Fifth, studies and accounts of societies that provide the nest, particularly nomadic foragers, the type of society in which humanity spent 99% of its genus history, indicate a more virtuous human nature than people in industrialized societies may think is normal or possible. The adults in these communities are generous, calm, and cooperative (Ingold, 2005).
Sixth, the human nature that emerges from nest-support displays Darwin's moral sense: social pleasure, empathy, concern for the opinion of the community, habit control, and memory functions allowing comparison of past, present, and future. All these contribute to cooperative behavior, a key aspect of what helped our ancestors survive. But all of these appear to be diminishing in the USA (Narvaez, 2017).
"Even before the ecological devastation underway, moral theory has often stayed away from discussing very deeply responsibilities to the natural world, perhaps addressing the rights of animals but not much more. Most virtue theories assume hierarchies, with humans (or particular humans) at the top of a pyramid of moral advantages and moral responsibility. But among humans, who evolved to be fiercely egalitarian (Boehm 1999), rigid hierarchy is a recent invention of particular societies, known as civilization, appearing only among some groups in the last 1% of human genus existence.[1] Indeed, civilization and industrialization have had continual battles trying to coerce individuals into abnegating their personal autonomy and submitting to obeying authority (Zerzan 2018)."
[1] Note: Civilizations came and went starting in the last 10,000 years or so. The genus Homo has been around for about 2 million (Fuentes, 2009).
Certainly, virtue is about flourishing-of self and community-but it is also about flourishing in the more than human community, within all circles of life, based in a deep awareness of humanity's dependence on the rest of nature to survive (Deloria, 2006).
Eighth, the pillars of original virtue include relational attunement (engagement ethic), communal imagination, and respectful partnership with the natural world. All are apparent in human societies that provide the nest to their young, fostering connectedness throughout life. They maintain communal imagination through cultural practices that enhance ecological attachment and receptiveness to the natural world (Narvaez, 2014).
Ecocentric virtue is a human heritage from nested upbringings that enhance our receptivity and connection to the rest of the natural world. People who live in partnership with nature demonstrate capacities to interact respectfully and sustainably with its dynamism (Descola, 2013), even to the extent of living peaceably with predators as first-contact diarists astonishingly noted (e.g., Sale, 1990; Turner, 1994; Spencer, 2018). Much like the traditions of First Nation peoples around the world today, cooperative attitudes towards the natural world maintain the health of the biocommunity.
"The Native American paradigm is comprised of and includes ideas of constant motion and flux, existence consisting of energy waves, interrelationships, all things being animate, space/place, renewal, and all things being imbued with spirit" (Little Bear, 2000, p. x).
What can be done to shift back to our original, ecocentric virtue?
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