Daniel Capper | Metropolitan State University of Denver (original) (raw)
Books by Daniel Capper
Lexington Books, 2022
This seminal monograph provides the essential guidance that we need to act as responsible ecologi... more This seminal monograph provides the essential guidance that we need to act as responsible ecological citizens while we expand our reach beyond Earth. The emergence of numerous national space programs along with several potent commercial presences prompts our attention to urgent environmental issues like what to do with the large mass of debris that orbits Earth, potential best practices for mining our moon, how to appropriately search for microscopic life, or whether to alter the ecology of Mars to suit humans better. This book not only examines the science and morals behind these potential ecological pitfall scenarios beyond Earth, it also provides groundbreaking policy responses founded upon ethics. These effective solutions come from a critical reframing for scientific settings of the unique moral voices of diverse Buddhists from the American ethnographic field, who together delineate sophisticated yet practical values for traveling through our solar system. Along the way, Buddhists fascinatingly supply robust environmental lessons for Earth, too. As much a work of astrobiology as it is one of religious studies, this book should appeal to anyone who is interested in space travel, our human environment in large scale, or spiritual ecology.
Cornell University Press, 2022
In order to create a better future in the struggle with climate change, many people are turning t... more In order to create a better future in the struggle with climate change, many people are turning to Buddhism and its environmental principles of interconnectedness and compassion. But do Buddhist values really lead to ecological sustainability, and if so, how? Do Buddhists of different types even agree on how we should live ecologically? This seminal book is the first to answer these questions through a comprehensive, critical, and innovative examination of the theories, practices, and real-world results of Buddhist environmental ethics. In synthetically exploring lived ecological experiences across seven Buddhist worlds from ancient India to the contemporary West, this book helps one to discern attitudes and practices that lead to beneficial ecological interactions from alternative orientations that may result in unsatisfying outcomes. Further, the book’s journey clarifies our understanding of crucial contours of Buddhist vegetarianism or meat eating, nature mysticism, as well as cultural speculations about spirituality in nonhuman animals. With its accessible style and personhood ethics orientation this book should appeal to anyone who is concerned with how human beings interact with the nonhuman environment. Representing the definitive analytic treatment of Buddhist environmental ethics, the book also offers great value in university classrooms involving environmental studies, religious studies, cultural studies, or philosophical ethics.
In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bring... more In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bringers of spiritual or material gifts, gods, guardian spirits, or sacred ancestors. Sometimes natural entities are holy models for emulation, kin who share human souls, arbiters of virtue and vice, or partners in the project of existence. At other times religious experiences with natural beings solidify notions of humanity’s separateness from the rest of the natural world. However, to date we have not asked why such experiences appear as they do nor have we posed questions regarding what they mean. distinctively does just this. This accessible book is filled with gripping tales of mystics who learn from house cats how to meditate, rivers who grant spiritual salvation, trees who teach us how to develop patience, shamans who shape-shift into jaguars, sacred human-apes, mountain gods who seek servants, bees who receive revelations, cobras who reward spiritual respect with gold, amorous lion goddesses, crickets who pray, and many more. Primary subjects include Christian, Muslim, Hindu, indigenous Mayan, indigenous Himalayan, Buddhist, and Chinese shamanic encounters with nature, along with the nature mysticism of the American naturalist John Muir. Many of the experiences derive from original field work done in a Christian church, a Hindu ashram, and a Buddhist monastery, adding a contemporary, personal, and living character. With its unique and fascinating tales this book will appeal to anyone interested in relationships with nature or world religions as well as researchers from a variety of fields. Its readability also makes it a great choice as a text for college courses on religion and nonhuman nature or, more broadly, culture and nature.
This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It su... more This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It suggests that many Americans become Tibetan Buddhists because of satisfying long-term relationships that they develop with Tibetan religious teachers, or lamas. To reach this conclusion, life stories of several practitioners were collected in the course of more than two years of field work at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the United States. Analyses of these life stories, following self psychology, reveal enhanced self-esteem, personal autonomy, and creation of meaning in conjunction with Buddhist practice. The final chapter suggests that Tibetan Buddhist practice may respond in growth-enhancing ways to the psychological and social dimensions of some Americans’ lives.
Papers by Daniel Capper
Religion Compass, 2024
Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Bu... more Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Buddhists receive encouragement to extend compassion and nonharm throughout a universe that is utterly interconnected across time and space. Such positive extensions result in a strength of the tradition involving some welcome positive treatment of nonhuman animals. However, looking closely in terms of practical outcomes reveals some serious limitations regarding Buddhist environmental ethics. Not all animals receive ethical value and care, for instance, and the tradition provides a historically unstable platform for vegetarianism despite some popular beliefs to the contrary. Even worse, perceived sentience is required to receive substantial Buddhist moral value, in most cases leaving plants, stones, and bodies of water without ecological respect. Since managing climate change precisely includes the moral management of plants, stones, and bodies of water, our ethics regarding these entities must be clear. Buddhist environmental ethics, though, today provide us with few tools for developing such ethics for entities considered by Buddhism to be insentient, although perhaps views are changing.
