Feminist Interventions in Environmental Philosophy

Modern History

Environmental philosophy has historically concerned itself with nature, humans and environments. Due to its broad subject matter, current iterations of environmental philosophy are also associated with ecofeminism, environmental justice movements and environmental ethics.[1] These branches of environmental philosophy explore how environmental science and emerging technologies can interact with philosophy to further identify the epistemologies behind contemporary environmental issues, such as climate change.[2]

Environmental philosophy posits that the natural environment can be seen as a community between humans, animals and ecosystems.[3] The philosophy states that as humans exist within these natural environments, their impact on the environment will also have an impact on humans themselves. This is commonly referred to as the “intrinsic natural standpoint” (Boylan 2013, 17). This method of thinking within environmental philosophy provides an explanation for the sense of accountability humans may feel for the natural environment.[4] Some environmental philosophies extend this idea further, suggesting that natural environments do not exist solely for human use.[5] This philosophy prompts humans and communities to instead consider the “moral status” of all components of an environment (Belshaw 2001, xii).

Malthusian Population Theory

Though environmental philosophy gained popularity in the 1970s, its main tenets can be seen in early philosophical and economic theories.[6] Malthusian population theory, proposed by Thomas Robert Malthus in 1798, argues that expanding populations should be controlled with preventative social measures and “restraints” in order to conserve natural resources (Calhoun 2002).[7] Malthus called these measures “positive or preventative checks”, including “war or natural disaster” (Ibid.). These Malthusian-type methods of environmental sustainability are present in several current environmental conservation practices, where human consumption of resources are managed by governments and corporations in order to sustain and preserve the environment and its resources.[8]

Bioregionalism

Criticisms of Human Exceptionalism

Environmental philosophy tends to position the human as the main component within environments, also called the “anthropocentric view” or “intrinsic natural standpoint” (Boylan, 2013, 17-18). Some branches of environmental philosophy reason that if the human is the main component within environments, then natural environments can be viewed as existing for the benefit of humans.[9] The natural environment, including plants, animals and geological formations, intrinsically become a resource for human consumption.

Emerging from ecofeminist movements is a critique of this worldview. Ecofeminism argues that preferencing the human relation to a natural environment reduces the complexity of the ecosystem to only how it functions to sustain humans.[10] Ecofeminism suggests this tendency to care about the human relation over other relations harms the environment by posturing human needs over the needs of the environment. Ecofeminist scholar and philosopher Val Plumwood theorises that this epistemology contributes to the overall sense of human exceptionalism humans feel over environments.[11]

Critique of Dualisms in Nature

Plumwood suggests this sense of human exceptionalism originates from colonisation and ongoing colonial projects.[12] Plumwood proposes that with early colonisation came a “line of fracture between reason and nature” (1993, 44). This clear distinction between reason and nature extends to humans and environments, separating these concepts into dualisms that form what Plumwood coins the “master model” (1993, 22). The master model outlines how seemingly opposing concepts/ideas create dualisms (“culture/nature, male/female, master/slave, reason/emotion…”) that consequently situate one side as positively aligned and its opposing side as negatively aligned (Plumwood 1993, 22-23; 44).

Plumwood describes how the hierarchies associated with these dualisms are produced and sustained in five points: backgrounding (denial), radical exclusion (hyperseparation), incorporation (relational definition), instrumentalization (objectification) and homogenization.[13] Plumwood suggests how becoming aware of this master model may encourage humans to critically engage in their relationship with environments and nature, specifically problematizing the notion of human exceptionalism.

Reimagining Human Relationships to Ecological Systems (300 words)

Val Plumwood’s master model can also provide an intervention into the philosophical theories that situate environments and ecological systems as a resource. Specifically, Plumwood draws on ecofeminist frameworks to identify how Western dualisms permit human dominance and control over nature.[14] Plumwood argues that in this sense, natural environments and ecological systems draw their value from the amount of resources within them, or how well they function as a place for human interaction.

Feminist and science scholar Donna Haraway offers an intervention that extends on Plumwood’s theory. Haraway proposes that to intervene in this hierarchal relationship between humans and ecological systems, humans need “an earth-wide network of connections” (1988, 580). The purpose of this network of connections is to prompt humans to reimagine the dominant, controlling relationship they have to nature, and the other concepts aligned with nature on Plumwood’s master model.[15] Haraway’s network of connections aims to establish new “ethical relations” between humans, animals, plants, microscopic matter, geological formations, weather and climate (MacGregor 2017, 111). These ethical relations are then absent of hierarchy.[16]

