About the conceptual foundations of ecological engineering: Stability, individuality and values

This papers surveys philosophical issues raised by ecological engineering – both theoretical and practical. First, it singles out the role of stability of ecosystems and communities involved in defining ecological engineering program, and wonders about the individuation of stable entities that this presupposes. It distinguishes then a strong and a weak concept of individuality, the former being defined by natural selection, the latter by probabilistic connections between sub-entities. It argues that if ecosystems don’t have strong individuality, they still possess a weak individuality, ecological theories providing the values of the variables in the formula for individuality. Second, practical issues are derived from the ambiguous status of ecological engineering as mixing values from nature and from human agency, and this space of values is related to the pluralism of individuality concepts in ecology.