military conquest. Since few of us (except the kraterists)22 believe that might confers normative goodness, this position should be rejected. The boundaries of states are artificial and do not indicate Natural divisions (even when the boundary between states is a mountain range or a river).
Thinking in this way is important because it shows that the way we parse ourselves (via geography, language, or culture) is rather arbitrary. There is a much stronger sense (based upon human biology) that our existence as Homo sapiens is the only real robust boundary that counts among our species.23 However, there is much truth in the old adage “out of sight, out of mind.” When we are ignorant of the plight of others and when we haven’t undergone the imaginative connection of the other to ourselves, then it is certainly the case that we will be less likely to be moved to action.
The extended community worldview imperative exhorts us all to educate ourselves about the plight of others in the world and then to respond with individual and corporate action according to our abilities to act effectively. It must become a top priority issue to us all.
Third, when we add the other components of the Natural community, we come up with two more community worldview imperatives: the eco-community worldview imperative and the extended eco-community worldview imperative. Let us begin with the eco-community worldview imperative (the eco-community close at hand, hoti):
Each agent must educate themself about the proximate Natural world in which they live relating to their agency within this ecosystem: (a) what their natural place in this order is vis-à-vis their personal agency; (b) how their natural place (vis-à-vis their personal agency) may have changed in recent history; (c) how their social community’s activities have altered the constitution of the Natural order and how this has effected community agency; (d) the short-term and long-term effects of those changes vis-à-vis agency; and (e) what needs to be done to maintain the natural order in the short and long term so that the ecosystem might remain vibrant.24
First, there is the requirement that people educate themselves as much as is practically possible about the proximate environment in which they live. This will require particular attention to the land, water, air, animal life, plant life, and meteorological events. In the age of the Internet, it should be possible for a large number of people on earth to obtain easy access to these facts.25 What is important, of course, is that they connect to reputable scientific sources.
Second, is the personal recognition that individual humans live in interaction with their Natural surroundings and that they should contextualize such interactions personally.
Third, requires a sense of recent history of their local environment. This creates a personal baseline by which an individual might assess how they have been affected by climate change.
Fourth, and last is for the agent who has just assessed how they have been affected to examine various sustainability policy proposals and gather enough information so that they can decide which course they will endorse and then work vigorously for enactment of those policy proposals.
Just as when we focused upon the human community it was necessary to go beyond to the extended human community, so also it is the case with the eco-community. The extended eco-community worldview imperative is:
Each agent must educate themself about the world’s biomes: freshwater, saltwater, arid regions, forests, prairies and grasslands, tundra, and artic regions. This education should be ongoing and should include how the relative stability and Natural sustainability is faring at various points in time. This knowledge will entail a factual valuing that also leads to an aesthetic valuing. Since all people seek to protect what they value,26 this extended community membership will ground a duty to protect the global biomes according to what is aspirationally possible.
This imperative prescribes first educating oneself about the scientific facts of the world. This doxastic responsibility is primary. Far too often people create beliefs that are unsupported by hard data.27 This is irresponsible and immoral.28 As the late US New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is reputed to have said, “We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.”29 What this means is that people must do their best to seek out reputable sources of scientific information on key extended environmental questions such as the CO2 in the troposphere over discrete meteorological air spaces and the trends that follow from this.
Now it is probably the case that large numbers of individuals are deficient in science education so that they would not be able to engage at this level except for broad generalizations that might be skewed by news outlets (on traditional media or on social media). For these individuals I would suggest that they go to local libraries (in countries that have these public resources) and engage with the librarians on how they can educate themselves objectively on issues facing the scientific community’s assessment of how various perturbations are altering Nature.30
A second normative duty is to transition from factual understanding to aesthetic valuing. It is my contention that this is a seamless process and the foundational grounding for an anthropocentric approach to environmental ethics.31 Understanding the operation of a complex biological system will result in an intellectual valuing of that system. To value a system is to undertake a duty to protect said system. Thus, the second part of the extended eco-community worldview imperative is to undergo this process. It all begins with education and it ends with an intellectual-cum-aesthetic appreciation that translates into a duty to protect.
In the end, the extended eco-community worldview imperative entails a duty to protect all of the world’s Natural biological and non-biological material systems (such as earth, air, and water) according to our resources. Since this duty extends only to humans, this account is anthropocentric. And though the shared community worldview imperatives (in their various forms) emphasize the communal duties incurred, still because human communities are comprised of many individual humans, these duties apply to each individual within the community via my personhood account, the personal worldview imperative.
This constitutes the definition of Nature within the context of community dynamics (ti esti).
Part II: Why Should We Care?
The Ethical Constraints on Interfering with Nature. If we accept the depiction in Part I of this chapter, then we already have an argument outline on why we should care:
1 There are two sorts of understandings of N/nature: (a) nature which refers to individuals (tokens) and (b) Nature which refers to larger, general groups (types)32—A(ssertion).
2 The systemic, operational mechanisms of both nature and Nature are intricate, complex, and difficult fully to understand—F(act).
3 Whenever one comes to a correct, partial understanding of intricate and complex systemic mechanisms there follows a reaction that is akin to aesthetic appreciation—A.
4 Aesthetic value-appreciation incurs a duty to protect that which has been valued—F.33
5 When one engages with nature/Nature and one comes to an understanding (on some level) of the causal operation of these systemic mechanisms such that one will both value nature/Nature and, as a result, be obliged to protect nature/Nature—1−4.
6 Coming to terms with understanding nature/Nature involves a model that situates individuals within communities (both proximate and remote)—A.
7 There are (at least) two large understanding of communities that all humans must recognize: human communities and N/natural communities—A.
8 Properly understanding the human communities and the N/natural communities requires
