The Ethics of Participatory Processes: Dynamic Flux, Open Questions - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 320

provides a counterweight to economics, is biocultural conservation , which centers
on valuing the conservation jointly of habitats, cultural forms, and peoples threatened
by environmental degradation (Rozzi 2013 ).
The two models and their variants do not stem from efforts to build theory about
ecological complexity. (Observing this is not to discount the ecological research
needed to measure ecosystem services or to characterize the habitat and co-
inhabitants to be conserved.) The ecologist Steward Pickett spoke at the Conference
about paradigms in ecology leading up to the present, concluding that values other
than economic ones have to come into play to apply knowledge about ecology's
dynamic fl uxes (Pickett 2013 ). His conclusion brings us back, however, to the
hybrid model above and to a focus on values, not ecological theory. What might we
see if we translated what is entailed in the non-equilibrium view into the realm of
human actions?
The non-equilibrium, dynamic fl ux view of ecology, as I would summarize it
(Taylor and Haila 2001 ), is as follows: Since the 1980s ecologists became increas-
ingly aware that situations may vary according to historical trajectories that have led
to them; that particularities of place and connections among places matter; that time
and place is a matter of scales that differ among co-occurring species; that variation
among individuals can qualitatively alter the ecological process; that this variation
is a result of ongoing differentiation occurring within populations—which are spe-
cifi cally located and inter-connected—and that apparent interactions among the
species under study can be the indirect effects of other “hidden” species (i.e., having
dynamics not explicitly considered in the study or models).
There is surely an analogous dynamism to the ways that people, in their contingent,
changing social organizations, are able to direct and redirect their actions. We could,
therefore, pay attention to the ways that situations—social organizations—may vary
according to historical trajectories that have led to them; that particularities of place
and connections among places matter; that time and place is a matter of scales that
differ among co-occurring social groups and institutions; that variation among
individuals can qualitatively alter the social and environmental process; that this
variation is a result of ongoing differentiation occurring within populations—which
are specifi cally located and inter-connected—and that interactions among the
groups and institutions under study can be artifacts of the indirect effects of groups
and institutions with dynamics not explicitly considered.
This picture of human action turns the values-centered models of ethics inside
out. Values become a contingent snapshot of themes that appear to be directing an
individual or group—themes that people may or may not make explicit, discuss,
debate, and use to negotiate their actions. As an analogy, in ecology and environmental
science, we get some guidance, but not very much, by pointing to the evolutionary
imperative for organisms to survive and reproduce. Similarly, we should expect to
learn a little, but not too much, from focusing on the ethical basis that is, or could
be, inside the heads or hearts of people. Instead, we might replace values-centered
ethics with a dynamic fl ux ethics. Yet what would that look like? And what could one
do with it? The answer to the second question remains to be seen. The fi nal section
provides my answer to the fi rst question.