Implications of the Biocultural Ethic for Earth Stewardship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 127

9.4 Biocultural Co-inhabitation Versus Ecosystem Services

The notions of stewardship and co-inhabitation have relevant ethical and ontological
differences. Stewardship, as conceived by the initiatives of Earth and Planetary
stewardship (Chapin et al. 2011a , b ; Steffen et al. 2011 ), is based on a notion of ecosys-
tem services where human subjects administer goods and services of ecosystem objects
and processes. Consequently, the only subjects (active agents with their own interests)
are humans (see Naeem 2013 ). Biodiversity and ecosystems are viewed as passive
objects without intentionality or interests. Under the prevailing perspectives of ecosys-
tem services, these objects are managed with a utilitarian ethics, to produce the greatest
good for the greatest number of people, and for the longest time. This utilitarian ethics
has a long and infl uential history in the philosophy of conservation and rational use of
resources inaugurated by Gifford Pinchot at the beginning of the twentieth century (see
Norton 1991 ). Later, at the end of the twentieth century, it also became the central
school of ethics for the concept of sustainable development envisioned by the Bruntland
Commission report, Our Common Future (WCED 1987 ). The utilitarian ethics that has
inspired Pinchot and Bruntland supposes an ontological split between human-subjects
and nature-objects that has a long history in Western philosophy (see Morin 1990 ). As
environmental philosopher Irene Klaver underlines:

The dualism between subject and object has been pervasive, deeply imbedded in Western
thought, and at the root of a variety of interlocking dualisms, such as activity (or agency)
versus passivity , resonating in culture versus nature . A dualistic mindset comes with a value
attribution, with an implied sense of superiority (culture, agency) versus inferiority (nature,
passivity) and hence an implied legitimation for use, domination and exploitation. The inert
material or natural object is waiting for the human intentional subject to do something with
it. It became the basis for a Western conception of passive nature, ready to be used by cul-
ture. (Klaver 2013 , p. 93, emphasis added)
In contrast to utilitarian ethics, the concept of co-inhabitation proposed by the
biocultural ethic is based on an ontology that considers all living beings as active
subjects with their own interests (see Rozzi 2013 , pp. 26-28). Recent scientifi c
discoveries have determined that even invertebrates have the capacity to feel pain
and stress (Horvath et al. 2013 ). These invertebrates actively seek and build their
own habitats (Contador et al. 2014 ), and exhibit behaviors that seek pleasure and
avoid pain (Barras 2007 ). Contemporary sciences provide an avalanche of evidence
supporting the continuity of biological nature between humans and all living beings.
Therefore, it is more appropriate to conceive living beings as a community of active
subjects with their own interests with whom we co-inhabit - and not merely as
“natural resources” that we rationally manage to only get goods and services.
The ontology of the biocultural ethic has ancient roots in Western philosophy.
Aristotle considered all living beings as having a soul. Soul (Lat. anima ) means
spirit, and spirit (Lat. spiritus ) means breath. According to Aristotle, plants and
animals (humans and other-than-humans) have a vegetative soul; that is, all living
beings breathe, grow, and reproduce. The Aristotelian view is consistent with the
scientifi c theory of the unity of life. In the nineteenth century it was discovered that
all living beings are made of cells, and during the twentieth century it was