Abstract

I propose to characterize various contemporary approaches to environmental ethics according to the psychohistorical schema developed by Jean Gebser. Gebser outlines five structures of consciousness: the archaic, the magical, the mythic, the mental-rational, and the integral. Each of these structures have predominated successively in the historical unfolding of consciousness, except for the integral which is presently emerging out of the final rational stage of the mental-rational structure. The typical approaches to environmental ethics in the mental-rational structure are utilitarianism and the deontic, rights approach. Some philosophers reject these approaches because they are rooted in the assumptions of the mental-rational structure which they hold to be largely responsible for the ecological crisis in the first place. Consequently they attempt to approach the question of moral responsibility to nature on the basis of a set of assumptions other than those of the mental-rational structure, that is, either on the basis of "previous" structures, namely the magical or mythic, or on the emerging integral structure. Representing the magically-based approach to environmental ethics are the Deep Ecologists . William Irving Thompson is selected as representing the mythic voice, and Skolimowski the integral structure. Each of these positions are analyzed according to Gebser's psychohistorical framework, according to which there is an inherent evolutionary telos such that previous structures are unable to successfully resist the power of the succeeding structure. It follows that not only those philosophical approaches based on the mental-rational but also those based on magical or mythic structures are inadequate to meet the present ecological crisis. What is required is an integral approach. Skolimowski is found to be nearest to this approach, but an analysis of his position reveals that he reverts back to a mental-rational approach which vitiates his integralism. In the attempt to outline a fully integral ecological ethic I draw on Plotinus' philosophy of contemplative action, Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of evolutionary Yoga, and Scheler's phenomenology of values