result, but merely an attitude for determining direction. This attitude is not to look to the first things, principles, ‘categories,’ and assumed necessities; rather, it is to look to the last things, gains, effects, and facts.”[272] To look at ecological philosophy from a pragmatist perspective does not mean that the philosophical foundation of my ecological theory is pragmatist philosophy; rather, it means that when we face disagreements, we should not cling too much to arguments over right and wrong, but should instead focus more on their aims and effects. You may be motivated by compassion for animals, I may by concern for humanity’s fate, and he may by concern for the earth’s ecological system, but everyone’s aspirations still overlap in certain respects. In that way, we can pause our disputes and understand one another. We need not hasten to search for flaws in the other side’s theory; in fact, philosophy itself is pluralistic, and there is no absolute standard to follow. Thus, we should even less busy ourselves with attacks and refutations; finding common ground is what is more meaningful. Of course, the author’s entire essay also carries out this pluralistic attitude, and the author’s accounts of the various traditional and modern schools of theory all chiefly emphasize what is precious or reasonable in them.
We say that ecological philosophy is practical, so what relationship does this practice have to us?
Most of us are ordinary people. We do not have the ability to change the functioning of society, much less the ability to stop the destruction of nature. But although our power is tiny, it is part of the whole world: “No one can wave a magic wand alone and wipe out most of the world’s nuclear weapons; neither you nor I can single-handedly restore the earth’s natural environment and resources to their original state and preserve them intact. What we can influence and control to a certain extent are our own goals, words, and actions. If enough of us make good choices, then the bright future of human civilization will develop in a good direction.”[273]
Perhaps our efforts and contributions are negligible; nevertheless, dedication itself brings us enthusiasm, fulfillment, and happiness: “In the course of human life, the greatest happiness comes from dedicating one’s best efforts to heroic, significant challenges. What could be more exciting and stirring than playing a role, however small yet significant, in the grand and magnificent comedy of humanity? In that drama, people feel energized and devote themselves wholeheartedly to life.”[274]
As young people, we bear humanity’s future, yet at the same time we are among the most vulnerable. Toynbee points out: “The immoral influence brought about by the shameful weakness shown in response to today’s crises will undoubtedly leave the minds of the younger generation barren. Young people feel there is no way out and abandon themselves or rebel against society. This reaction in fact takes the form of destroying one’s own life in various ways. Young people are helpless before the broken situation in which their predecessors, unable to solve various social problems, have had to leave them to bear. … But the young people who are moving toward destruction do not seem to have faced the fact that, as human beings, young people possess the same essence as their fathers and therefore also a certain degree of freedom. Although they do not yet have the same great ability as their fathers, they likewise bear some responsibility for deciding the fate of humankind.”[275]
“To eliminate the threats to human survival, there is only one way: a revolutionary transformation in each person’s inner life.”[276] In fact, even if we do not carry out highly effective environmental practices, as long as our thinking changes and we accept an ecological worldview, that in itself is of great significance.
Of course, the reality of society is still not optimistic. The destruction of nature, like some other problems facing modern society, is caused by a “prisoner’s dilemma”; the “tragedy of the commons” is a manifestation of just such a dilemma. When people all go mad in pursuit of their own interests, an altruist not only suffers greatly in his own interests, but in turn lets the selfish party profit, emboldens the selfish party’s arrogance, and may ultimately make the situation even worse. Therefore, in real-world practice, one cannot do every single thing in a rigidly precise manner; at certain times one must understand how to give ground and adapt—this is not retreat, but a way of planning for the longer term. But in any case, a sincere heart, a blazing passion, and the spirit of pursuing truth and goodness must not be worn down! Schweitzer warned: “Adults are too fond of flaunting themselves in their miserable circumstances so as to make young people understand that one day they will regard most of what they now value so highly as mere illusion. But profound experience of life speaks to young people in a different voice. It beseeches the young to persist throughout their lives in the thoughts that inspire them; in youthful idealism one perceives truth, and thereby one possesses a priceless treasure. Each of us must be prepared for this: life will try to take away our faith in the good and the true, and our zeal for them. But we do not need to let it dictate terms to us. Ideals put into practice are often crushed by facts, but that does not mean that ideals should from the outset yield to facts; it only means that our ideals are not steadfast enough, and the reason they are not steadfast enough is that they are not pure and firm within us.”[277]
There are two things, the more persistently and deeply we think about them, the more our souls are filled with ever new and ever more powerful admiration and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
——Kant
The stars awaken some reverence, because although they appear often, they are not easy to approach; but all natural objects, whenever the inner heart opens itself to them, always produce a feeling of intimacy.
