ABSTRACT
Aldo Leopold, a forester-ecologist and prophet of environmental ethics, claimed, famously: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” “That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics” (1949/1968, pp. 224-225, pp. viii-ix). We have been shifting levels: humans, animals, organisms, species lines, biodiversity. Next, we must focus on the ecosystemic level in which all organisms, humans included, are embedded. People still count, but perhaps this ecosystemic level in which people and all other organisms are embedded also counts morally.
