Applied Ethics in Human and Ecosystem Health: The Potential of Ethics and an Ethic of Potentiality

Abstract

ABSTRACT We live at a time when billions of people on this earth cannot achieve their full potential. Their lives are cut short or impoverished by malnutrition, pollution, and disease caused by failure of ecosystem and social services. In addition, if we were to project the quality of life enjoyed by those in advanced industrial countries to the world's poor, we would need about two planets to satisfy the demands for resources and waste assimilation services. Superimposed on the degradation of social systems, ecosystems worldwide are experiencing major threats to their integrity and health. Excessive human impacts are degrading ecosystem service provision, breaking and contracting food chains and making them less productive. Despite a growing understanding of social and ecosystem dysfunctionality, there remains little movement toward social sustainability and the restoration of the health of ecosystems worldwide. This paper presents an ethical foundation for those who seek sustainability. The key to such an applied ethic is the idea of directionality, where the natural tendency toward increasing complexity and diversity in complex adaptive systems provides guidance on what constitutes a sustainable society. The achievement of such a society can be facilitated by an ethic of potentiality that will assist humans to reintegrate ecosystem and human health.