Pachasophy: Landscape Ethics in the Central Andes Mountains of South America

摘要

Andean philosophy of nature or pachasophy results from topography and mode of production that, merged together, have produced an integrated and interacting worldview that blurs the line between culture and nature. Respecting Pacha, or the interconnectedness of life and geography, maintaining complementarity and equilibrium through symbolic interactions, and caring for Pachamama, the feminine presence of Pacha manifested mainly as cultivable soil are the basis of Andean environmental and social ethics. Reciprocity or ayni is the glue that holds everything together. This weaving of traditional beliefs, customs, and ecological knowledge is rooted in the landscape and has sustained Quechua and Aymara societies during many millennia of knowing, using, and transforming the varied environments of the central Andes of South America. Any environmental ethics that influences people's lives and promotes respectful and sustainable relationships with nature will be framed by already held worldviews. In Bolivia indigenous intellectuals are drawing on the ancient tradition of Pacha to trace an environmental ethics of pacha qamana or the harmonious and integral well-being of life, the Earth, and the cosmos, and the ethics of suma qamana as an all embracing ethical framework for the "good life" or "living well." Although pacha qamana and suma qamana are rooted in the Andean mythological worldview, they will interest Western philosophers because the values they promote can be correctives for Western cultural traits that see little more than instrumental value in nature. In this sense, pacha qamana and suma qamana contribute to the broader discussion of environmental ethics.