The Human Standing: Storied Fitness
— Sumner, Callen, Attig, Values and Moral Standing 1986

The Human Standing in Nature: Storied Fitness in the Moral Overseer, Sumner, Wayne, Donald Callen and Thomas W. Attig, eds., Values and Moral Standing. Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy, 8: 90-101. Bowling Green, OH: The Applied Philosophy Program, 1986. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37198

Humans are the creatures that have evolved a conscience--stand-outs in the system in which they stand. This conscience can wisely direct the magnificent, fearful power of the brain and hand. An environmental ethic tries to maximize conscience in order to maximize fitness in the environment. Humans are worldviewers, with a sense of storied residence. Our role is to live out a spacetime ethic, a placetime ethic. In this ethic, knowledge is power, as also is love. There is a penultimate place for superior human standing, and the ultimate lesson is that the meek inherit the Earth. In this sense too, the fittest survive.