The Great Web of Being: Environmental Ethics without Value Hierarchy

Abstract

Hierarchical views of the world such as the great chain of being have come under sustained critique in recent decades, and rightly so. They have justified not only the domination of non-human creatures but also the devaluation (via animalization/racialization) of many humans. The rejection of hierarchy and the great chain of being, however, does not require the rejection of the Christian Platonic theological vision upon which hierarchy is often based. In this paper, I argue that Christian Platonic theology has always been in tension with the great chain of being and is better suited to a non-hierarchical view of creaturely value. I then develop the ethical implications of this view in dialogue with both environmental and animal ethics and anti-racist and decolonial scholarship.