ABSTRACT
Human-created ecological disaster makes it imperative to reexamine baselines for virtue and morality. Civilization emerged in some locales about 10,000 years ago or in the last 1% of human species existence. Too often scholars have promoted civilization’s morality, particularly that of the last millennia, as if nothing worthwhile occurred outside of that period or place. Yet it is civilization, especially in its most recent form, that is destroying biocultural diversity, ecological wealth, and planetary health. Consequently, using civilization’s philosophical thought as a framework for virtue discussion seems foolish. Reenvisioning humanity’s possible futures requires proper understanding of our past. Virtue has been integral to survival among societies living in our ancestral context (nomadic foragers), several of which existed sustainably for thousands of years or longer. Human beings are earth-based creatures, social mammals, who are among the youngest of evolved entities, whose species history involves cooperative companionship, egalitarian social structure, and nature connection. Ecocentric phronesis is one of humanity’s heritages, common among Indigenous peoples around the world, and involves partnering respectfully with the more than human. Civilized humanity must move back “inside nature” to find integrative ways of living that enhance and balance local landscapes and ecologies. To become fully human, we must restore fundamentals for fostering human potential: humanity’s evolved nest, mothering and companionship lifestyles, well-being of families and children as central concerns, cultivation of adults who grow into wise elders capable of mentoring others, rituals and practices that maintain nature connection. As recent western worldviews decline, First Nation peoples are sharing their longstanding wisdom to assist in widespread transformation.
