Few currents in literature, the arts, and religion run deeper than the cultural fascination with wildness, and its locational concomitant, wilderness—places where primordial reality dominates and the artificialities of humans, including their sciences and technologies, are not apparent. Marks of the depth of the idea are its universality and flexibility. Appeals to wilderness can be found in cultures as diverse as China and North America. In its many intellectual guises and emotional overlays it has proven adaptable and meaningful across great historical divides. Although here the emphasis will be on its Euro-American manifestations, it is important to recognize that wilderness is not an idea exclusive to that culture.

Euro-American Context

In the Euro-American context the idea of wilderness is associated with the view that humans by nature separate themselves from nature, which then provides the backdrop for most considerations of ethics. Yet throughout western history, ethical principles...