환경문제와 천지인(天地人) 사상

The Thaught of One Entity in Heaven-Earth-Human for Environmental Ethics

According to economics goods are devided into two groups by scarity : natural goods and economic goods. This implies that such natural things as air, water, soil, forests, and so on, are so abundant on the earth that they may be used without any payment or care. Natural things are free. However, this way of economic thought and activities results in environmental problems. Devastated environment might be the warning signal for the possibilities that the ecology of the earth would be ruined. This makes us to have the consciousness that we must stop exploiting the nature with the notion that the cost of the earth is free. Thus in this respect fundamentally environmental ethics should be based on the notion that free use of earth is not free. In the nature the rule of ‘give and take’ prevails ; nothing is given without giving. If we persist in taking without giving, disasters will be given. The law of cause and effect prevails in the nature. Environmental problems were caused by the thoughts and the activities that disregard the natural law of give and take. Without the comprehension of true fundmental character of the nature we can not approach to the ecological problems effectively. The nature consists of the heaven, the earth and the human. These three entities are unified into one completeness of the nature. The heaven as a male is positive, and the earth as a female is negative. Cosmically the human was born by and between the heaven and the earth ; the human consists of the spirit of the heaven and materials of the earth. The human, the earth and the heaven are a cosmic family. Therefore they are in close tie in relationships of give and take. As the earth breeds the human with a motherhood, so the human has the liability to foster the creatures on the earth. Since the human has the bright mind of goodness which emerges from the spirit of the heaven, he can comprehended the mind of the heaven and the earth. Orginally the heaven, the earth and the human compose the universe. The notion of ‘one entity of heaven-earth-human’ will be the spirit of environmental ethics : Naturalism will secure the safety of the earth by purifying the depraved human beings’ souls.