Hermeneutics and Field Environmental Philosophy: Integrating Ecological Sciences and Ethics into Earth Stewardship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 241

From a Latin American perspective we can cite more examples of metaphorical
uses that enable a new understanding of the biosphere as a reality in which we are
not only immersed, but a reality that we should also respect. An example can be
found at the Bioethics Research Institute of Monterrey ( Instituto de Investigaciones
en Bioética de Monterrey ), Mexico, which is supporting a research program about
the La Silla River, metaphorically called the “Last Living River” (Canales 2014 ). It
is called the “Living River” because it is the only river in the metropolitan area that
still bears a continuous water fl ow, and whose ecosystem barely “survives” due to
changes in the course of the river, non-planned settlements, and industrial dis-
charges. The research aims to identify and describe the violation of moral values
and principles, based on the premise of equal dignity among all beings. The aim of
this transdisciplinary approach is to fuse the horizons of meaning of bioethics with
the horizons of meaning of sustainable development. Another example of a trans-
disciplinary approach can be found in southern Chile at the Omora Ethnobotanical
Park, which using the FEP methodology has proposed the metaphor of the “minia-
ture forests of Cape Horn” and the activity of “ecotourism with a hand-lens.” Both
the metaphor and the fi eld activity provide visitors with a language and a guided
fi eld experience that allow them to appreciate the ecological, aesthetic, economic,
and ethical values of the luxuriant diversity of mosses and lichens in the Magellanic
sub-Antarctic ecoregion (Rozzi et al. 2008b ).
These Latin American experiences offer a transdisciplinary dialogue and part-
nership, which contributes to an intercultural Earth stewardship (Rozzi et al. 2012 ).
The best service of hermeneutics is the recognition of horizons of belonging among
members of different cultures, to achieve their fusion. According to the philosophy
of Bryan Norton ( 1991 ), the best argument for protecting biodiversity is to under-
score the value biological species and ecosystem processes. However, this cannot be
achieved without the deeper understanding given by metaphors, thanks to which it
is possible to understand that non-biologically alive realities are actually alive in an
axiological sense, or that non-human persons can have dignity as much as human
persons in an ethical sense. Toward this end, FEP and other Latin American initia-
tives highlight the need to proceed with persuasive metaphorical translations of
meanings, and with poetic symbolization. In this way, those with reductionist posi-
tions not only will realize that different stakeholders are in the same boat, but also
that the boat and the waters where we sail must be in the minds and the hearts of all
participants.
References
Aguirre J (2012) Hermeneutic contributions to the citizen project. Archiv für Rechts- und
Socialphilosophie 98(4):535-543
Callicott B (1994) Earth's insights: a survey of ecological ethics from the Mediterranean basin to
the Australian outback. University of California Press, Berkley/Los Angeles
Canales E (2014) Río La Silla: implicaciones bioéticas de los impactos ambientales sobre el último
río vivo de la zona metropolitana de Monterrey. Investigación doctoral del IIB, Monterrey