Towards EcoEvoEthics

Abstract

Ecology long considered the natural world as an #x201C;equilibrium world#x201D;. This view culminated in the 1950s with the ecosystem paradigm, which was strengthened by the idea that the reciprocal selection of interacting species should produce ecological stability. At the end of the 1940s, Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic valued the stability of natural communities, and the balance of nature became a key issue for conservationists. Nowadays, there is a shift towards a co-change paradigm: interacting biological and non-biological entities are co-changing through a transactional web that forms the biosphere. Consequently, as ecology meets evolution, the conservation target must shift from the stability of ecological systems to their adaptability. Simultaneously, there is a need for an eco-evolutionary ethics which assumes that we and our co-evolving aliens are living in a changing world. Difficult issues should therefore be addressed, such as the uniqueness and intrinsic value of living entities versus the substitutability of functionally redundant species, and the evolutionary value of diversity. Finally, beyond the biocentrism versus anthropocentrism debate, this EcoEvoEthics should affirm that a thing is right when it tends to enhance the biosphere's capacity to evolve.