Space Policy, 2023
Several good studies have probed the social dynamics of space settlements, including crucial reli... more Several good studies have probed the social dynamics of space settlements, including crucial religious dimensions. Religion, after all, may play stabilizing or destabilizing roles within groups, thus affecting settlement viability and productivity. Unlike other studies, though, this article explores religiosity from a decolonized perspective which, instead of spotlighting the export of religions from Earth, engages the potential spiritual creativity of settlers from settler points of view, including ostensibly nonreligious ones. Using Mars as an example location, these settler points of view involve establishing recognizable traditional religions, albeit in their more ecumenical forms; creating a place for cosmopolitan spiritualities like Baha'i; experimenting with new forms of styles like religious naturalism; and, poignantly, developing homegrown Martian nature religiosity. This analysis aids comprehension of some of the contours and dynamics of religions in space settlements and hence understanding of settlement viability, operation, and flourishing.
E-International Relations, 2023
43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 28 January - 4 February, 2021
Reclaiming Space: Progressive and Multicultural Visions of Space Exploration, Nov 5, 2023
One of the more important things that we can learn from space exploration is how to love lifeless... more One of the more important things that we can learn from space exploration is how to love lifeless stuff. We generally are taught by our cultures to love life but not be too concerned with nonlife. However, in our present understanding, within the solar system only the Earth has life. If we are to care for places like our amazing moon and be responsible citizens, we therefore must learn to value the moon's abiotic places for what they are in themselves. Of course, in our space adventures we similarly must care for other lifeless places like the spectacular rings of Saturn. Tibetans exemplify how we better can adore such things that are not alive through their reciprocal community relationships with the mountains among them. This Himalayan respect for peaks can teach us how to love nonliving stuff and thereby properly cherish wonderful locations within our solar system.
Today more than ever we need a robust set of environmental ethics that can steer us in positive d... more Today more than ever we need a robust set of environmental ethics that can steer us in positive directions, and Buddhism, with its practices like animal release rituals, can provide us with at least some of the moral ecological guidance that we require. Yet, like with all systems of ethics, Buddhist environmental ethics sometimes do not lead to the most satisfying results. Hence, a synthetic analysis of how Buddhism may help us to move forward appropriately in the climate change age as well as a clear-sighted understanding of the limits of Buddhist environmental ethics may provide great ecological value. Throughout this book I pursue precisely such value while I explore a comprehensive, critical, and analytical investigation of the theory, practice, and real-world ecological performance of Buddhist environmental ethics. Utilizing the groundbreaking method of personhood-based relational animism while engaging in this critique, I illuminate our comprehension of the ecological meanings...
This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It su... more This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It suggests that many Americans become Tibetan Buddhists because of satisfying long-term relationships that they develop with Tibetan religious teachers, or lamas. To reach this conclusion, life stories of several practitioners were collected in the course of more than two years of field work at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the United States. Analyses of these life stories, following self psychology, reveal enhanced self-esteem, personal autonomy, and creation of meaning in conjunction with Buddhist practice. The final chapter suggests that Tibetan Buddhist practice may respond in growth-enhancing ways to the psychological and social dimensions of some Americans' lives.
In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bring... more In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bringers of spiritual or material gifts, gods, guardian spirits, or sacred ancestors. Sometimes natural entities are holy models for emulation, kin who share human souls, arbiters of virtue and vice, or partners in the project of existence. At other times religious experiences with natural beings solidify notions of humanity's separateness from the rest of the natural world. However, to date we have not asked why such experiences appear as they do nor have we posed questions regarding what they mean. distinctively does just this. This accessible book is filled with gripping tales of mystics who learn from house cats how to meditate, rivers who grant spiritual salvation, trees who teach us how to develop patience, shamans who shape-shift into jaguars, sacred human-apes, mountain gods who seek servants, bees who receive revelations, cobras who reward spiritual respect with gold, amorous lio...
Contemporary Buddhism, 2020
International Journal of Astrobiology, 2019
Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fos... more Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay, I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default non-harm towards potential living beings, default non-harm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default non-harm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative Buddhist scriptural ethics as well as the quantified ethnographic survey voices of contemporary American Buddhists. The resulting tripartite ethic, while developed for Mars, contains ramifications for the study of microbes on Earth and further retains application to other research locations in our Solar system.
