ABSTRACT
Despite ample evidence that anthropogenic global warming is destabilising the Earth’s ecosystem, we do not respond in a proportional and adequate way. This disparity between intention and behaviour is known as the value-action gap. How to overcome this? The author reflects on what motivates people to act in a more appropriate and consistent way to the global ecological challenges. Referring to Anscombe’s plea that motivation be interpreted as a combination of beliefs, emotions, perceptions and identities, the author looks into aesthetics, visions of the good life and the importance of a religious sense of duty, inspired by the belief that nature is created. Because environmental self-identities are intrinsically linked with significant childhood experiences, time spent with nature in a participative way, for instance, by walking or playing, has a positive correlation with adult environmental attitudes and behaviour. Once non-human nature, through transformative learning experiences, becomes part of our self-identity, we feel more willing to act on its behalf. In a similar sense, deeply spiritual experiences of nature as created could contribute to bridging the value-action gap. Moreover, environmentalism harbours elements of religiosity. Drawing upon the etymology of religio, rooted in legere and ligare, a hermeneutical key is proposed to interpret nature experiences meaningfully while linking these experiences with notions of contemplation, relationality and transcendence. Through its iconic perspective, nature – understood as a place of sacramental encounter – is capable of reconnecting humans to the divine. In sum, we are touching the original sense of the word ‘ordo’ which, for Aquinas, is the essence of any religion: animating, structuring and directing the self and human society to its ultimate end. Is this not the essence of fittingness?
