Human Being and Nature

approach discusses what would be the ideal situation between human and n
onship.
an being and nature must have a proper relation.
e must be the right balance between the two, and only then can man actuall
ess without harming nature much.
iew that either man is the master of nature or nature is the master of man is
er.
is blind, selfish, and greedy regarding his own benefits which ultimately harm
e.
ing this he is only harming and destroying nature and ultimately he invites h
destruction.
ncrease of industries, factories and other infrastructures which involves prog
t making nature an enemy of man.
efore, there is a necessity of bringing man and environment close to each oth
ep the ecology in order it is necessary to maintain and keep ecological balan
.
 w human being is careful in protecting nature.
ological philosophers believe that there is unity in nature.
ey are searching for that unifying force which binds everything together
, as human beings, have immense capacity for thought.
e ability is much greater than that of any other creature. We are also
guage users which is unique to the human beings.
ong all other creature human beings are endowed with high degree of
ntal power and capacity.
s enables humans to see the far-reaching
reaching consequences that follow fro
events.
ese events include even man’s own doings and the consequences that h
ives from it.
e can forecast the possibility of alternative futures and accordingly we a
order to achieve these possibilities.
 ave intellectual capacities as well as bodily appetites and emotions.
ese capacities are integral parts of us.
re very much similar to other animals especially to other mammals regardin
y appetites and emotions.
ere is a thread of continuity among humans and animals.
mental powers that enable us to transform our environment are due to the h
oped brain that human’s posses.
ossession of these developed brains is due to the evolutionary developmen
al to human.
e we cannot hold the view that the human beings are radically different from
al.
bility to control natural force is extremely limited.
atural forces like winds, tides and earthquakes wipe away all constructions o
an beings within few seconds during natural disasters.
es the strongest possible proof that we are part of nature and thus cannot co
e fully.
 “ecosystem” is an association of plant, animal populations, and inorgan
ments.
y are bound together by the relation of interdependence.
h population depends for its existence on other elements of ecosystem.
y species such as living and non-living
living thing performs its own function
ntaining the system.
man population and its members belong to an ecosystem and can not
tion from it.
not only live along with other species such as, plants and animals, but a
e features in common with them.
we are part of the same system of life.
o-determinism
determinism is a perspective which says that neither man is superior
ture nor nature is superior to man.
holds that there is a dialectical relationship existing between man and n
ientific progress will not be possible unless such a relation exists. This t
propounded by Griffith Taylor.
says man by his knowledge changes nature to suit himself.
r him neither man is the master of the nature nor is nature the master
an. Both have a functional relation with each other.
an and nature should have a unified relationship for the sake of progres
mans can increase or decrease the speed of evolution but they cannot
erfere with the direction of natural progress and evolution.
ither can human break or change the norms of nature.
 gical Approach:
view is of the opinion that man is a part of environment itself.
nvironment is a triangular system where man on one point, environment is
her point and the third point is that of progress, namely economic, social and
ral.
and environment complement each other. His action is influenced by his
rience of nature.
xperience of nature and actions alter nature and affect it.
n exploits nature without thinking about the consequences, then, the effect
ly harmful for human beings only.
sive use of water, land, and air is causing pollution which seems to lead man
timate downfall.
nization and industrialization have destroyed the balance of nature.
efore, man and his relationship with nature are dependent upon his interacti
nature.
dea of deep ecology is thus proposed in order to explore man’s interaction w
e.
 Ecology:
Naess is one of the pioneering figures of deep ecology movement that grew
960s.
ophy-TT is an ecological worldview first mapped out by Naess.
provides an example of his philosophical underpinnings for supporting the de
gy movement through a holistic approach that is a synthesis of spiritual,
cal, and environmental values and perspectives.
ecology is a “relational, total field perspective”.
ects the anthropocentric “man-in-environment
environment image”.
s a more holistic and non-anthropocentric
anthropocentric approach.
r deep ecologist, the dominant worldview is responsible for environmental
uction.
heory is based on two positions:
ocentrism and non anthropocentrism.
efore, their philosophical worldview is holistic and it is not human-centred.
human
s both human and non-human
human life on earth has intrinsic value.
value of non-human
human life is independent of the usefulness.
ss uses the term “life” to refer to the things which biologists may classif
living, such as rivers, landscapes, and ecosystems.