Lexington Books, 2022
This seminal monograph provides the essential guidance that we need to act as responsible ecologi... more This seminal monograph provides the essential guidance that we need to act as responsible ecological citizens while we expand our reach beyond Earth. The emergence of numerous national space programs along with several potent commercial presences prompts our attention to urgent environmental issues like what to do with the large mass of debris that orbits Earth, potential best practices for mining our moon, how to appropriately search for microscopic life, or whether to alter the ecology of Mars to suit humans better. This book not only examines the science and morals behind these potential ecological pitfall scenarios beyond Earth, it also provides groundbreaking policy responses founded upon ethics. These effective solutions come from a critical reframing for scientific settings of the unique moral voices of diverse Buddhists from the American ethnographic field, who together delineate sophisticated yet practical values for traveling through our solar system. Along the way, Buddhists fascinatingly supply robust environmental lessons for Earth, too. As much a work of astrobiology as it is one of religious studies, this book should appeal to anyone who is interested in space travel, our human environment in large scale, or spiritual ecology.
Cornell University Press, 2022
In order to create a better future in the struggle with climate change, many people are turning t... more In order to create a better future in the struggle with climate change, many people are turning to Buddhism and its environmental principles of interconnectedness and compassion. But do Buddhist values really lead to ecological sustainability, and if so, how? Do Buddhists of different types even agree on how we should live ecologically? This seminal book is the first to answer these questions through a comprehensive, critical, and innovative examination of the theories, practices, and real-world results of Buddhist environmental ethics. In synthetically exploring lived ecological experiences across seven Buddhist worlds from ancient India to the contemporary West, this book helps one to discern attitudes and practices that lead to beneficial ecological interactions from alternative orientations that may result in unsatisfying outcomes. Further, the book’s journey clarifies our understanding of crucial contours of Buddhist vegetarianism or meat eating, nature mysticism, as well as cultural speculations about spirituality in nonhuman animals. With its accessible style and personhood ethics orientation this book should appeal to anyone who is concerned with how human beings interact with the nonhuman environment. Representing the definitive analytic treatment of Buddhist environmental ethics, the book also offers great value in university classrooms involving environmental studies, religious studies, cultural studies, or philosophical ethics.
In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bring... more In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bringers of spiritual or material gifts, gods, guardian spirits, or sacred ancestors. Sometimes natural entities are holy models for emulation, kin who share human souls, arbiters of virtue and vice, or partners in the project of existence. At other times religious experiences with natural beings solidify notions of humanity’s separateness from the rest of the natural world. However, to date we have not asked why such experiences appear as they do nor have we posed questions regarding what they mean. distinctively does just this. This accessible book is filled with gripping tales of mystics who learn from house cats how to meditate, rivers who grant spiritual salvation, trees who teach us how to develop patience, shamans who shape-shift into jaguars, sacred human-apes, mountain gods who seek servants, bees who receive revelations, cobras who reward spiritual respect with gold, amorous lion goddesses, crickets who pray, and many more. Primary subjects include Christian, Muslim, Hindu, indigenous Mayan, indigenous Himalayan, Buddhist, and Chinese shamanic encounters with nature, along with the nature mysticism of the American naturalist John Muir. Many of the experiences derive from original field work done in a Christian church, a Hindu ashram, and a Buddhist monastery, adding a contemporary, personal, and living character. With its unique and fascinating tales this book will appeal to anyone interested in relationships with nature or world religions as well as researchers from a variety of fields. Its readability also makes it a great choice as a text for college courses on religion and nonhuman nature or, more broadly, culture and nature.
This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It su... more This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It suggests that many Americans become Tibetan Buddhists because of satisfying long-term relationships that they develop with Tibetan religious teachers, or lamas. To reach this conclusion, life stories of several practitioners were collected in the course of more than two years of field work at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the United States. Analyses of these life stories, following self psychology, reveal enhanced self-esteem, personal autonomy, and creation of meaning in conjunction with Buddhist practice. The final chapter suggests that Tibetan Buddhist practice may respond in growth-enhancing ways to the psychological and social dimensions of some Americans’ lives.
Religion Compass, 2024
Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Bu... more Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Buddhists receive encouragement to extend compassion and nonharm throughout a universe that is utterly interconnected across time and space. Such positive extensions result in a strength of the tradition involving some welcome positive treatment of nonhuman animals. However, looking closely in terms of practical outcomes reveals some serious limitations regarding Buddhist environmental ethics. Not all animals receive ethical value and care, for instance, and the tradition provides a historically unstable platform for vegetarianism despite some popular beliefs to the contrary. Even worse, perceived sentience is required to receive substantial Buddhist moral value, in most cases leaving plants, stones, and bodies of water without ecological respect. Since managing climate change precisely includes the moral management of plants, stones, and bodies of water, our ethics regarding these entities must be clear. Buddhist environmental ethics, though, today provide us with few tools for developing such ethics for entities considered by Buddhism to be insentient, although perhaps views are changing.
