Ecocentric Design

This note is about ecocentric design. Also see design approaches Design, especially Ecological, Ecological Engineering

For the problem of centrisms, see

Definitions

"Ecocentrism is the broadest term for worldviews that recognize intrinsic value in all lifeforms and ecosystems themselves, including their abiotic components."

Washington, Haydn, Guillaume Chapron, Helen Kopnina, Patrick Curry, Joe Gray, and John J. Piccolo. ‘Foregrounding Ecojustice in Conservation’. Biological Conservation 228 (2018): 367–74. https://doi.org/10/ghn7vn.

Cf. "geocentrism" in Treves, Adrian, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, and William S. Lynn. ‘Just Preservation’. Biological Conservation 229 (2019): 134–41. https://doi.org/10/ggxw4r.

Cf. Rolston's Earth Ethics.

Two version of ecocentrism (not too clear in Lynn).

Cf. just preservation, (co-value combining extrinsic and intrinsic values).3 Also.4

• Bioethics
• Geoethics

Principles:5

• Ecocentrism
• Primacy of ecology
• Ecological justice

The Need

The current dominant global framework of "sustainable development" is inadequate.

Relevant movements and initiatives:

• Half-earth
• Extinction rebellion

Plausible and desirable futures.1 Trajectories of the Earth system.2

Similar Concepts

Comberti, Claudia, Thomas F. Thornton, Victoria Wyllie de Echeverria, and Trista M. Patterson. ‘Ecosystem Services or Services to Ecosystems? Valuing Cultivation and Reciprocal Relationships Between Humans and Ecosystems’. Global Environmental Change 34 (2015): 247–62. https://doi.org/10/f7sn8m.

Notes

Ecozoic or Ecological Era

Swimme, Brian, and Thomas Berry. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era—A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

From Earth Jurisprudence

At the ecosystemic level, Berry’s term ‘Earth community’ provides four fundamental insights. First, ecosystems are comprised of and influenced by natural and social systems (1999: 4). Second, ecosystems involve the individual behaviours of organisms. These organisms are understood as members (not isolated parts) of ecosystems (1999: 4). Third, members of ecosystems have various degrees of interiority or subjectivity (1999: 162–163). Finally, members of ecosystems interact within and across species to create horizons of shared meaning and understanding (1999: 4). These broad points share some similarity with the discipline of integral ecology (Wilber 1995). In particular, both make the radical claim that nature is more than a complex network of exterior strands of energy flows and holistic input/outputs. Rather, nature is also a space of intimacy and communion between ecological subjects. From this perspective, organisms are not just parts of an ecosystem – they are partners within an Earth community and intersubjective space. All organisms are subjects – they have interiors and lifeworlds.2 Berry (1990: 15x) is very clear on this point:

Nothing on earth [is] a mere ‘thing’. Every thing [has] its own divine, numinous subjectivity, its self, its centre, its unique identity. Every being [is] a presence to every other being.3

• Intrinsic and extrinsic
• Communities but also individuals
• Sharing but also half-earth
• Care and responsibility instead of justice and rights
• Flourishing and capabilities instead of suffering and the moral circle
• Multispecies worlds as a positive alternative to the negative delineations such speciesism non-anthropocentric, post-humanism

definition of care by Tronto. Everything that we do to maintain and repair the world.

caring is Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher's definition: "On the most general. level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes every- thing that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our 'world' so that we can. live in it as well as possible.

Design as care. But is design more? What about imagination?

Life-centred design

Borthwick, Madeleine, Martin Tomitsch, and Melinda Gaughwin. “From Human-Centred to Life-Centred Design: Considering Environmental and Ethical Concerns in the Design of Interactive Products.” Journal of Responsible Technology 10 (2022): 100032. https://doi.org/10/gqgzfv.

References

Ávila, Martín. Designing for Interdependence: A Poetics of Relating. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2022.

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Subnotes

1. How To

Footnotes

1. Adrian Treves, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, and William S. Lynn, “Just Preservation,” Biological Conservation 229 (2019): 134–41, https://doi.org/10/ggxw4r.˄

2. Helen Kopnina, “Just Preservation and the Half-Earth View,” Animal Sentience 4, no. 27 (2019).˄

3. Michelle Maloney, “Practical Pathways to Ecological Law: Greenprints and a Bioregional, Regenerative Governance Approach for Australia,” in From Environmental to Ecological Law, ed. Kirsten Anker et al. (Milton: Routledge, 2021), 237–51.˄

4. Xuemei Bai et al., “Plausible and Desirable Futures in the Anthropocene: A New Research Agenda,” Global Environmental Change 39, no. Supplement C (2016): 351–62, https://doi.org/10/f3tdzp.˄

5. Will Steffen et al., “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 33 (2018): 8252–59, https://doi.org/10/gdxtms.˄

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Backlinks

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