Preservation of Natural Value in the Solar System
— Beyond Spaceship Earth 1986

The Preservation of Natural Value in the Solar System, Hargrove, Eugene C., ed., Beyond Spaceship Earth: Environmental Ethics and the Solar System, 140-182. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1986. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37453

Earth is, by one account, an accident, of great value in contrast with valueless astronomical worlds. The universe is, by another account, fine tuned with anthropic features that anticipate life and mind on Earth. Projective nature, a third model, interprets nature as an inventive system, driving the spontaneous appearance of diversity, order, and value. If so, we ought to preserve in solarplanetary nature: (1) places spontaneously worthy of proper names, (2) places of exotic extremes, (3) of historical interest, (4) of creative potential, (5) with aesthetic properties, and (6) of transformative value.