Forest Forms and Ethical Life
Environmental Humanities July 1, 2022 Eduardo Kohn 17 citations
Drawing on ethnographic research with Indigenous communities in Ecuador's Upper Amazon, this article argues that living well on a fragmented planet requires ecologizing ethics by understanding the living world as a "thinking forest" that is psychedelic or mind-manifesting in nature. Ethical guidance emerges from attending to the shape of the larger mind humans are part of, finding direction from that form. The article links an ecologized ethics to the aesthetic ground from which it arises, showing how humans can learn to relate ethically to the many kinds of others that constitute them.