Creating with Nature: Ecosophy C as an Ecological Rationality for Healing the Earth Community

Abstract

As a theory of philosophical ecology, Ecosophy C is an alternative to Arne Naess ’ Ecosophy T. It contains nine expressions with the capital C: Chinese culture , Confucianism, Continuity of being, Creating life , Compassion, Cheng Hao, Community, Cultural evils and Communicative reason . Ecosophy C asserts that the philosophical roots for today’s global ecological crisis fundamentally lie from the Fact/Value Dichotomy, which declares that values (such as moral obligations) could not be derived from facts and denies the possibility of logically deriving what ought to be from what is. The paper asserts that the key to healing the Earth Community Project is to reinterpret Hume ’s Is/Ought Dichotomy from the perspectives of ecology and ecosophy . With critical reflection on the reinterpretation for Hume ’s Is/Ought Dichotomy in today’s environmental ethics (represented by Callicott’s work), the paper offers an alternative resolution of Hume ’s Is/Ought Dichotomy from the perspective of Ecosophy C , which tries to transform the Aristotelian syllogism as a traditional way of justifying Leopold ’s “seeing as structure” towards a new way of asserting the is-ought statement. The fact-value structure upholds human agency with ecological rationality , which is educated by communicative reason and pursuing great virtue, creating life with Nature.