Intrinsic Values, Pantheism, and Ecology: Where Does Value Come From?

Abstract

Pantheism (or panentheism) is at the basis of ecological thinking and presumes some sort of ethics focused on the conservation of the environment. Besides, since the main interest of environmental philosophy in general is the ethical issue (not the ontological or cosmological one), we could also state that environmental ontology derives from an ethical interest in the preservation of nature. In this paper I try to walk the path that leads from interest or respect for nature (i.e., the ethical issue), to the very idea of nature underlying it (i.e., the cosmological question). In this sense, I mainly focus on the intrinsic ecological value which constitutes one of the critical issues in most approaches and paradigms of environmental ethics, showing some possible aporias of this concept. Finally, I show how declarations (or tenets) about the intrinsic value of nature –or, more specifically, of species– should be based on an adequate cosmology, in order to be consistent. The pantheist hypothesis is precisely one of them.