At the base of all Haraway’s work is how to have, make, and talk about ethical relations with other beings – organic, inorganic, human, nonhuman, from mitochondria to other people, animals, and machines. Such a desire is imperative for a feminism whose history has been marked by the impossibility of adequately framing such relations due to racism, heterosexism, capitalism, and colonialism. Crucially, Haraway’s feminist politics is grounded in a theoretical and critical endeavour that does not seek to prove its epistemological or ontological superiority, to claim a material or discursive connection between ‘women’ and ‘nature’, but makes smaller, harder, more complex demands on political movements, theory, and praxis. Her work is about constructing ways to the view the world that can remain accountable to valid and complex accounts of physical reality, and committed to social justice and action, without falling back on flawed systems to justify this stance. This way of ‘doing theory’ is ethical, personal, and always political; for Haraway, the point is ‘to make a difference in the world, to cast our lot for some ways of life and not others. To do that, one must be in the action, be finite and dirty, not transcendent and clean’ (Haraway 1997b:36). 111 macgergor

Deep Ecology Movement

interdependence of living forms throughout nature; the possession by all living things of a value that is independent of human interests, and the possibility of understanding the needs of other living things from their point of view. 124 benson

The characteristic contribution of ecofeminism, however, is that the human-nature dualism is conceived in a way that is influenced by the masculine-feminine dualism 128 benson

Decolonising Current Conceptions of Environmental Justice (500 words)

Nature, as the excluded and devalued contrast of reason, includes the emotions, the body, the passions, animality, the primitive or uncivilised, the nonhuman world, matter, physicality and sense experience, as well as the sphere of irrationality, of faith and of madness. 19 vp

Recent work is increasingly looking at the gender dimensions of climate change and sustainable development, which also have implications for health and well-being (see, e.g., Nagel 2016). As conditions of environmental degradation and impacts from climate change intensify, scholarship that uses interdisciplinary methods, political frameworks and analyses that understand the complex relationship between gender, environmental justice, race and social movements have become even more necessary. Macgregor 165

Chipko Movement

Reference List

· Belshaw, Christopher (2001). Environmental Philosophy. Chesham: Acumen.

· Benson, J. (2000). Environmental Ethics: An Introduction with Readings. Psychology Press.

· Boylan, M. (2013). Environmental ethics. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au

· Calhoun, C. (2002). “Malthus, Thomas Robert”. Oxford Reference. 17 May. 2019, from https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/view/10.1093/acref/9780195123715.001.0001/acref-9780195123715-e-1017.

· “Environmental philosophy”. Wikipedia (2019). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_philosophy#cite_note-Weston_1999-4.

· Haraway, D. (1988). “Situated Knowledge and the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. Feminist Studies 14(3). Pp. 575-599.

· MacGregor, S. (2017). Routledge handbook of gender and environment. London, England New York, New York Routledge Earthscan.

· “Malthusianism”. Wikipedia (2019). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

· Massey, D. (1994). “A Global Sense of Place”. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

· Plumwood, V. (1993). “Dualism: The Logic of Colonialism”. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature . New York: Routledge. Pp. 41-68.

· Shiva, V., & Bandyopadhyay, J. (1986). The Evolution, Structure, and Impact of the Chipko Movement. Mountain Research and Development, 6(2), 133–142.

· Weston, 1999. "An Invitation to Environmental Philosophy". Oxford University Press: New York, New York.

· Yusoff, K. (2018) “Geology, Race and Matter (Chapter 1)”. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. Pp. 1-22.

[1] Belshaw, Christopher (2001). Environmental Philosophy. Chesham: Acumen. Ppviii.

[2] Ibid. Px

[3] Boylan, M. (Ed.). (2013). Environmental ethics. Pp17.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Belshaw, Christopher (2001). Environmental Philosophy. Chesham: Acumen. Ppxii.

[6] Weston, 1999. "An Invitation to Environmental Philosophy," Oxford University Press, New York, New York.

[7] Calhoun, C. (2002). “Malthus, Thomas Robert”. Oxford Reference.

[8] “Environmental philosophy”. Wikipedia (2019).

[9] Boylan, M. (Ed.). (2013). Environmental ethics. Pp18.

[10] Plumwood, V. (1993). “Dualism: The Logic of Colonialism”. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature . New York: Routledge.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid. Pp48.

[14] Ibid. Pp31.

[15] Haraway, D. (1988). “Situated Knowledge and the Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. Feminist Studies 14(3). Pp. 580.

[16] MacGregor, S. (2017). Routledge handbook of gender and environment. London, England New York, New York Routledge Earthscan.

ing that also leads to an aesthetic valuing. Since all people seek to protect what they value, this extended community membership will ground a duty to protect the global biomes according to what is aspirationally possible." 22

Environmental Philosophy WikiPage

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