Volume 6, Issue 1, Spring 2009
Richard Evanoff
Pages 57-76
A Coevolutionary Framework for Environmental Ethics
A coevolutionary approach to environmental ethics recognizes the extent to which cultural practices and natural processes interact with and coadapt themselves to each other, but also acknowledges the extent to which each preserves a measure of autonomy from the other. The paper begins by outlining a coevolutionary theory that sees nature and culture in transactional rather than in dualistic terms and by presenting a coevolutionary view of cultural adaptation. The paper then considers how a coevolutionary framework for ethics can be developed that sees human well-being and the environment as interrelated rather than as separate areas of ethical concern.