Nature never puts on a mean face. Even the wisest person does not pry into her secrets, ferret out all her perfections, and thereby lose his curiosity. Nature never becomes the toy of the wise.[278]
——Emerson
Category One References: the good books that influenced the formation of this paper the most, read carefully
(1) [French] Albert Schweitzer / authored, edited by Hans Walter Beil Reverence for Life — Fundamental Addresses from Fifty Years translated by Chen Zehuan, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, September 2003
(2) [US] Holmes Rolston III / authored Philosophy Going into the Wild translated by Liu Er and Ye Ping, Jilin People’s Publishing House, January 2000
(3) [US] Herman E. Daly, Kenneth N. Townsend / edited Valuing the Earth translated by Ma Jie, Zhong Bin, Zhu Youhong; proofread by Fan Daofeng, The Commercial Press, March 2001
(4) [French] Edgar Morin, Anne Brigitte Kern / authored Earth, Fatherland translated by Ma Shengli, Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, April 1997
(5) [US] Nash / authored The Rights of Nature translated by Yang Tongjin; proofread by Liang Zhiping, Qingdao Publishing House, September 1999
(6) [US] Donald Worster / authored The Economy of Nature — A History of Ecological Ideas translated by Hou Wenhui, The Commercial Press, December 1999
(7) [US] Bill McKibben / authored The End of Nature translated by Sun Xiaochun, Ma Shulin, Jilin People’s Publishing House, January 2000
(8) [French] Serge Moscovici / authored Restoring Nature’s Enchantment — Reflections on the Ecological Movement translated by Zhuang Chenyan, Qiu Yinchen; proofread by Yu Shuo, Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, January 2005
(9) Wang Zhengping / authored Environmental Philosophy — An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, December 2004
(10) He Huaihong / editor Ecological Ethics — Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, Hebei University Press, May 2002
(11) [US] Des Jardins / authored Environmental Ethics — An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition) translated by Lin Guanming, Yang Aimin, Peking University Press, October 2002
(12) Cao Mengqin / authored Human Nature and Nature: Reflections on the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics, Nanjing Normal University Press, December 2004
(13) Liu Xiangyong / authored Moral Discourse on Humans and Nature — Progress and Reflections on Environmental Ethics, Hunan Normal University Press, March 2004
(14) Yu Mouchang / authored Ecological Ethics — From Theory to Practice, Capital Normal University Press, March 1999
(15) Wang Wei / authored Human · Nature · Sustainable Development, Capital Normal University Press, December 1999
(16) Lei Yi / authored Research on Deep Ecology Thought, Tsinghua University Press, July 2001
Category Two References: books not on ecological philosophy but excellent related works
(17) Marx / authored Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 translated by the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, People’s Publishing House, May 2000
(18) [Japanese] Daisaku Ikeda [British] Toynbee / authored Prospects for the Twenty-First Century translated by Xun Chunsheng, Zhu Jizheng, Chen Guoliang, International Culture Publishing Company, 2nd edition, June 1999
(19) [French] Serge Moscovici / authored Society Against Nature translated by Huang Yulan; reviewed by Zhang Yiwei, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, April 2002
(20) [US] David Ray Griffin / editor Postmodern Science — The Re-enchantment of Science translated by Ma Jifang, Central Compilation & Translation Press, January 2004
(21) [US] David Ray Griffin / editor Postmodern Spirituality translated by Wang Chengbing, Central Compilation & Translation Press, March 2005
(22) [US] David Ray Griffin / authored Postmodern Religion translated by Sun Mutian, China City Press, February 2003
(23) [US] Steven Best, Douglas Kellner / authored The Postmodern Turn translated by Chen Gang et al., Nanjing University Press, July 2002
(24) Wu Guosheng / authored Contemplating Nature Again — From the Dialectics of Nature to the Philosophy of Nature, Liaohai Publishing House, September 1998
(25) Wu Guosheng / authored Let Science Return to the Humanities, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, August 2003
(26) Wu Guosheng / authored The Course of Science (Second Edition), Peking University Press, October 2002
(27) Wu Guosheng / authored Reconsidering Science, New World Press, January 2004
(28) He Huaihong / authored What Is Ethics, Peking University Press, May 2002
(29) [US] Frank Thilly / authored An Introduction to Ethics translated by He Yi, Guangxi Normal University Press, March 2002
(30) Qian Mu / authored Casual Reflections by the Lake, Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, September 2000
(31) Li Ming / authored Questioning Fate II — The Collapse of Morality, China Social Publishing House, September 2004
(32) [US] James Gleick / authored Chaos — Making a New Science translated by Zhang Shuyu; proofread by Hao Bolin, Higher Education Press, November 2004
(33) [US] Lewis Thomas / authored The Lives of a Cell — Notes of a Biology Watcher translated by Li Shaoming; proofread by Xu Pei, Hunan Science and Technology Press, January 2003
(34) [British] Stephen Hawking / authored A Brief History of Time — From the Big Bang to Black Holes (10th Anniversary Enlarged Edition) translated by Xu Mingxian, Wu Zhongchao, Hunan Science and Technology Press, July 2001
(35) [US] Stuart Kauffman / authored The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution translated by Chi Liping, Cai Xu, Hunan Science and Technology Press, May 2004
(36) [British] Peter Coles / authored Hawking and the Mind of God translated by Li Xingmin, Peking University Press, March 2005
(37) Albert Einstein / authored Selected Writings of Einstein in His Later Years translated by Fang Zaiqing, Han Wenbo, He Weiguo, Hainan Publishing House, March 2000
(38) [British] John R. Gribbin / authored Schrödinger’s Cat — Quantum Physics and Reality translated by Yang Guangcai et al., Hainan Publishing House, April 2001
(39) [US] David Bohm / authored Wholeness and the Implicate Order — The Universe and Consciousness in the Enfolding translated by Hong Dingguo, Zhang Guiquan, Zha Youliang, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, December 2004
(40) [US] William James / authored Pragmatism translated by Chen Yulun, Sun Ruihe, The Commercial Press, August 1979
(41) [US] Whitehead / authored Modes of Thought translated by Liu Fangtong, The Commercial Press, December 2004
(42) [British] Robin Collingwood / authored The Idea of Nature translated by Wu Guosheng, Ke Yinghong, Huaxia Publishing House, 2nd edition, January 1999
(43) [British] Alfred Whitehead / authored The Concept of Nature translated by Zhang Guiquan, China City Press, January 2002
