Blending Universal with Local EThic: Accountability Towards Nature, Perfect Stranger, and Society

conserving the nature which surrounds us requires dealing with out perception of natureiii. Often we do not realize that the attribution of human feelings in our discourse with non-human sentient beings mimics rules of out own social order. Animals and plants, then, are supposed to operate by our rules of good and bad, useful and non-useful, and desirable and undesirable properties. A good example of this tendency is the use of the term, ‘weed’, (a plant which is considered undesirable or out of its place). Obviously, in nature no plant is out of its place. We either do not realize the significance of this plant at that place, or the signal embodied in its appearance does not make sense to us. In some places we have disturbed the environment so much that ‘undesirable’ plants find it more convenient to grow there than the ‘desirable’ plants. The language of ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ says nothing innate about the plants or their habitats, but it does say something about the way we relate to out natural surroundings.