Space Policy, 2023
Several good studies have probed the social dynamics of space settlements, including crucial reli... more Several good studies have probed the social dynamics of space settlements, including crucial religious dimensions. Religion, after all, may play stabilizing or destabilizing roles within groups, thus affecting settlement viability and productivity. Unlike other studies, though, this article explores religiosity from a decolonized perspective which, instead of spotlighting the export of religions from Earth, engages the potential spiritual creativity of settlers from settler points of view, including ostensibly nonreligious ones. Using Mars as an example location, these settler points of view involve establishing recognizable traditional religions, albeit in their more ecumenical forms; creating a place for cosmopolitan spiritualities like Baha'i; experimenting with new forms of styles like religious naturalism; and, poignantly, developing homegrown Martian nature religiosity. This analysis aids comprehension of some of the contours and dynamics of religions in space settlements and hence understanding of settlement viability, operation, and flourishing.
E-International Relations, 2023
43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 28 January - 4 February, 2021
Reclaiming Space: Progressive and Multicultural Visions of Space Exploration, Nov 5, 2023
One of the more important things that we can learn from space exploration is how to love lifeless... more One of the more important things that we can learn from space exploration is how to love lifeless stuff. We generally are taught by our cultures to love life but not be too concerned with nonlife. However, in our present understanding, within the solar system only the Earth has life. If we are to care for places like our amazing moon and be responsible citizens, we therefore must learn to value the moon's abiotic places for what they are in themselves. Of course, in our space adventures we similarly must care for other lifeless places like the spectacular rings of Saturn. Tibetans exemplify how we better can adore such things that are not alive through their reciprocal community relationships with the mountains among them. This Himalayan respect for peaks can teach us how to love nonliving stuff and thereby properly cherish wonderful locations within our solar system.
Today more than ever we need a robust set of environmental ethics that can steer us in positive d... more Today more than ever we need a robust set of environmental ethics that can steer us in positive directions, and Buddhism, with its practices like animal release rituals, can provide us with at least some of the moral ecological guidance that we require. Yet, like with all systems of ethics, Buddhist environmental ethics sometimes do not lead to the most satisfying results. Hence, a synthetic analysis of how Buddhism may help us to move forward appropriately in the climate change age as well as a clear-sighted understanding of the limits of Buddhist environmental ethics may provide great ecological value. Throughout this book I pursue precisely such value while I explore a comprehensive, critical, and analytical investigation of the theory, practice, and real-world ecological performance of Buddhist environmental ethics. Utilizing the groundbreaking method of personhood-based relational animism while engaging in this critique, I illuminate our comprehension of the ecological meanings...
This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It su... more This book explores why numerous Americans currently adopt the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It suggests that many Americans become Tibetan Buddhists because of satisfying long-term relationships that they develop with Tibetan religious teachers, or lamas. To reach this conclusion, life stories of several practitioners were collected in the course of more than two years of field work at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the United States. Analyses of these life stories, following self psychology, reveal enhanced self-esteem, personal autonomy, and creation of meaning in conjunction with Buddhist practice. The final chapter suggests that Tibetan Buddhist practice may respond in growth-enhancing ways to the psychological and social dimensions of some Americans' lives.
In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bring... more In every religion animals, plants, and other nonhuman natural beings are divine messengers, bringers of spiritual or material gifts, gods, guardian spirits, or sacred ancestors. Sometimes natural entities are holy models for emulation, kin who share human souls, arbiters of virtue and vice, or partners in the project of existence. At other times religious experiences with natural beings solidify notions of humanity's separateness from the rest of the natural world. However, to date we have not asked why such experiences appear as they do nor have we posed questions regarding what they mean. distinctively does just this. This accessible book is filled with gripping tales of mystics who learn from house cats how to meditate, rivers who grant spiritual salvation, trees who teach us how to develop patience, shamans who shape-shift into jaguars, sacred human-apes, mountain gods who seek servants, bees who receive revelations, cobras who reward spiritual respect with gold, amorous lio...
Contemporary Buddhism, 2020
International Journal of Astrobiology, 2019
Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fos... more Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay, I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default non-harm towards potential living beings, default non-harm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default non-harm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative Buddhist scriptural ethics as well as the quantified ethnographic survey voices of contemporary American Buddhists. The resulting tripartite ethic, while developed for Mars, contains ramifications for the study of microbes on Earth and further retains application to other research locations in our Solar system.
Pastoral Psychology, 2016
Contemporary Buddhism, 2016
Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2018
Review of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet on Fire: Buddhism, Protest, and the Rhetoric of Self-Immolati... more Review of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet on Fire: Buddhism, Protest, and the Rhetoric of Self-Immolation, in Journal of Contemporary Religion, doi: 10.1080/13537903.2017.1408319.
Religious Studies Review, 2009
The Journal of Religion, 2002
