ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon the philosophical, religious, scientific, and ethico-political sources to describe the environmental, social, and subjective facets of the emerging Earth community. Understanding the complexity of Earth's environments requires an integrative analysis of the multiple strata of planetary coexistence, including strata of ethical values, ideas; cultures, and traditions; strata that cannot be understood from scientific perspectives alone but also require the theories and methods from the humanities. For geologian Thomas Berry, and for geophilosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, all material beings harbor subjective capacities. All strata of Earth and of the universe exhibit self-organizing dynamics. Human subjectivity is not the origin or the standard of all subjectivity. It is unique, but not specially privileged. Understanding the subjectivity distributed across the planet makes it possible to orient law and jurisprudence toward mutually enhancing human-Earth relations.
