Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Response to the OOO Debates (Part II) from Leon at After Nature

For my part, my rebellion against "flatting" one's ontology is directed at scientific naturalism and the reduction of being to the physical along with material and efficient causation.  Tell me that human suffering is *just* a neurological state, and I'll tell of your hubris.  Aside, a motivation for my work is to articulate how destroying a people's culture can be as grevious a wound as of the flesh and sometimes more so.

I affirm the parity principle.

Being a panpsychist, the parity principle is all but a given for me once I affirm that I do not view human nature as some transcendent pinnacle of history or evolution.  That said, destruction of humanity in its various forms, both physical and symbolic--presuming a difference for the moment--is still violence that humanity need not countenance even if wolves do.  If one wants a biological-organic basis that doesn't presume transcendent values at the outset, then we can begin with homeostasis, i.e., the self-maintenance of all things that are living.  Why treat culture or a people's heritage as any different, unless we have already presumed that it is somehow "non-natural" as so many in contemporary philosophy do?  That shows a terrible lack of reverence.

As for an SR/OOO ecological ethics, I believe that we should look to Chinese Buddhism, e.g. the ethical implications of sunyata or emptiness.  For my part, I hope to contribute through my analyses of the situated genesis of meaning and value that could be described as ecological.

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