ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 shows how today’s environmental crisis calls for an “ecological turn,” which can be understood as transitional to the post-modern beginning that Heidegger envisioned. The first section addresses how the concern for safeguarding the earth implies the development of a new platform to understand the origin and scope of lawfulness (e.g., normativity). The second section establishes a specific schema or illustration of how to apply the law within the arena of animal welfare and to protect the habitats (for both wild and domestic animals). The third section addresses the possibility of a socio-biotic community, as an attempt to give further concretion and specificity to Heidegger’s emphasis on “building, dwelling, and thinking” as the cornerstone of stewardship and the task of safeguarding the earth.
