Contributions to Anthropocosmic Environmental Ethics

This essay is an articulation of various contributions to anthropocosmic environmental ethics—an approach to environmental ethics emerging within the study of religion and ecology. In an anthropocosmic approach to environmental ethics, humans are intimately intertwined with the environment. Rather than placing value on a particular center (e. g., anthropocentric, biocentric, ecocentric) and thus excluding and marginalizing something of peripheral value, an anthropocosmic approach to ethics seeks to facilitate the mutual implication of humanity and the natural world, thereby affirming the interconnectedness and mutual constitution of central and peripheral value. Although the adjective "anthropocosmic" may seem obscure or vague, an examination of the genealogy of the term, beginning with its appearance in the works of Mircea Eliade, discloses numerous resources that have important contributions to make to the development of viable environmental ethics.