Radical values environmentalism is a view that the only intrinsically good thing is a flourishing ecosystem; individuals and societies are merely instrumentally valuable, as means to having a flourishing ecosystem. The Gaia philosophy is the most detailed expression of this overall thought but it strongly influenced Deep Ecology and the modern Green Parties.
The word "radical" here means "justified from fundamentals." The Jain religion has held such views since very early times, and Buddhism was radically influenced by this sort of thought. Mohandas Gandhi, a Jain who reformed Hinduism in the 20th century, famously advocated this point of view. His views include strong threada of localism ("where you are is good") and systems thinking. His was extended by the ethicist Carol Moore.
One common view states that neither religious nor political struggle is inevitable, and seeks consensus on core questions about body and ecology. Proponents support this view with biology by observing that living things compete more with their own kind than with other kinds. In this view, one achieves peace and agreement by focusing not on one's peers, who may be rivals or competitors, but on the common environment.
Proponents often claim that the fluorishing of all life is more important than merely the fluorishing of human individuals or societies. An argument toward this view is that many people appear to have an inherent dislike of harming individuals of other species, including even plants. To demonstrate other species' moral abilities they cite such topics as Great Ape personhood.
Proponents may claim that aboriginal peoples never lost this sort of view - anthropological linguistics studies links between their languages and the ecosystems in which they lived and which formed their knowledge distinctions. Very often, environmental cognition and moral cognition are not distinct in these languages - offenses to nature were like those to other people, and Animism reinforced this by giving nature "personality" via myth. Anthropological theories of value explore these questions.
Since many reject such religious views, why then have small-community-based and ecology-centric views again become popular? Some say that new proponents seek certainty, or reject the non-sustainability of globalism.