(44) [German] Moritz Schlick / authored Philosophy of Nature translated by Chen Weihang, The Commercial Press, November 1984
(45) [US] Emerson / authored Nature translated by Hu Zhongte, The Commercial Press, July 2000
(46) [U.S.] Ian Barbour / author When Science Meets Religion translated by Su Xiangui Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, March 2004
(47) [Germany] Moltmann / author God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation translated by Wei Renlian, Su Xiangui, Song Bingyan; proofread by An Ximeng, Xing Taotao Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, November 2002
Third category of references: better books, for full reading or selective reading
(48) [U.S.] Edward O. Wilson / author The Future of Life—The Fate of Amy, the Fate of Humanity translated and proofread by Chen Jiakuan, Li Bo, Yang Fenghui, et al. Shanghai People’s Publishing House, January 2003
(49) [U.S.] Carolyn Merchant / author The Death of Nature—Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution translated by Wu Guosheng, et al. Jilin People’s Publishing House, April 1999
(50) [U.S.] Holmes Rolston III / author Genes, Genesis and God—Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History translated by Fan Dainian, Chen Yangde Hunan Science and Technology Press, February 2003
(51) Li Peichao / author The Ethical Dignity of Nature Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, September 2001
(52) Li Peichao / author The Subversion of Ethic-Expansionism—A Study of Western Environmental Ethical Thought Hunan Normal University Press, March 2004
(53) Ren Junhua, Liu Xiaohua / authors Cultural Interpretation of Environmental Ethics—An Inquiry into Ancient Chinese Ecological Wisdom Hunan Normal University Press, March 2004
(54) Qian Junsheng, Yu Mouchang / eds. Ecological Philosophy Central Party School Press, July 2004
(55) Yu Mouchang / author The Theory of Natural Value Shaanxi People’s Education Press, December 2003
(56) Yu Mouchang / author Ecological Philosophy Shaanxi People’s Education Press, December 2000
(57) Lu Feng, Liu Xiangrong / eds. Modern Development Concept and Environmental Ethics Hebei University Press, April 2004
(58) Lu Feng / author Applied Ethics—Philosophical Reflections on Modern Lifestyles Central Compilation & Translation Press, April 2004
(59) Zhang Shiying / author Lectures on New Philosophy Guangxi Normal University Press, May 2004
(60) Zhao Dunhua / author Cross-Cultural Studies on Human Nature and Ethics Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, January 2004
(61) Yu Zhengrong / author Interpretation and Reconstruction of the Chinese Ecological Ethical Tradition People’s Publishing House, October 2002
(62) Meng Peiyuan / author Humans and Nature—An Ecological View in Chinese Philosophy People’s Publishing House, August 2004
(63) Zhong Kezhao, Ji Fengwen, Mi Shoujiang, Huang Changlun, Wang Hongpu / authors Dialogue Between Humans and Nature—Viewing This Shore from the Other Shore (Religion and Nature Volume) Sichuan People’s Publishing House, March 1999
(64) Zhou Minfeng / author Dialogue Between Humans and Nature—Transcendence and Surpassing (Culture and Nature Volume) Sichuan People’s Publishing House, March 1999
(65) [Russia] Berdyaev / author On the Destiny of Man translated by Zhang Baichun Xuelin Press, December 2000
(66) Zeng Jianping / author Thinking Nature: An Inquiry into Western Ecological Ethics China Social Sciences Press, April 2004
(67) Lei Yi / author Ecological Ethics Shaanxi People’s Education Press, December 2000
(68) Gao Zhonghua / author The Choice of Environmental Problems—Reasoned Reflections in the Age of Ecological Civilization Social Sciences Academic Press, July 2004
(69) Li Minghua et al. / authors People in the Wilderness—A Contemporary View of Ecological Civilization Guangdong People’s Publishing House, November 2003
(70) Peng Feng / author Perfect Nature—The Philosophical Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Aesthetics Peking University Press, January 2005
(71) Wu Guosheng / author Science of Freedom Fujian Education Press, August 2002
(72) Wu Guosheng / author Anxiety over Modernization Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, November 1999
(73) Wu Guosheng / ed. Applied Ethics in Social Transformation Huaxia Publishing House, April 2004
(74) Liu Bing / author The Longest Straight Line Between Two Points Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, January 2004
(75) Liu Huajie / author Not Everything Offered in the Hall Is Buddha Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, January 2004
(76) [U.S.] James O’Connor / author The Means of Nature—Studies in Ecological Marxism translated by Tang Zhengdong, Zang Peihong Nanjing University Press, January 2003
(77) [France] Bruno Jarosson / author Philosophy of Science translated by Zhang Ying Peking University Press, April 2000
(78) [U.K.] John H. Brooke / author Science and Religion translated by Su Xiangui Fudan University Press, February 2000
(79) [U.S.] Alan Durning / author How Much Is Enough?—The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth translated by Bi Yu; proofread by Liu Xiaojun Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(80) [U.S.] Barbara Ward, René Dubos / authors Only One Earth translated and proofread by the Editorial Committee of the “Foreign Public Hazard Series” Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(81) [Germany] Joachim Radkau / author Nature and Power—A World Environmental History translated by Wang Guoyu, Fu Tianhai Hebei University Press, April 2004
(82) Qian Yi, Tang Xiaoyan / eds. Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development Higher Education Press, July 2000
Fourth category of references: general books that helped shape the author’s thinking but are not closely related, and supplementary books (not necessarily bad books)
(83) [U.S.] Rachel Carson / author Silent Spring translated by Lü Ruilan, Li Changsheng Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(84) [U.S.] Henry David Thoreau / author Walden translated by Xu Chi Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(85) [U.S.] Aldo Leopold / author A Sand County Almanac translated by Hou Wenhui Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(86) [U.S.] John Muir / author Our National Parks translated by Guo Mingliang Jilin People’s Publishing House, April 1999
(87) [U.S.] Peter Singer / author Animal Liberation translated by Zu Shuxian Qingdao Publishing House, September 2004
(88) [U.S.] Dennis Meadows et al. / authors The Limits to Growth translated by Li Baoheng Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(89) [U.S.] Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers / authors Beyond the Limits translated by Zhao Xu, Zhou Xinhua, Zhang Rengang Shanghai Translation Publishing House, September 2001
