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Embodied Values

The environment is often viewed ambivalently by human beings. As embodied creatures, we consider ourselves as integral parts of it, yet because of our rational, moral, aesthetic and spiritual dimensions we regard ourselves as separate from it. Both anthropocentric and eco-centric perspectives amplify the separation of humans from their environments. Human-centred attitudes view the environment as an instrumental resource, while environment-centred approaches reinforce the separation by continuing to regard spiritual, aesthetic, and moral values as essentially ‘human' characteristics.

Established in September 2006, the Embodied Values Steering Committee has established a series of workshops as an exploratory and critical study of reciprocal transfers of spiritual, aesthetic and ethical values between humans and environments. It is an interdiscplinary project reflecting on the role of (i) ethics and aesthetics; (ii) history of philosophy; and (iii) cultural geography.

This project has been made possible by British Academy funding