Scientific investigations have provided us with a conception of our unity and interdependence with the natural world and its origins in the unfolding of the cosmos. In particular, our scientific understanding of the biological development of the relatively small range of self- organising multicellular structures from eggs and spores, points towards the view that life is one of the properties of matter. The name for this kind of scientifically formulated animism is hylozoism. This is the philosophical term given to the view that life is one of the properties of matter; from the combining form hylo-, "matter," and the Greek root zoe, "life". It defines a role and place for science in the identification of self with the cosmos. This is an outcome of the ideas of transpersonal psychology and claims that ecology, and modern science in general, provides a compelling account of our interconnectedness with the universe. However, they do not claim that this fact logically implies that we ought to care about the world.

The fact of our interconnectedness with the world does not logically imply either that we ought to care about the world of which we are a integral part, or that we ought not to care about it. In other words, logic is of no help to us either way to the practical question of how we should live. If one has a deep understanding of the fact that we and all other entities are aspects of a single developing cosmic reality then one will (as opposed to should) naturally be inclined to care for the unfolding of the world in all its aspects. In other words, because we are interconnected with the universe the unfolding of human potentialities is a natural (i.e., spontaneous) consequence of being a part of cosmic development, and we can scarcely refrain from responding in this way. This is why one finds transpersonal ecologists making statements to the effect that they are more concerned with the general question of the way the universe works than with ethics.

In summary, transpersonal ecologists reject value systems that are based on moral "oughts". They do not attempt to prove the correctness of their views in such a way that their conclusions are morally binding on others. Care for the unfolding of the world in all its aspects is not as a logical consequence, but as a psychological consequence of the spontaneous development and maturing of the self within the cosmic flows of matter and energy.

We have to look to the Eastern spiritual traditions for the comprehensive development of ideas of the super conscious, trans- egoic, or transpersonal realm of being. In particular, transpersonal ecology is close to the Taoist ideal of living in harmony with the nature of things by allowing them to develop or unfold in their own way.

Regarding the seamless identification of the self with nature, Joanna Macy has put graphically is this way:

"Indeed, I consider that this shift to an emphasis on our ("capacity to identify with the larger collective of all beings") is essential to our survival at this point in history precisely because it can serve in lieu of morality and because moralising is ineffective. Sermons seldom hinder us from pursuing our self- interest, so we need to be a little more enlightened about what our self- interest is. It would not occur to me, for example, to exhort you to refrain from cutting off your leg. That wouldn't occur to me or to you, because your leg is part of you. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon Basin; they are our external lungs. We are just beginning to wake up to that. We are gradually discovering that we are our world"

Process humanism locates the basis for life's intrinsic value not in its fragility, but in its beauty  In a manner consistent with traditional philosophy's identifying beauty as one of the so-called 'transcendentals' (along with being, unity and truth), we may see the beauty of nature as intrinsically valuable, and therefore as an end in itself.

It is not uncommon, of course, to ground nature's value aesthetically. But most attempts to do so end up still thinking of beauty too anthropocentrically, that is, as a purely human creation, and consequently they render human subjectivity the only intrinsic value in the universe. But beauty is an objective aspect of all things in nature, even apart from us and our valuations. In fact beauty is the objective patterning that gives things their very actuality and definiteness. The very being of things is their beauty.

Beauty is the 'harmony of contrast' that gives definiteness and actuality to all things. Fragility or perishability, on the other hand, is the tendency of harmonized contrast to fall apart. Beauty, in our dynamic world-in-process, is the ordering of novelty, or the unifying of complexity, whereas fragility is the inclination toward disorder and chaos. What we value, therefore, is not the fragility but the beauty that is intrinsic to things.

Process humanism states that the role of humans in the universe is to participate with all of their moral and political energy in the maximization of the evolution toward wider cosmic beauty. Indeed the meaning of our lives, both individually and collectively, is to participate and promote the cosmic adventure toward beauty. We do so proximately, of course, through our cultural and political activities. But a process perspective encourages us not to lose sight of the fact that these activities are ultimately not just phenomena that take place on the face of the earth, but happenings that the earth and the cosmos are now seeking to accomplish through us.