(90) Wan Yicheng, Wan Qian / selected and compiled Signposts for a New Civilization Jilin People’s Publishing House, January 2000
(91) World Commission on Environment and Development / author Our Common Future translated by Wang Zhijia, Ke Jinliang; proofread by Xia Kunbao Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(92) Qu Geping / author We Need a Transformation Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(93) Ma Yinchu / author New Population Theory Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(94) Xu Gang / author Woodcutters, Wake Up! Jilin People’s Publishing House, December 1997
(95) [U.K.] David Pepper / author Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice translated by Liu Ying Shandong University Press, January 2005
(96) [U.K.] George Edward Moore / author Principia Ethica translated by Changhe Shanghai Century Publishing Group, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, November 2003
(97) [Norway] G. Hildebeck, N. Ihle / authors A History of Western Philosophy—From Ancient Greece to the Twentieth Century translated by Tong Shijun, Yu Zhenhua, Liu Jin Shanghai Translation Publishing House, January 2004
(98) [Ancient Greece] Plato / author Timaeus translated and annotated by Xie Wenyu Shanghai People’s Publishing House, November 2003
(99) [Multiple countries] Jacques Baudot et al. / authors, selected and edited by Huang Ping Re-signing with the Earth—One of the Paper Collections from the Copenhagen Social Development Forum translated by Wu Xiaoying, et al. People’s Literature Publishing House, July 2003
(100) [Canada] John Leslie / author The End of the World translated by Liu Kui Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, September 2001
(101) [U.S.] Alan Tough / author What Will It Be Like 40 Years from Now—The Future You Can See translated by Mao Huafen Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, October 2004
(102) [U.S.] J. Brockman / ed. The Next 50 Years translated by Li Yong Hunan Science and Technology Press, May 2004
(103) Ding Zhao / author Understanding Nature—A Preliminary Study of the Natural Background of the Origin of Civilization Tsinghua University Press, February 2004
(104) Gan Shaoping / author Frontier Issues in Applied Ethics Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, October 2002
(105) Guo Huaqing / author The Wisdom of Nature—Modern Teleology Shandong Education Press, February 1998
(106) Gao Chongming, Zhang Aiqin / authors Fifteen Lectures on Bioethics Peking University Press, March 2004
(107) Li Peichao / author, Chen Gang / ed. Environmental Ethics Writers Publishing House, February 1998
(108) Wang Zhengping, Zhou Zhongzhi / authors Modern Ethics China Social Sciences Press, August 2001
(109) Xu Chun / author Sustainable Development and Ecological Civilization Beijing Publishing House, January 2001
(110) [Austria] Konrad Lorenz / author The Eight Deadly Sins of Civilized Humanity translated by Xu Xiaochun Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2000
(111) Chen Qirong / author Natural Philosophy Fudan University Press, June 2004
(112) Zhang Jiyu / ed. Dao Follows Nature and Environmental Protection Huaxia Publishing House, July 1998
(113) Liu Yuanchun / author Mutual Coexistence and Mutual Prosperity—A Buddhist View of Ecology Religious Culture Press, November 2002
(114) Yang Wenheng / author Yixue and the Ecological Environment Zhonghua Book Company, June 2003
(115) [U.S.] Donald L. Hardesty / author Ecological Anthropology translated by Guo Fan, Zou He Cultural Relics Publishing House, November 2002
(116) [U.S.] Matt Ridley / author The Origins of Virtue—Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation translated by Liu Heng Central Compilation & Translation Press, January 2004
(117) [Germany] Hoima V. Dietfurt, et al. / eds. Anthology of Aphorisms: Humans and Nature translated by Zhou Meiqi; proofread by Yin Xuyi Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, December 1993
(118) [U.S.] John B. Cobb Jr., David R. Griffin / authors Process Theology translated by Qu Yuehou Central Compilation & Translation Press, January 1999
[①] (56) Yu Mouchang / author Ecological Philosophy, p. 30
[②] (56) Yu Mouchang / author Ecological Philosophy, p. 32
[③] (10) He Huaihong / ed. Environmental Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, p. 335
[④] (56) Yu Mouchang / author Ecological Philosophy, p. 34
[⑤] (67) Lei Yi / author Ecological Ethics, p. 44
[⑥] (56) Yu Mouchang / author Ecological Philosophy, p. 33
[⑦] Zhang Shiying Introduction to Philosophy Peking University Press, p. 358
[⑧] (23) [U.S.] Stephen Best, Douglas Kellner / authors The Postmodern Turn, p. 279
[⑨] (38) Gleick, Finding Schrodinger’s Cat, p. 5
[⑩] (38) Gribbin, *Searching for Schrödinger’s Cat*, p. 6
[⑪] (11) [U.S.] Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy* (3rd ed.), p. 10
[⑫] (4) [French] Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, *Homeland Earth*, p. 97
[⑬] (82) Qian Yi and Tang Xiaoyan, eds., *Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development*, p. 37
[⑭] Quoted in (13) Liu Xiangrong, *The Moral Discourse of Humans and Nature—The Progress and Reflections of Environmental Ethics*, p. 11
[⑮] (15) Wang Wei, *Humans · Nature · Sustainable Development*, p. 60
[⑯] (7) [U.S.] Bill McKibben, *The End of Nature*, p. 8
[⑰] Quoted in (8) [French] Serge Moscovici, *The Enchantment of Nature Restored—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, pp. 12, 55
[⑱] (13) Liu Xiangrong, *The Moral Discourse of Humans and Nature—The Progress and Reflections of Environmental Ethics*, p. 42
[⑲] (47) [German] Moltmann, *God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation*, p. 22 (preface to the Chinese translation)
[⑳] (22) [U.S.] David Ray Griffin, *Postmodern Religion*, p. 24
[21] (4) [French] Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, *Homeland Earth*, p. 76
[22] (8) [French] Serge Moscovici, *The Enchantment of Nature Restored—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, p. 27
[23] (39) [U.S.] David Bohm, *Wholeness and the Implicate Order—Cosmos and Consciousness in the Unfolding Universe*, p. 1
[24] (39) [U.S.] David Bohm, *Wholeness and the Implicate Order—Cosmos and Consciousness in the Unfolding Universe*, pp. 1–2
[25] (21) [U.S.] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Spirit*, p. 183
[26] (47) [German] Moltmann, *God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation*, p. 36
[27] (25) Wu Guosheng, *Let Science Return to the Humanities*, p. 282
[28] Quoted in (111) Chen Qirong, *Philosophy of Nature*, p. 209
[29] This passage on Simon’s view draws on Zhai Zhenwu, “The Hundred-Year Debate on Population and Resources,” *Guangming Daily*, June 1, 2000, quoted from the courseware *Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development*; the later account of the wager between Simon and Ehrlich also comes from that article.
