ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a close reading of the Yijing that brings to light these correspondences, focusing primarily on the Ten Wings or Confucianism. In the opening of The Great Virtue of Heaven and Earth: Deep ecology in the Yijing, Joseph Adler discusses deep ecology as both an environmental movement and the biocentric and ecocentric philosophy articulated by Arne Naess and others. The moral depth of deep ecology lies in its insistence on viewing ethical goods not as the product of individual actions but as something emerging from the integrity of a larger system that incorporates the interests of many species. For Adler, though, the Confucian interpretation of the Yijing is neither biocentric nor ecocentric but anthropocosmic. An ecological worldview can be grounded in the metaphysics of the Yijing, but it is one that allows for a special role for humanity; namely, the moral creativity that is the uniquely human form of the inherent creativity of the natural world.