p ecology traces the roots of our environmental crisis to fundamental
sophical cause.
solutions can only come from a transformation of our fundamental
dview and practices.
e fundamental questions include;
t is the human nature?
t is the relation of humans to the rest of the nature?
t is the nature of reality?
e questions are traditionally identified as metaphysical questions.
p ecology, therefore, is as concerned with questions of metaphysics and
logy as it is with questions of ethics.
ep ecologists trace the cause of our many environmental problems to th
taphysics dominant in our prevalent metaphysical thinking.
it is concerned with a metaphysical ecology.
dominant metaphysics is fundamentally individualistic and reductionis
ording to this view only individuals are real.
s view also sees humans as fundamentally different from the rest of the
ure.
deep ecology rejects such kind of metaphysics.
enies that individual humans are separate from nature.
upports metaphysical holism. Humans are a part of their surroundings,
inct from them.
mans are constituted by their relations to other elements in the
ironment.
them Environment means both biotic and abiotic constituents.
 f realization plays an important role in deep ecology.
r deep ecologists, the underlying self is the self which is one with the
tural world.
f- realization is a process of self-examination
examination in which people come to
derstand themselves as a part of a greater whole.
this process a person comes to understand that “there is no firm ontolo
ide between humans and non-humans,
humans, i.e., between self and other.
s the process through which we come to know ourselves not as
dividuals separate and distinct from nature; but as a part of a greater
f.
the Indian perspective particularly in Buddhism this unified relationship
tween man and nature is found very prominently.
ddhism is an ecological philosophy. Their view on environment is life-centric,
life
hropo-independent.
h subject and its environment have a mutually interdependent and
erconnected relationship.
e doctrine of “dependent origination” shows that everything in the ecosystem
ual in value, as everything is related.
ere is a continuous chain which holds everything in nature in a single thread.
living beings and non living things have equal dignity and intrinsic value.
man is a part of nature and therefore, no sharp distinction can be drawn bet
man being and his surroundings.
Buddhists everything is impermanent and subject to the same natural laws.
the factors of existence including human being are interconnected by the law
sality.
man and nature are bound together in a reciprocal causal relationship. Chan
e necessarily brings changes in the other.
erefore, human being is a part of nature.
 hism provides all the essential elements for a relationship to the natural wor
cterized by respect, humanity, care and compassion.
hism is ecocentric rather than anthropocentric, because it views humans as
ral part of nature.
nlike the traditional western tradition that presupposes the priority of the
dual from the whole.
ddhist approach does not separate the individual from the whole because th
dual is understood as existing within the ontology of interdependence.
ddhism reality is both, as individual and as a whole.
elation is interpreted and understood in terms of interactive and interconne
ess.
ddhism there is no definitive hierarchy between individuals or between the
dual and the whole.
s particular individuals are different.
hey are not separate from each other and from the whole.
neness of reality is seen in and through the parts that make up the whole.
e the parts of an organism which are distinguishable, as head from feet or hand fro
ut all parts are interconnected as the organism.
e, reality is like an organism where one can differentiate particular individuals withi
ganism.
timately all parts are interconnected within the same reality. So both the parts and
have integrity.
fore, they are subjects of moral consideration. Therefore, in Buddhism man and na
onship is based on unity and interdependence rather than on subject-object
subject duality
gh this kind of approach the orientation to the environment comes down to the
nant species to the member of a community.
ind of approach also helps us to see humans as part of a process rather than any
entiation.
hism transcends the separateness from nature and instead, identifies with the welf
beings.
are similarities between deep ecology and Buddhism.
ecology acknowledges its dependence upon Buddhism for conceptualizing “self
ation”.
e, Buddhism offers some insights for the problem of man’s relationship to the
onment.
ern philosophy seriously forgot about nature for a long time.
only in mid-twentieth-century
century that there was a revival of the philosop
ure, termed as environmental philosophy,
philosophy
nd that too in response to what was widely perceived as the ecological
sis in the 1960s.
has come out of this crisis as environmental philosophy is an account o
human beings should think about the natural world and their place with

portant question here is about value:

value
nly human beings as the value-generating
generating beings have value, or also non
n life has value?
ure intrinsically valuable just as human beings are?
