Arne Naess

I figured since I'm getting down to my last couple of blog posts, I'd cover Arne Naess, a contemporary environmental ethicist who had a lot of influence on the environmental movement.

For today I read two articles written by Naess which gave me a basic sense of his philosophy, deep ecology.  Naess advocates for a child-like curiosity about nature.  He claims that we should spend time reflecting on the millions of miracles that take place each day - from the regeneration of our own human cells to the way that soil and minerals can nourish a 300 year old redwood. He want us to imagine ourselves as connected to the larger natural world as a whole and from this feeling of interconnectedness, work to protect nature.  This doesn't mean that humans aren't allowed to value human lives more than the lives of other creatures or that humans aren't allowed to take on any form of a stewardship role (as we saw with Aldo Leopold), but rather just that we must respect nature in all of its diverse forms.