ABSTRACT
The Ecological Conscience is the arresting title of a representative environmental anthology. The puzzlement lies neither in the noun nor in the by now familiar modifier, but in their operation on each other. The sense of anomaly will dissipate, though moral urgency may remain, if an environmental ethic proves to be only an ethic—utilitarian, hedonist, or whatever—about the environment, brought to it, informed concerning it, but not in principle ecologically formed or reformed. This would be like medical ethics, which is applied to but not derived from medical science. The boundary between science and ethics is precise if we accept a pair of current philosophical categories: the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive law. Perhaps the paramount law in ecological theory is that of homeostasis. The claim that morality is a derivative of the holistic character of the ecosystem proves more radical, for the ecological perspective penetrates not only the secondary but also the primary qualities of the ethic.