[30] (15) Wang Wei, *Humans · Nature · Sustainable Development*, p. 187
[31] (7) [U.S.] Bill McKibben, *The End of Nature* (preface), p. 16
[32] (7) [U.S.] Bill McKibben, *The End of Nature* (preface), p. 17
[33] (58) Lu Feng, *Applied Ethics—A Philosophical Reflection on Modern Ways of Life*, p. 241
[34] (58) Lu Feng, *Applied Ethics—A Philosophical Reflection on Modern Ways of Life*, p. 26 (note 1)
[35] (79) [U.S.] Alan Durning, *How Much Is Enough?—The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth*, pp. 6–7
[36] (4) [French] Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, *Homeland Earth*, p. 62
[37] (3) [U.S.] Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend, eds., *Valuing the Earth*, p. 204
[38] (3) [U.S.] Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend, eds., *Valuing the Earth*, pp. 187–188
[39] (3) [U.S.] Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend, eds., *Valuing the Earth*, p. 413
[40] (31) Li Ming, *Asking Heaven’s Fate, Part II—The Collapse of Morality*, p. 271
[41] (99) [multi-national] Jacques Baudot et al., Huang Ping, ed., *Re-signing with the Earth—One of the Selected Papers from the Copenhagen Forum on Social Development*, p. 147
[42] (3) [U.S.] Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend, eds., *Valuing the Earth*, p. 105
[43] (47) [German] Moltmann, *God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation*, pp. 36–37
[44] (31) Li Ming, *Asking Heaven’s Fate, Part II—The Collapse of Morality*, p. 271
[45] (115) [U.S.] Donald L. Hardesty, *Ecological Anthropology*, p. 52
[46] (81) [German] Joachim Radkau, *Nature and Power—A Global Environmental History*, p. 49
[47] (30) Qian Mu, *Idle Reflections from the Lake*, p. 82
[48] (6) [U.S.] Donald Worster, *The Economy of Nature—A History of Ecological Ideas*, p. 499
[49] (25) Wu Guosheng, *Let Science Return to the Humanities*, p. 74
[50] The inspiration for the metaphor of the amnesiac comes from Wu Guosheng, *Let Science Return to the Humanities*, p. 74
[51] (42) [British] Robin Collingwood, *The Idea of Nature*, p. 195
[52] See He Xin, *On Chinese History and National Consciousness*, Shishi Press, September 2002, p. 27; moreover, another set of statistical data I heard in class differed greatly from He Xin’s data—in fact, it showed even greater fluctuations. The figures I cite may not be entirely precise, but the fact of the sharp ups and downs in China’s ancient population is beyond doubt. Even if we take into account those people who floated outside household-registration statistics, one can imagine that the reason they could not be counted by official statistics was that they were displaced and had lost basic guarantees of livelihood, which does not affect my conclusion.
[53] (8) [French] Serge Moscovici, *The Enchantment of Nature Restored—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, pp. 25, 240
[54] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 90
[55] (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 511
[56] (3) [U.S.] Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend, eds., *Valuing the Earth*, p. 240
[57] (8) [French] Serge Moscovici, *The Enchantment of Nature Restored—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, p. 8
[58] (42) [UK] Robin Collingwood, The Idea of Nature, p. 47
[59] (10) He Huaihong, ed., Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, p. 265
[60] (10) He Huaihong, ed., Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, p. 266
[61] (42) [UK] Robin Collingwood, The Idea of Nature, p. 4
[62] (97) [Norwegian] G. Hilberg and N. Iyer, A History of Western Philosophy—From Ancient Greece to the Twentieth Century, p. 86
[63] Cited in (9) Wang Zhengping, Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, p. 141
[64] Cited in (5) [US] Nash, The Rights of Nature, p. 107
[65] Cited in (15) Wang Wei, Humankind, Nature, and Sustainable Development, p. 196
[66] (10) He Huaihong, ed., Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, pp. 269-270
[67] Cited in (11) [US] Des Jardins, Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition), p. 106
[68] (1) [French] Albert Schweitzer, ed. Hans Walter Beyer, Reverence for Life—Fundamental Statements from Fifty Years, p. 63
[69] (5) [US] Nash, The Rights of Nature, p. 108
[70] (10) He Huaihong, ed., Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, p. 149
[71] (9) Wang Zhengping, Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, p. 323
[72] (9) Wang Zhengping, Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, p. 313
[73] (46) [US] Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, p. 35
[74] (46) [US] Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, p. 128
[75] (118) [US] John B. Cobb Jr. and David R. Griffin, Process Theology, p. 159
[76] (47) [German] Moltmann, God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation, p. 25
[77] (47) [German] Moltmann, God in Creation—An Ecological Doctrine of Creation, pp. 29-30
[78] (10) He Huaihong, ed., Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations, p. 194
[79] (48) [US] Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life—The Fate of Amy, the Fate of Humanity, p. 217
[80] (46) [US] Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, p. 171
[81] (60) Zhao Dunhua, Cross-Cultural Studies of Human Nature and Ethics, p. 265
[82] (37) Albert Einstein, Collected Writings from Einstein’s Later Years, p. 28
[83] (37) Albert Einstein, Collected Writings from Einstein’s Later Years, pp. 24-25
[84] (37) Albert Einstein, Collected Writings from Einstein’s Later Years, p. 27
[85] (22) [US] David Ray Griffin, Postmodern Religion, p. 2
[86] Cited in (78) [UK] John H. Brooke, Science and Religion, p. 124
[87] (21) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., Postmodern Spirit, p. 220
[88] (22) [US] David Ray Griffin, Postmodern Religion, p. 86
[89] (23) [US] Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, p. 263
[90] (23) [US] Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, p. 262
[91] (31) Li Ming, Questioning Destiny II—The Collapse of Morality, p. 282
[92] (30) Qian Mu, Idle Reflections by the Lake, p. 90
[93] (71) Wu Guosheng, The Science of Freedom, p. 5
[94] Cited in (51) Li Peichao, The Ethical Dignity of Nature, p. 216
[95] (53) Ren Junhua and Liu Xiaohua, Cultural Interpretation of Environmental Ethics—An Inquiry into Ancient Chinese Ecological Wisdom, p. 3
[96] Cited in (14) Yu Mouchang, Ecological Ethics—from Theory to Practice, p. 110
[97] (62) Meng Peiyuan, Humankind and Nature—A Chinese Philosophical View of Ecology, p. 28. For the discussion of Xunzi’s failure to establish a value theory of the “anthropocentrism” type in which human beings dominate nature, see Chapter 9 of this book (pp. 162-187).
