Michael Hannis and Sian Sullivan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190456023
- eISBN:
- 9780190456054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190456023.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The chapter considers the environmental ethics underlying certain practices and beliefs observed in the course of field research with primarily ||Khao-a Dama people in west Namibia. ||Khao-a Dama ...
More
The chapter considers the environmental ethics underlying certain practices and beliefs observed in the course of field research with primarily ||Khao-a Dama people in west Namibia. ||Khao-a Dama perspectives embody a type of “relational environmental ethics” that refracts anthropocentric/ecocentric dichotomies, and is characterized by respect for, and reciprocity with, agency and intentionality as located in entities beyond the human (ancestors, spirits, animals, healing plants and rain). The chapter connects this worldview with contemporary environmental virtue ethics, arguing that it is compatible with a theoretical framework of “ecological eudaimonism” as a fitting response to a complex contemporary world of “wicked” environmental problems.Less
The chapter considers the environmental ethics underlying certain practices and beliefs observed in the course of field research with primarily ||Khao-a Dama people in west Namibia. ||Khao-a Dama perspectives embody a type of “relational environmental ethics” that refracts anthropocentric/ecocentric dichotomies, and is characterized by respect for, and reciprocity with, agency and intentionality as located in entities beyond the human (ancestors, spirits, animals, healing plants and rain). The chapter connects this worldview with contemporary environmental virtue ethics, arguing that it is compatible with a theoretical framework of “ecological eudaimonism” as a fitting response to a complex contemporary world of “wicked” environmental problems.
Cheryl Cottine, Michael Hannis, and Sian Sullivan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190456023
- eISBN:
- 9780190456054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190456023.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter brings ||Khao-a Dama perspectives from present-day Namibia into dialogue with ancient Confucianism. These two extremely different approaches find common ground in that both refract the ...
More
This chapter brings ||Khao-a Dama perspectives from present-day Namibia into dialogue with ancient Confucianism. These two extremely different approaches find common ground in that both refract the sharp distinction often posited between anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics. In each case, anthropology and history are both key to building a more nuanced perspective, drawing on the many traditions that have conceptualized humans as part of the world rather than apart from and transcendent over it. The commonalities that emerge foreground an ecological conception of human flourishing—in all its relational interconnection with the rest of nature—as the central concern of environmental ethics.Less
This chapter brings ||Khao-a Dama perspectives from present-day Namibia into dialogue with ancient Confucianism. These two extremely different approaches find common ground in that both refract the sharp distinction often posited between anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics. In each case, anthropology and history are both key to building a more nuanced perspective, drawing on the many traditions that have conceptualized humans as part of the world rather than apart from and transcendent over it. The commonalities that emerge foreground an ecological conception of human flourishing—in all its relational interconnection with the rest of nature—as the central concern of environmental ethics.