This cosmic-centred vision thrusts us humans back so deeply into nature and its emergent beauty, that we may no longer understand ourselves in modernity's sense as strangers in an indifferent universe and therefore as the sole originators of the world's value. Instead, we will gratefully acknowledge how our own existence and creativity have themselves emerged from a more fundamental and momentous cosmic process that has always aimed at ever deeper aesthetic intensification - long before our own very recent appearance. And we shall then more willingly accept our role as stewards of creation, not simply in the sense of conserving what has been present in creation from the beginning, but also as shepherds of an ongoing cosmic process that seeks ever new ways of sustaining its urge toward deeper beauty. We will grasp our vocation as sponsors of a creative cosmic impulse that seeks through us and in us to expand far beyond us.

Of course, we tend to cherish fragile entities and occurrences, things that delicately unify a wide variety of complexity, nuance or shades of diversity (such as a great work of art or the mammalian brain). But we appreciate these not because they are inclined to perish so much as because they subtly balance harmony with contrast, order with novelty, and unity with complexity. That is, we value them because of the inherent tension and balance that give them the quality of beauty. We respect living organisms and eco- systems, therefore, not simply because they are perishable (which of course they are), but because they are entities that temporarily synthesize an amazing variety of diversity into intensely beautiful unities of function and achievement.

Consequently, we may say that what gives our earth's ecology its inherent value is neither its precariousness, nor simply our own human valuations (though these too belong to the cosmic process). Rather, it is the objective fact that our eco- systems are unique and unrepeatable instances of intensely ordered novelty, or of delicately harmonized diversity, that is, of beauty. Certainly eco-systems are always in great danger of disintegrating, but it is not this instability that renders them inherently precious. For, like all instances of beauty, living beings and eco- systems are comprised of an exquisite balance of order and novelty, harmony and contrast, pattern and nuance. Whenever we encounter such syntheses we are intuitively appreciative of the fact that the novelty, complexity and nuance could easily have overwhelmed the order, harmony and pattern, and thus reduced them to the ugliness of chaos. And, at the same time, we sense how easily the order, harmony and unity may have flattened out all the nuance and subtlety, reducing things to the banality of homogeneity. There is always a degree of tension in any concrete instance of beauty, and it is this aesthetic tension that gives to our ecosystems the inevitable delicacy that renders them forever subject to disintegration. But, once again, it is not their precariousness as such that grounds the value we see in them. The precariousness is a derivative of the beauty.

Thus, our ecological concern can best be situated within an aesthetic rather than a pessimistic vision of the universe as meaningless.  Modern intellectual history, however, has divorced aesthetics almost completely from the objective natural world itself, attributing beauty's origin to us humans who remain fundamentally estranged from the inherently valueless cosmos out of which which we are said to have accidentally evolved.   Modernity, and some forms of postmodernity as well, have understood beauty -and all values for that matter - as nothing more than human concoctions, while the non-human natural world 'out there' remains inherently devoid of value and meaning. Ever since Descartes, modern philosophy, with its emphasis on the primacy of human subjectivity, has made it difficult if not impossible for us to see beauty and value as objective aspects of the universe. And so, having lost a sense of the universe, we have come to suspect that whatever value we see in nature has its origins in our own creative originality, rather than in a cosmic process that is inherently good and beautiful even apart from us.

Where then can we find an ecologically responsible postmodernism? If we look to traditional religion and theology we are likely to be disappointed. For they have usually been quite anthropocentric themselves, and even when they are theocentric their preoccupation with the supernatural has sometimes led them to discredit and even despise the natural world. At best, our religious traditions seem ecologically ambiguous. Although Christian teachings about creation, incarnation and the sacra-mentality of nature are ecologically significant, by and large the churches and their theologians have until recently thought very little about their relevance for the welfare of nature. Is there anywhere, then, a genuinely 'postmodern' theological vision capable of connecting religious traditions to a wholesome ecological ethic in a scientifically enlightened and politically promising way?

Some early sparks of such a vision seem to to be present in what is now known as 'process theology'. Using concepts of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and his followers, process theology provides, on the one hand, a religiously sensitive alternative to anthropocentrism, and, on the other, a scientifically informed alternative to modernity's cosmic pessimism. In spite of its still undeveloped status, process theology deserves special attention today. It follows the most ecologically sophisticated philosophy of nature available today, and it also provides the most systematically rigorous attempt to ground the value of the natural world in a non-anthropocentric way.