Perfecting Ecological Relationality

Abstract

This dissertation argues that humility is a cardinal virtue that governs our ecological relationality. I define humility as the virtue of knowing and valuing the truth of our place in the world as interdependent beings. Humility is acquired via the practice of other-centeredness and other-acceptance and enabled by the “graces" of self-doubt and self-affirmation. A global survey of recent Christian scholarship on environmental issues and magisterial Roman Catholic teaching supports three conclusions: 1) interconnectedness characterizes human relationships with creation; 2) current ecological crises indicate the presence of sin and 3) we need to understand our place within creation and appreciate other-centered ways of knowing. Utilizing these three themes, I expand upon James Keenan's framework of rethinking cardinal virtues in terms of human relationality in order to account for an underdeveloped aspect of human relationality, that is, ecological relationality. I propose a more robust account of humility as a mean between two equally problematic extremes: pride and self-deprecation. Furthermore, humility helps us better identify sin both by recognizing how pride and self-deprecation can lead to indifference, understood as a failure to bother to love, that stems from our strength, and by rejecting the isolation that enables the sin of indifference so understood. The final chapter addresses how humility can be understood and cultivated in the United States today. In particular, I argue that the adoption of a plant-based diet generally fosters humility in individuals living in wealthy nations with high rates of meat consumption. In conclusion, I suggest that Catholics reinvigorate the Lenten penitential practice of Friday abstinence from meat by seeing it also as an opportunity to foster the virtue of humility.