[98] I have not yet studied the classic works of Chinese philosophy, and many quotations drawn from the classics were cited secondhand from various related books. The bibliography is rather mixed, so I beg your pardon for not listing it in detail here.
[99] Cited in (61) Yu Zhengrong, Interpretation and Reconstruction of the Chinese Ecological Ethical Tradition, p. 18
[100] (62) Meng Peiyuan, Humankind and Nature—A Chinese Philosophical View of Ecology, p. 420
[101] (58) Lu Feng, Applied Ethics—A Philosophical Reflection on Modern Ways of Life, pp. 479-480
[102] (9) Wang Zhengping, Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, p. 74
[103] (9) Wang Zhengping, Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics, p. 90
[104] (62) Meng Peiyuan, Humankind and Nature—A Chinese Philosophical View of Ecology, p. 225
[105] (14) Yu Mouchang, Ecological Ethics—from Theory to Practice, p. 6
[106] (113) Liu Yuanchun, Mutual Coexistence and Mutual Prosperity—A Buddhist View of Ecology, pp. 87-88
[107] (113) Liu Yuanchun, *Coexistence and Mutual Prosperity—Buddhist Views of Ecology*, p. 9
[108] (106) Gao Chongming, Zhang Aiqin, *Fifteen Lectures on Bioethics*, p. 315
[109] Quoted in (63) Zhong Kezhao, Jifeng Wen, Mi Shoujiang, Huang Chundeng, Wang Hongpu, *A Dialogue Between Human Beings and Nature—Viewing This Shore from the Other Shore*, p. 149
[110] (53) Ren Junhua, Liu Xiaohua, *Cultural Interpretations of Environmental Ethics—An Inquiry into Ancient Chinese Ecological Wisdom*, p. 208
[111] (61) Yu Zhengrong, *An Interpretation and Reconstruction of the Chinese Tradition of Ecological Ethics*, p. 153
[112] (62) Meng Peiyuan, *Human Beings and Nature—An Ecological View in Chinese Philosophy*, p. 19
[113] (51) Li Peichao, *The Ethical Dignity of Nature*, p. 218
[114] (95) David Pepper, *Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice*, p. 100
[115] Quoted in (9) Wang Zhengping, *Philosophy of Environment—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics*, p. 81
[116] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 105
[117] (95) David Pepper, *Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice*, p. 155
[118] Quoted in (19) Serge Moscovici, *Society Against Nature*, p. 123
[119] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, pp. 56–57
[120] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 89
[121] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 83
[122] Quoted in (14) Yu Mouchang, *Ecological Ethics—From Theory to Practice*, p. 99
[123] (95) David Pepper, *Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice*, p. 141
[124] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 58
[125] Quoted in (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 370
[126] (56) Yu Mouchang, *Ecological Philosophy*, p. 140
[127] Quoted in (67) Lei Yi, *Ecological Ethics*, p. 70
[128] Quoted in (67) Lei Yi, *Ecological Ethics*, p. 72
[129] (29) Frank Thilly, *An Introduction to Ethics*, p. 6
[130] (15) Wang Wei, *Humanity, Nature, Sustainable Development*, p. 410
[131] Quoted in (66) Zeng Jianping, *Reflections on Nature: An Inquiry into Western Ecological Ethical Thought*, p. 50
[132] (51) Li Peichao, *The Ethical Dignity of Nature*, p. 116
[133] In fact, this issue is not that simple either. For example, materialism and idealism do not encompass all philosophical doctrines; but do materialism and non-materialism encompass them all? They do not! For the kind of doctrine Marx described as “neither materialism nor idealism, but the truth that combines the two,” it is hard for us to say that it is non-materialist. Modern philosophy has broken down the boundary between subject and object, and the very question of whether one is materialist already carries a mode of thought based on the opposition of subject and object. A modern philosopher would neither proclaim himself a materialist nor call himself a non-materialist. Likewise, when the boundary between human beings and nature is broken down, asking “whether it is anthropocentrism” has itself become a meaningless question.
[134] (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, pp. 374–375
[135] (87) Peter Singer, *Animal Liberation*, p. 8
[136] Quoted in (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 382
[137] (87) Peter Singer, *Animal Liberation*, p. 10
[138] Of course, this is not to say that everything contrary to one’s nature is reasonable. For example, desire is one of human beings’ natural tendencies, yet restraint of desire is also one of human beings’ natural tendencies, and by comparison, restraint of desire is a higher form of nature. Therefore, appropriately releasing desire while restraining it most of the time is the most reasonable behavior.
