Ethics and Cambodian worldviews on nature

Abstract

Every person lives with some relationship to nature, and we all construct a worldview of nature through the balancing of our collective and various ethical worldviews towards nature. The Kingdom of Cambodia in South East Asia has a population of over 14 million people. The geography of the tropical country enables nature to grow vigorously, which offers a source of gen- erally abundant food, and this has affected the worldview of Cambodians. Cambodia is said to be a land of paddies and forests, dominated by the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap lake and river. Having been dependent on nature and facing the questions of ethical development in an indus- trial society, it is important to understand the perceptions of the Angkorian descendants on nature. This paper describes worldviews of nature from Cambodian perspectives with examples of anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, and cosmocentrism.