Is it possible to create an ecologically sustainable world order: the implications of hierarchy theory for human ecology

Abstract

Human ecology, it is argued, even when embracing recent developments in the naturalsciences and granting a place to culture, tends to excessively pessimistic conclusionsabout the prospects for creating a sustainable world order. This is illustrated through astudy of the work and assumptions of Richard Newbold Adams and Stephen Bunker. Itis argued that embracing hierarchy theory, elaborated by Howard Pattee, T.F.H. Allenand others, enables human ecology to conceive humans both as part of nature and ascultural beings in a way that gives due regard to the ethical development of humanity.That is, ethical constraints need no longer be conceived of as 'unnatural'. Characterizingthe nature of such constraints, which it is claimed emerge from 'the struggle forrecognition', this argument is shown to justify some optimism about the future, and togive some idea of how society should be organized if ethical constraints, able to constrainhumanity's relationship to the rest of nature, are to prevail.