e is distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value
umental value: is the value of things as means to further some other en
sic value: is the value of things as ends in themselves regardless of
her they are also useful as means to other ends.
nstance, certain fruits have instrumental value for bats who feed on
, since feeding on the fruits is a means to survival for the bats.
ot widely agreed that fruits have value as ends in themselves.
an likewise think of a person who teaches others as having instrumenta
for those who want to acquire knowledge.
n addition to any such value, it is normally said that a person, as a
on, has intrinsic value,
., value in his or her own right independently of his or her prospects for serving the
ds of others.
ple: a certain wild plant may have instrumental value because it provid
ngredients for some medicine or as an aesthetic object for human
rvers.
 the plant also has some value in itself independently of its prospects fo
ering some other ends such as human health, or the pleasure from
etic experience, then the plant also has intrinsic value.
use the intrinsically valuable is that which is good as an end in itself, it is
monly agreed that something’s possession of intrinsic value generates a
facie direct moral duty on the part of moral agents to protect it or at
refrain from damaging it.
ional western ethical perspectives, are anthropocentric or human-
red in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e
we might call anthropocentric in a strong sense)
ey assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human bein
to any non-human
human things such that the protection or promotion of
n interests or well-being
being at the expense of non-human
non things turns out
nearly always justified.
 xample, Aristotle: “nature has made all things specifically for the sake
and that the value of non-human
human things in nature is merely instrumen
rally, anthropocentric positions find it problematic to articulate what is
g with the cruel treatment of non-human
human animals, except to the extent
uch treatment may lead to bad consequences for human beings.
anuel Kant suggests that cruelty towards a dog might encourage a perso
velop a character which would be desensitized to cruelty towards
ans.
this standpoint, cruelty towards non-human
non animals would be
umentally, rather than intrinsically, wrong.
wise, anthropocentrism often recognizes some non-intrinsic
non wrongness
opogenic (i.e. human-caused)
caused) environmental devastation.
destruction might damage the well--being of human beings now and in
uture, since our well-being
being is essentially dependent on a sustainable
onment.
 onmental ethics: it questioned the assumed moral superiority of huma
gs to members of other species on earth.
estigated the possibility of rational arguments for assigning intrinsic va
e natural environment and its non-human
human contents.
 THE REVOLT AGAINST NATURE
we had a glimpse of how Greek philosophy began with concerns regarding
e, and how it turned human-centric
centric with Socrates.
urn of events is remarkable: when philosophical thinking in India and China
nature-oriented in the Axial Age,
uman revolution began in Greece, which led to all the developments in the
right from scientific revolution to the many political revolutions.
tes’s was a revolt against the contemporary Greek indistinctness between th
and nature.
ninth century BCE, Homer did not clearly distinguish between nature and th
rather they are fused imaginatively.
ods both exist in nature and are nature.
pre-Socratics
Socratics rejected traditional explanations of nature as divine.
an era of the decline of religious beliefs in the Greek world.
tes deepened what was supposed to be the more advanced way of thought:
biguous separation between nature and spirit.
esult, a dualist philosophy that separates humans from nature and places the
igher pedestal in the hierarchy was born.
born
 g the medieval times, the Judeo-Christian
Christian religious ethos came to be
ished in Europe – conclusively by fourth century CE.
e medievals,, nature was ordered creation, and they looked at the
whelming nature (the skies and the seas, the natural forces, and wildlife
nifestation of the glory of God.
xample, Genesis 1: 27–8 8 states: “God created man in his own image, in
mage of God created he him; male and female created he them. And Go
ed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and repleni
arth, and subdue it: and have dominion over fish of the sea, and over
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
ise, Thomas Aquinas argued that non-human
non animals are “ordered to
use”.
ding to White, the Judeo-Christian
Christian idea that humans are created in the
e of the transcendent supernatural God, who is radically separate from
e, also by extension radically separates humans themselves from natur
deology further opened the way for untrammeled exploitation of natur
ut during the medieval times, the separation between the visible
arthly) and the invisible (heavenly) worlds became watertight, and
he invisible world was privileged over the visible.
hey also understood the hierarchy of beings with God at the top,
top
ollowed by humans, and nature – living beings and inanimate beings
was placed below the hierarchy of intelligent beings.
ence, the eastern view of nature as imbued with the divine and
orthy of respect never really came to be established in the west.