The “deep ecology movement” endorses “biospheric egalitarianism”, the view that all living things are alike in having value in their own right, independent of their usefulness to human purposes. Deep ecology also endorses what Næss calls the “relational, total-field image”, understanding organisms (human or otherwise) as “knots” in the biospherical net, the identities of which are defined in terms of their ecological relations to each other. Næss maintains that the “deep” satisfaction that we receive from close partnership with other forms of life in nature contributes significantly to our life quality.
