Biocultural ethics: From biocultural homogenization toward biocultural conservation

Abstract

The 14th Cary Conference and this book Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World: Values, Philosophy, and Action reconnect the theoretical reason of ecological sciences with the practical reason of ethics to better understand and to more fairly assess the social processes of the changing world in which we co-inhabit today. In this chapter I invite ecologists, philosophers, and other actors to essay an additional integration: the examination of the diversity of ways of understanding the world and their interrelationships with the diversity of modes of judging which ways of co-inhabiting are just or unjust. With a biocultural perspective that highlights the planetary ecological and cultural heterogeneity, I introduce three interrelated terms: (1) biocultural homogenization, a major, but little perceived, global driver of losses of biological and cultural diversity that frequently entail social and environmental injustices; (2) biocultural ethics that considers - ontologically and axiologically - the interrelations between the habits and the habitats that shape the identity and well-being of the co-inhabitants; (3) biocultural conservation that seeks social and ecological well-being through the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and their interrelationships.