Co-Creator or Creative Predator?

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Co-Creator or Creative Predator? "
Daniel P. Scheid

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1085978
Doc. No	:	LA129607
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15685357-01802001‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Daniel P. Scheid
Title & Author	:	Co-Creator or Creative Predator? [Article]\ Daniel P. Scheid
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology
Date	:	2014
Volume/ Issue Number	:	18/2
Page No	:	99–121
Abstract	:	While the Catholic Church’s official teaching on the environment presents a hopeful and comprehensive ecological ethic rooted in the goodness of creation and humanity’s privileged role as co-creator, it does not sufficiently account for the violence of predation and humanity’s necessary participation in it. James Nash’s understanding of humans as altruistic, creative predators can further Catholic ecological ethics because it strikes a better balance between humanity’s call to love creation and the moral ambiguity of the evolutionary process. Humans as creative predators suggests three new understandings of what ecological sacrifice could entail: 1) to see the death of every creature, even if a morally justifiable death, as a kind of sacrifice; 2) to recognize that ecological sustainability may demand dramatic and subversive shifts in behavior; and 3) to sacrifice our tendency to view nonhumans instrumentally by advocating a Biotic Bill of Rights. While the Catholic Church’s official teaching on the environment presents a hopeful and comprehensive ecological ethic rooted in the goodness of creation and humanity’s privileged role as co-creator, it does not sufficiently account for the violence of predation and humanity’s necessary participation in it. James Nash’s understanding of humans as altruistic, creative predators can further Catholic ecological ethics because it strikes a better balance between humanity’s call to love creation and the moral ambiguity of the evolutionary process. Humans as creative predators suggests three new understandings of what ecological sacrifice could entail: 1) to see the death of every creature, even if a morally justifiable death, as a kind of sacrifice; 2) to recognize that ecological sustainability may demand dramatic and subversive shifts in behavior; and 3) to sacrifice our tendency to view nonhumans instrumentally by advocating a Biotic Bill of Rights.
Descriptor	:	Christian ethics
Descriptor	:	Christianity
Descriptor	:	environmental/ecological ethics
Descriptor	:	human ecology
Descriptor	:	James Nash
Descriptor	:	religious aspects
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15685357-01802001‬