[139] (1) Albert Schweitzer, edited by Hans Walter Bahr, *Reverence for Life—Basic Statements from the Past Fifty Years*, p. 9
[140] See (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 155
[141] (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 155
[142] (1) Albert Schweitzer, edited by Hans Walter Bahr, *Reverence for Life—Basic Statements from the Past Fifty Years*, p. 10
[143] (1) Albert Schweitzer, edited by Hans Walter Bahr, *Reverence for Life—Basic Statements from the Past Fifty Years*, p. 134
[144] (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 159
[145] (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 164
[146] (85) Aldo Leopold, *A Sand County Almanac*, p. 213
[147] Quoted in (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 446
[148] (9) Wang Zhengping, *Philosophy of Environment—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics*, p. 84
[149] (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 457
[150] (2) Holmes Rolston III, *Philosophy Gone Wild*, p. 388
[151] (56) Yu Mouchang, *Ecological Philosophy*, p. 190
[152] (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 245
[153] (11) [US] Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 251
[154] (16) Lei Yi, *A Study of Deep Ecology Thought*, p. 49
[155] (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 506
[156] (11) [US] Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Third Edition)*, p. 253
[157] (57) Lu Feng, Liu Xiangrong, eds., *Modern Development Concepts and Environmental Ethics*, p. 246
[158] (9) Wang Zhengping, *Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics*, p. 291
[159] (9) Wang Zhengping, *Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics*, p. 289
[160] (9) Wang Zhengping, *Environmental Philosophy—An Interdisciplinary Study of Environmental Ethics*, p. 299
[161] (21) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Spirit*, p. 66
[162] (21) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Spirit*, p. 21
[163] (20) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Science—The Return of the Enchantment of Science*, p. 44
[164] (21) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Spirit*, pp. 22-23
[165] (23) [US] Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, *The Postmodern Turn*, p. 293
[166] (21) [US] David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Spirit*, p. 227
[167] Cited in (70) Peng Feng, *Perfect Nature—The Philosophical Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Aesthetics*, p. 67
[168] (72) Wu Guosheng, *Anxiety over Modernization*, p. 14
[169] (10) He Huaihong, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 265
[170] (57) Lu Feng, Liu Xiangrong, eds., *Modern Development Concepts and Environmental Ethics*, p. 15
[171] (12) Cao Mengqin, *Human Nature and Nature: A Reflection on the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics*, p. 16
[172] (12) Cao Mengqin, *Human Nature and Nature: A Reflection on the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics*, p. 7
[173] (59) Zhang Shiying, *Lectures on New Philosophy*, p. 397
[174] (6) [US] Donald Worster, *The Economy of Nature—A History of Ecological Ideas*, p. 452
[175] (81) [Germany] Joachim Radkau, *Nature and Power—A Global History of the Environment*, p. 24
[176] (6) [US] Donald Worster, *The Economy of Nature—A History of Ecological Ideas*, p. 471 (for Robert May’s related theories, see also (32) [US] James Gleick, *Chaos—Making a New Science*, pp. 62-73)
[177] (60) Zhao Dunhua, *Cross-Cultural Studies of Human Nature and Ethics*, p. 133
[178] (105) Guo Huaqing, *The Wisdom of Nature—Modern Teleology*, pp. 87-88
[179] (8) [France] Serge Moscovici, *Restoring Nature’s Enchantment—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, p. 33
[180] (64) Zhou Minfeng, *Dialogue Between Humans and Nature—Transcendence and Transcendence (Volume on Culture and Nature)*, p. 239
[181] (19) [France] Serge Moscovici, *The Anti-Nature Society*, p. 254
[182] (19) [France] Serge Moscovici, *The Anti-Nature Society*, p. 18
[183] (30) Qian Mu, *Idle Reflections from the Lakeside*, p. 77
[184] See (33) [US] Lewis Thomas, *The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher*
[185] (44) [Germany] Moritz Schlick, *Natural Philosophy*, p. 59
[186] See (48) [US] Edward O. Wilson, *The Future of Life—Aimee’s Fate, Humanity’s Fate*, pp. 23-25
[187] (6) [US] Donald Worster, *The Economy of Nature—A History of Ecological Ideas*, p. 403
[188] (12) Cao Mengqin, *Human Nature and Nature: A Reflection on the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics*, p. 132
[189] (65) [Russia] Berdyaev, *On the Destiny of Man*, p. 30
[190] (5) [US] Nash, *The Rights of Nature*, p. 188
[191] (8) [France] Serge Moscovici, *Restoring Nature’s Enchantment—Reflections on the Ecological Movement*, p. 137
[192] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 105
[193] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 57
[194] (17) Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 58
[195] (50) [US] Holmes Rolston III, *Genes, Genesis and God—Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History*, p. 121. Also see footnote [3] on that page: “Animals have behaviors that imitate their parents and their own species… even in single-celled organisms, acquired traits can also be passed on to offspring. But heredity remains the main mode of information transmission from one generation to the next, and these non-genetic factors of inheritance do not resemble a culture that can be transmitted cumulatively.”
