Thoughts on the Philosophical Foundation of Ecological …
597
the tradition of teleology in western philosophy, it would be hard to understand
Rolston’s arguments about nature’s intrinsic values.
The twentieth century has witnessed dramatic changes in scientific ideas. In
mid-twentieth century, the systematic scientific movement motivated by a series
of new achievements in modern natural sciences and dominated by three laterally
crossover new disciplines, namely information theory, control theory and system
theory, presented a natural vista of how the world self-organization has evolved. At
that time, evolution captured the attention of more philosophers, leading to Henri
Bergson’s Creative Evolution and Whitehead’s process philosophy. The rise and
development of modern sciences has eroded the foundation of the mechanical worldview and formed a new scientific one and a new explanatory framework. In a sense the
new worldview can be called an “organic” one. While the organic theory in ancient
Greece was no more than an intuitive guess and philosophical speculation and that
in the nineteenth century was just a feature of a philosophical section, the modern
organic worldview is established on the basis of modern sciences including physics,
biology, system theory, control theory and information theory. It is the generalization of modern scientific worldview and it lays the natural conception foundation for
ecological civilization.
2 Values Are Important for Selecting a Way of Life
Conforming to Ecological Civilization
People’s evaluation system and standards for nature are changing as their understanding of natural values keeps deepening and expanding. In the agricultural society,
nature was a direct existence and direct source of living resources, so it was easy to
form intuitive and primitive natural responsibility ethics. In modern times, however,
with the continuous process of industrialization, nature has gradually been reduced
into an indirect existence, tool and means through the increasingly advanced scientific
and technological approaches. Human-centrism has remained a mainstream ideology
in the West, which, by viewing nature as a tool and taking mankind as the only center
in value judgment, has led to serious damages of natural environment. The damages,
affecting every aspect of natural environment from organic biosphere to inorganic
sphere, have generated consequences that man has found hard to bear as time goes
by. Against such a background, as people with vision began to reflect on humancentrism, environmental ethics have kept evolving, improving and becoming more
systematic as people are increasingly aware of environmental protection, thus laying
the value foundation for ecological civilization.
In traditional Chinese culture, “man and nature in one” is the basic spirit of
Confucianism and it contains some very important environmental ethics. By putting
forth “man and nature in one,” the Confucian school, on the one hand, wanted to
argue for an ideal interpersonal relation that established a universal human ethics
following the virtue of heaven. On the other hand, it intended to create the ethics
597
the tradition of teleology in western philosophy, it would be hard to understand
Rolston’s arguments about nature’s intrinsic values.
The twentieth century has witnessed dramatic changes in scientific ideas. In
mid-twentieth century, the systematic scientific movement motivated by a series
of new achievements in modern natural sciences and dominated by three laterally
crossover new disciplines, namely information theory, control theory and system
theory, presented a natural vista of how the world self-organization has evolved. At
that time, evolution captured the attention of more philosophers, leading to Henri
Bergson’s Creative Evolution and Whitehead’s process philosophy. The rise and
development of modern sciences has eroded the foundation of the mechanical worldview and formed a new scientific one and a new explanatory framework. In a sense the
new worldview can be called an “organic” one. While the organic theory in ancient
Greece was no more than an intuitive guess and philosophical speculation and that
in the nineteenth century was just a feature of a philosophical section, the modern
organic worldview is established on the basis of modern sciences including physics,
biology, system theory, control theory and information theory. It is the generalization of modern scientific worldview and it lays the natural conception foundation for
ecological civilization.
2 Values Are Important for Selecting a Way of Life
Conforming to Ecological Civilization
People’s evaluation system and standards for nature are changing as their understanding of natural values keeps deepening and expanding. In the agricultural society,
nature was a direct existence and direct source of living resources, so it was easy to
form intuitive and primitive natural responsibility ethics. In modern times, however,
with the continuous process of industrialization, nature has gradually been reduced
into an indirect existence, tool and means through the increasingly advanced scientific
and technological approaches. Human-centrism has remained a mainstream ideology
in the West, which, by viewing nature as a tool and taking mankind as the only center
in value judgment, has led to serious damages of natural environment. The damages,
affecting every aspect of natural environment from organic biosphere to inorganic
sphere, have generated consequences that man has found hard to bear as time goes
by. Against such a background, as people with vision began to reflect on humancentrism, environmental ethics have kept evolving, improving and becoming more
systematic as people are increasingly aware of environmental protection, thus laying
the value foundation for ecological civilization.
In traditional Chinese culture, “man and nature in one” is the basic spirit of
Confucianism and it contains some very important environmental ethics. By putting
forth “man and nature in one,” the Confucian school, on the one hand, wanted to
argue for an ideal interpersonal relation that established a universal human ethics
following the virtue of heaven. On the other hand, it intended to create the ethics