BioConcepts

deep ecologyTiefenökologie (ger.)

• A radical environmental philosophy and movement which regards human life as merely one of many equal components of the global ecosystem, and seeks to counter anthropocentric attitudes and policies. (OED 2012)
  category bioethics

  1973

  I shall make an effort to characterize the two [movements]. 1. The Shallow Ecology movement: Fight against pollution and resource depletion. Central objective: the health and affluence of people in the developed countries. 2. The Deep Ecology movement: (1) Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favor therelational, total-field image. Organisms as knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations. An intrinsic relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions of basic constitutions of A and B, so that without the relation, A and B are no longer the same things. The total-field dissolves not only the man-in-environment concept, but every compact thing-in-milieu concept–except when talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication. (2) Biospherical egalitarianism–in principle. The “in principle” clause is inserted because any realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation, and suppression. The ecological field-worker acquires a deep-seated respect, or even veneration, for ways and forms of life. He reaches an understanding from within, a kind of understanding that others reserve for fellow men and for a narrow section of ways and forms of life. To the ecological field-worker, the equal right to live and blossom is an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom. […] (3) Principles of diversity and of symbiosis. […] (4) Anti-class posture. […] (5) Fight against pollution and resource depletion. […] (6) Complexity, not complication. […] (7) Local autonomy and decentralization

  Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long range ecology movement: a summary. Inquiry 16, 95-100: 95-8.

  1974

  the standpoint of ‘deep’ ecology

  Passmore, J. (1974). Man’s Responsibility for Nature: Ecological Problems and Western Traditions: 220.