[196] (50) [US] Holmes Rolston III, *Genes, Genesis and God—Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History*, p. 124
[197] (18) [Japan] Ikeda Daisaku and [England] Toynbee, *Prospects for the Twenty-First Century*, pp. 3-4
[198] (2) [US] Holmes Rolston III, *Philosophy Gone Wild*, p. 26
[199] (81) [Germany] Joachim Radkau, *Nature and Power—A Global History of the Environment*, p. 4
[200] (2) Holmes Rolston III, Philosophy Gone Wild, p. 170
[201] (2) Holmes Rolston III, Philosophy Gone Wild, p. 26
[202] (70) Peng Feng, Perfect Nature: The Philosophical Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Aesthetics, p. 65
[203] (107) Li Peichao, edited by Chen Gang, Environmental Ethics, p. 180
[204] (110) Konrad Lorenz, The Eight Deadly Sins of Civilized Humanity, p. 99
[205] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, Prospects for the Twenty-First Century, p. 6
[206] Cited in (15) Wang Wei, Humans, Nature, and Sustainable Development, p. 47
[207] (50) Holmes Rolston III, Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History, p. 248
[208] (12) Cao Mengqin, Human Nature and Nature: A Reflection on the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics, p. 57
[209] (116) Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, p. 10
[210] (116) Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, p. 11
[211] See (116) Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, pp. 15–16
[212] Cited in (50) Holmes Rolston III, Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History
[213] (21) David Ray Griffin, ed., The Postmodern Spirit, p. 223
[214] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, Prospects for the Twenty-First Century, p. 416
[215] (5) Nash, The Rights of Nature, p. 190
[216] (33) Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, p. 89
[217] (48) Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life: Emmi’s Fate, Humanity’s Fate, p. 188
[218] (5) Nash, The Rights of Nature, p. 2 (translator’s preface)
[219] (4) Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, Earth Homeland, pp. 55–56
[220] (21) David Ray Griffin, ed., The Postmodern Spirit, p. 214
[221] (75) Liu Huajie, Not Everything Enshrined in the Hall Is Buddha, p. 269
[222] (104) Gan Shaoping, Research on Frontier Issues in Applied Ethics, p. 149
[223] (32) James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, p. 132
[224] (8) Serge Moscovici, Restoring Nature’s Spell: Reflections on the Ecological Movement, p. 51
[225] (20) David Ray Griffin, ed., Postmodern Science: Recasting the Spell of Science, p. 91; see also (23) Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, p. 280
[226] (8) Serge Moscovici, Restoring Nature’s Spell: Reflections on the Ecological Movement, p. 55
[227] (2) Holmes Rolston III, Philosophy Gone Wild, p. 157
[228] (26) Wu Guosheng, The Course of Science (2nd ed.), p. 580
[229] (33) Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, pp. 2, 60
[230] (16) Lei Yi, Research on Deep Ecology Thought, p. 116
[231] (52) David Ray Griffin, ed., Postmodern Science: Recasting the Spell of Science, p. 192
[232] (19) Serge Moscovici, Society Against Nature, p. 282
[233] (20) David Ray Griffin, ed., Postmodern Science: Recasting the Spell of Science, p. 94
[234] (39) David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order: An Introduction to the Unfolding Universe and Consciousness, introduction (no page number)
[235] (55) Yu Mouchang, Theory of the Value of Nature, p. 363
[236] (50) Holmes Rolston III, Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History, p. 178
[237] (41) Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 135
[238] (37) Albert Einstein, Collected Essays of Einstein’s Later Years, p. 24
[239] (20) David Ray Griffin, ed., Postmodern Science: Recasting the Spell of Science, p. 95
[240] (23) Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, p. 295
[241] (30) Qian Mu, Casual Reflections by the Lakeside, pp. 57–58
[242] (37) Albert Einstein, Collected Essays of Einstein’s Later Years, p. 11
[243] (1) Albert Schweitzer, edited by Hans Walter Behr, Reverence for Life: Basic Discourses from Fifty Years, p. 51
[244] (4) Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, Earth Homeland, pp. 188–189
[245] (4) Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern, Earth Homeland, p. 191
[246] (31) Li Ming, Asking Fate, Volume Two: The Collapse of Morality, pp. 257–258
[247] B. Pascal, quoted from (117) Huoyima·V·Ditefuerte et al., eds., *Selections of Aphorisms: Human Beings and Nature*, p. 97
[248] (4) Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern, *Earth, Our Homeland*, p. 193
[249] Cited in (4) Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern, *Earth, Our Homeland*, p. 193
[250] (4) Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern, *Earth, Our Homeland*, p. 192
[251] Cited in (29) Frank Thilly, *An Introduction to Ethics*, p. 166
[252] (10) He Huaimeng, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 321
[253] (1) Albert Schweitzer, ed. Hans Walter Bähr, *Reverence for Life—Fundamental Addresses from the Last Fifty Years*, p. 27
[254] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, *Choosing Life: A Dialogue*, p. 12
[255] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, *Choosing Life: A Dialogue*, p. 13
[256] (73) Wu Guosheng, ed., *Applied Ethics in Social Transformation* (editor’s preface), p. 2
[257] The “naturalistic fallacy” means believing that one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” See (96) George Edward Moore, *Principia Ethica*.
[258] (21) David Ray Griffin, ed., *The Reenchantment of Science*, p. 214
[259] (2) Holmes Rolston III, *Philosophy Gone Wild*, p. 19
[260] (101) Alan Tough, *What Will You Do When You’re 40?—The Future You Can See*, p. 23
[261] (5) Nash, *The Rights of Nature*, p. 190
[262] (20) David Ray Griffin, ed., *Postmodern Science—Reenchantment of Nature*, pp. 94–95
[263] (12) Cao Mengqin, *Human Nature and Nature: A Reexamination of the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics*, p. 282
[264] (25) Wu Guosheng, *Let Science Return to the Humanities*, p. 75
[265] (21) David Ray Griffin, ed., *The Reenchantment of Science*, p. 225
[266] (12) Cao Mengqin, *Human Nature and Nature: A Reexamination of the Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Ethics*, p. 259
[267] (10) He Huaimeng, ed., *Ecological Ethics—Spiritual Resources and Philosophical Foundations*, p. 3
[268] (58) Lu Feng, *Applied Ethics—A Philosophical Reflection on Modern Lifestyles*, p. 59
[269] (28) He Huaimeng, *What Is Ethics?*, p. 85
[270] See (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy* (Third Edition), p. 300
[271] (11) Des Jardins, *Environmental Ethics—An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy* (Third Edition), p. 302
[272] (40) William James, *Pragmatism*, p. 31
[273] (101) Alan Tough, *What Will You Do When You’re 40?—The Future You Can See*, p. 133
[274] (101) Alan Tough, *What Will You Do When You’re 40?—The Future You Can See*, p. 148
[275] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, *Choosing Life: A Dialogue*, p. 52
[276] (18) Daisaku Ikeda and Toynbee, *Choosing Life: A Dialogue*, p. 57
[277] (1) Albert Schweitzer, ed. Hans Walter Bähr, *Reverence for Life—Fundamental Addresses from the Last Fifty Years*, p. 60
[278] (45) Emerson, *Nature*, p. 11
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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