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“nature” is no longer a viable idea in traditional senses of the term. The human power to alter reality suggests that there is no “essence” to any form of life – in fact, we can alter the genetic code – and, further, that the “limits” nature once implied no longer pertain. Not surprisingly, this has led some
authors to speak about the “end” of nature or the “reinvention” of nature.Certainly, it means that moral norms cannot be easily grounded in nature and that we have to forgo the longstanding idea that somehow the nature of some form of life clearly indicates what will bring it flourishing.^17
challlenge of how people around the world are responding to the many threats to the viability of life on this planet. Consider the worldwide environmental The debate about nature in our technological age leads to the third enge. It is about what is valued and how much it is valued. There is the chal-
movement. Will we respect the fragile web of life that sustains us and is the condition for any viable form of existence in the future? How is one to explain the “value” of the natural world in an age in which technological rationality and consumer demands reign over forms of thought? Without a
sense of the goodness of natural life, a perception of the fragility and vulner-ability of non-human life, it is not clear that changes in environmental policy will actually work. Some thinkers, like Hans Jonas, believe that we need a “heuristics of fear” about the threat to future life in order to energize respon-
sibility for the natural world, the cry of mute things, as he calls it.there are debates about “exit ethics,” that is, the moral issues that surround the end of life, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, and war. How is one to think about conflicts between forms of life, between mother and fetus, the^18 Likewise,
suffering and medical responsibilities, the justification, if any, of death as a means of punishment? There are debates about the moral requirements on peoples, governments, and even economies to provide with some modicum of justice the basic needs necessary for human life to flourish. Do we have
rights to basic goods like food and shelter and bodily integrity? What is the status of those rights in terms of sprawling global market systems?life and death issues, political and economic realities, the question of the Human Genome Project, must also and more particularly be seen in terms of (^19) Ecology,
debates about the extent to which we can and should alter any form of life.life have come to light. The Zen Buddhist monk, peace activist and scholar, Thich Nhat Hanh, argues that the first precept for any contemporary ethics In the face of these moral and political realities, pervasive attitudes towards
must be “reverence for life.” He writes:Life is precious. It is everywhere, inside us and all around us; it has so many forms. The First Precept is born from the awareness that lives everywhere are