The correspondence between ontology and environmental attitudes

Alarms about the environment have brought about superficial changes of environmental attitudes, but deep attitudes will remain the same unless our conception of reality changes. Ontology determines how one pursues one's needs and welfare. The crucial element is the conception of an actuating factor (AF) in nature: whether personal or impersonal, one or many, in material things or separate. One's point of view is that of an agent with a body, and therefore involves identifying with the AFs and using the AFs in the world to obtain desired results. The major ontologies are: (i) animism (AF=personal, many, in things): one identifies with the spirits and tries to get them on one's side; (ii) polytheism (AF=personal, many, separate): one identifies with gods and makes deals with them for exploiting the environment; (iii) monotheism (AF=personal, one, separate): one "obeys" and prays to God for an exploitable environment and help in exploiting it; and (iv) the ambiguous ontology of modern science: (1) it is matter-active (AF=impersonal, many, in things), yet (2) laws underlie nature, so it is implicitly monotheistic (AF=personal, one, separate): one identifies with matter and with separate agents and uses laws to manipulate the AF in things to exploit the environment for material indulgence. An alternative ontology (AF=impersonal, one, not material) actuates events in accordance with the total state of matter. One identifies with the AF and belongs to the material world, since the AF is devoid of separate interests. Therefore, one tries to make the world a good place to belong to.