The structural links between ecology, evolution, and ethics: the virtuous epistemic circle. By Donato Bergandi
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In: BioScience, 2014, 64 (3), pp.253-254. The idea of a book devoted to the links between ecological science and philosophy, within the framework of present-day environmental concerns, was formed at an international workshop ("Between the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of ecology: evolutionisms, ecologies, and ethics") held in 2005 at the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris. Ten philosophers of science - from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States - contributed to the workshop, exchanging viewpoints and experiences in various environmental, ethical, and epistemological domains. This meeting resulted in The Structural Links between Ecology, Evolution, and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle, a succinct book edited by Donato Bergandi, who also coordinated the workshop. Bergandi is a professor at the MNHN and is well known for his dissection of the concepts and methods now in use in systems ecology and for his stimulating debates about (a) holism and reductionism, (b) cybernetics, and (c) emergence.
Voir
The Structural Links between Ecology, Evolution, and Ethics: TheVirtuous Epistemic Circle.Donato Bergandi. Springer, 2013. 179 pp., illus.$129.00 (ISBN 9789400750661 cloth).
The idea of a book devoted to the links between ecological scienceand philosophy, within the frameworkformed at an internationalof present-day environmental concerns, was workshop (“Between the philosophyof biology and the philosophy of ecology: evolutionisms, ecologies, andethics”) held in 2005 at the FrenchNational Museum of Natural History(MNHN) in Paris. Ten philosophersFrance, theof science – from UnitedKingdom, and the United States –contributed to the workshop, exchanging viewpoints and experiences invarious environmental, ethical, andepistemological domains. This meeting resulted inThe Structural Linksbetween Ecology, Evolution, and Ethics:The Virtuous Epistemic Circle, a succinct book edited by Donato Bergandi,who also coordinated the workshop.Bergandi is a professor at the MNHN and is well known for his dissectionof the concepts and methods now inuse in systems ecology and for his stimulating debates about (a) holismand reductionism, (b) cybernetics, and (c) emergence.
The central figure of the book is thatof Charles Darwin, whose research saturated evolutionary science –and changed the way mankind seesnature – before the appearance of ecology and nature conservation at the end of the nineteenth century. Darwin’stheories were largely propagated and, unfortunately, often distorted by his numerous followers – theDarwinianevangelists, as Michael Ruse humorously calls them in a chapter entitled“Evolution versus creation: a siblingrivalry?” Several Darwinian concepts are analyzed and criticized in the lightof present-day knowledge: evolution (by Michael Ruse, in the above-mentioned chapter), chance (by JeanGayon), time (by Jean-Marc Drouin), and adaptation (calledadaptive managementby Bryan G. Norton).
New concepts are also suggestedthroughout the book. For example,John Baird Callicott describes an“erotic ethic” of embracing humanduty and our obligation to biotic communities. Environmental ethics is thesubject of two contributions – RobinAttfield’s questioning chapter called“Reconciling individualist and deeper environmentalist theories?” andCatherine Larrère’s “Two philosophiesof the environmental crisis.
The book is strewn with many innovative ideas, sometimes presented inFor instance,a provocative manner. as a slap in the face to hierarchy theory (a highly favored theory amongCallicottthe Darwinian evangelists), suggests, with strong arguments, thatorganisms should be calledsuperecosystems, reversing the paradigm of ecosystems assuperorganisms, erected byFrederic E. Clements (1905) to describeplant societies. Patrick Blandin, surfing on the contradictions betweennature conservation (i.e., nothing must change) and evolution (i.e., everythingis changing), states that theequilibriumparadigmmust now be substituted bythecochange paradigm, which stemsfrom the concept ofEcoEvoEthicsandis based on the evidence that we live ina permanently changing world.
The plea for the rights of animals by Tom Regan also deserves our attention. Aside from the psychological
and biological reasons (e.g., their social behavior, their intelligence, their abilities for abstraction, and their capability
of language), he poses the problem on moral grounds: “Like us, [animals] are in the world, aware of the world, aware
of what happens to them.… [They] share the rights we have mentioned, including the right to be treated with respect” (p. 121).
Far from being a boring treatise,Structural Linkshas great educational value. The panel of contributors representing a variety of schoolsof thought is presented to the readeras an opportunity to embrace a widelandscape of the fields of environmental science and naturephilosophical problems within conservation. I highlyrecommend this book to evolutionary biologists, systems ecologists, andenvironmental stakeholders, with thehope that it will contribute to newavenues of research in ecosystemresilience.
Reference cited
Clements FE. 1905. Research Methods inEcology. University Publishing Company.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PONGE
Jean-François Ponge (ponge@mnhn.fr) is a professor emeritus with theNational Museum of NaturalHistory, in Paris, France.
