Excerpt From My Master’s Thesis
Ecological thinking is a process and extension of character development.
David Orr expressed our dire need for this orientation when he said, “the modern world suffers from moral amnesia, the vague awareness of a deficiency of virtue that we can no longer describe.” (Orr, 2004. P. 60) And, that “virtue…was founded on a kind of moral ecology…an awareness of mutual [inter]dependence.” (Orr, 2004. P. 62)
Two complementary characteristics of Ecology as a process of character development feature:
1. Emotional sensitivity and intellectual curiosity oriented to expansive love, compassion, respect, and responsibility, in contrast to disharmonious tendencies to neglect, apathy, and disavowal of personal responsibility for collective well being.
2. Conceptual focus on cyclic powers in human development, exhibited in habits, customs, and traditions concerning the presence or absence of effective self-reflection, self-examination, research, inquiry, dialogue, etc.
A person who embodies these characteristics recognizes “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,” and continually works to align his life with what is right for the benefit of the whole world. (Leopold, 1980. p. 224-5)
