Critical Environmentalism

Environmental Injustice

Environmental Ethics

Adams, Carol J. 1990. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1990 (v1,#4)

Bennett, Jane and William Chaloupka, eds. 1993. In the Nature of Things: Language, Politics, and the Environment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Abstract: Informed by recent developments in literary criticism and social theory, the contributors address the presumption that nature exists independently of culture and, in particular, of language. The theoretical approaches of the contributors range across both modernist and postmodernist positions, including feminist theory, critical theory, Marxism, science-fiction, theology, and botany. The concept of nature is invoked and constituted in a wide range of cultural projects--from the Bible to science fiction movies, from hunting to green consumerism. How far is nature a social construct?

Castle, Emery N. 1993. "A Pluralistic, Pragmatic and Evolutionary Approach to Natural Resource Management," Forest Ecology and Management 56(1993):279-295.

Four requirements must be satisfied by natural resource management. (1) It must provide for economic and social change, especially true in modern societies. (2) It must recognize the interdependence of humans and the natural environment. (3) The welfare of future generations must be considered. (4) The process by which group decisions are made is critical. Castle reaches three conclusions: (1) No single environmental ethic or philosophical system exists nor is one likely to be discovered that will guide environmental policy, though several philosophical approaches help. Natural resource policy is necessarily pluralistic. (2) Pluralism is not an acceptable comprehensive system because it does not forbid inconsistencies. For this reason policy must be pragmatic, and democracy is a pragmatic device. (3) Social and natural systems co-exist through time and must mutually adapt, though neither is stable or predictable far into the future.

Cheetham, Tom. 1993. "The Forms of Life: Complexity, History, and Actuality." Environmental Ethics 15(1993):293-11.

A fundamental misapprehension of the nature of our being in the world underlies the general inhumanity and incoherence of modern culture. The belief thatabstraction as a mode of knowing can be universalized to provide a rational ground for all human knowledge and action is a pernicious and unacknowledged background to several modern diseases. Illustrative of these maladies is the seeming dichotomy between the aesthetic and the analytic approaches to nature. One critical arena in which the incoherences of our current understandings of our place in nature come to light is in the battle over the environment. I argue that a more adequate conceptualization of our place in the natural world can be erected if the central metaphors for our understanding are grounded in notions derived from the sciences of life. The key concepts must include contingency, historicity, evolution, organism, and imaginative interaction with concrete reality in individual human beings.

Daniel, Pete. 1993. "Technology and Ethics in Agriculture", Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 6(1993).

Using technological changes in wheat harvest, the formation and transformation of the cotton culture, the impact of the Green Revolution in Malaya, and genetic engineering as examples, this article explores the positive and negative impacts of science and technology applied to agriculture. The limited and considered use of science and technology by the Amish suggests an alternative to the uncritical adoption of capital-intensive farming methods that cause human displacement and ecological damage. Larger farm operations and the substitution of technological expertise for husbandry distances farmers from their land and crops and sometimes leaves an ethical void.

diZerega, Gus. 1992. "Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism," Critical Review 6 (nos. 2-3, 1992):305-370.

Extensive critique of Murray Bookchin, representative of left environmentalism, from the author's perspective, which he calls "evolutionary liberalism." This involves an appreciative assessment of deep ecology. Bookchin attempts a social ecology that unites the leftist critique of liberal democratic society with contemporary environmental concerns. His work is undermined, however, in part by the dubious comparisons he makes between market systems and ecosystems, in particular by his failure to understand how these systems operate by impersonal principles of self-organization, combining both cooperation and competition. But the market system, whatever its merits, does promote an instrumental human relation to nature. Free market environmentalism cannot incorporate an appreciation for creatures that have intrinsic value but no instrumental value for human beings, nor for the intrinsic values of things that do have such instrumental value. Deep ecologists are therefore right to criticize the unwillingness of market societies to appreciate the intrinsic value of nature. This can be addressed with an evolutionary liberalism. Here property rights, for example, would be taken up with a sense of stewardship of values in the natural world. The deep ecological principle that should not be compromised is that property rights should reflect not just efficiency in meeting human desires, but also the value of the nonhuman world. We can achieve a harmony between humans and the natural world under the guidance of the rules of self-organizing systems.

Dryzek, John S. "Green Reason: Communicative Ethics for the Biosphere." Environmental Ethics 12(1990):195-210.

Exclusively instrumental notions of rationality not only reinforce attitudes conducive to the destruction of the natural world, but also undermine attempts to construct environmental ethics that involve more harmonious relationships between humans and nature. Deep ecologists and other ecological critics of instrumental rationality generally prefer some kind of spiritual orientation to nature. In this paper I argue against both instrumental rationalists and ecological spiritualists in favor of a communicative rationality which encompasses the natural world. I draw upon both critical theory and recent scientific intimations of agency in nature.

Fox, Warwick. 1989. "The Deep Ecology-Ecofeminism Debate and Its Parallels." Environmental Ethics 11(1989):5-25.

There has recently been considerable discussion of the relative merits of deep ecology and ecofeminism, primarily from an ecofeminist perspective. I argue that the essential ecofeminist charge against deep ecology is that deep ecology focuses on the issue of anthropocentrism (i.e., human-centeredness) rather than androcentrism (i.e., malecenteredness). I point out that this charge is not directed at deep ecology's positive or constructive task of encouraging an attitude of ecocentric egalitarianism, but rather at deep ecology's negative or critical task of dismantling anthropocentrism. I outline a number of problems that can attend not only the ecofeminist critique of deep ecology,--but also comparable critiques that proceed from a broad range of social and political perspectives. I then proceed to argue that deep ecology's concern with anthropocentrism is entirely defensible--and defensible in a way that should be seen as complementing and expanding the focus of radical social and political critiques rather than in terms of these approaches versus deep ecology. (EE)

Gare, Arran. 1995. Postmodernism and the Environmental Crisis (London: Routledge).

Gottlieb, Roger S. (ed). 1996. The Ecological Community (London: Routledge).

This volume challenges the presuppositions of -- and creates a rich field of creative work in -- philosophy, politics, and moral theory. The essays cover areas including liberalism, communicative ethics, rights theory, and environmental philosophy.

Marx, Leo. 1990. The Report from the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, vol. 10, no.3/4, Summer/Fall 1990. "Post-Modernism and the Environmental Crisis."

"There may be more than coincidence involved in the simultaneous discovery of the global and social nature of environmental degradation and the skeptical, anti-foundationist drift of contemporary philosophy and critical theory."

Luke: Timothy W. 1997. Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ecocriticism, whether coming from "back to nature" conservatives, Nature Conservancy liberals, or Earth First! radicals, is familiar enough. But when we listen do we really hear what these groups are saying? In a book that examines the terms of ecocriticism, Timothy W. Luke exposes how ecological critics, organizations, and movements manipulate our conception of the environment. Ecocritique rereads ecocriticism to reveal how power and economy, society and culture, community and technology compete over what are now widely regarded as the embattled ecosystems of nature. Luke considers in particular how the meanings and values attached to the environment by various groups--from the Worldwatch Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and Earth First! to proponents of green consumerism, social ecology, and sustainable development--articulate new visions of power and subjectivity for a post-Cold War era. With its critical analysis of many contemporary environmental discourses and organizations, Ecocritique makes a major contribution to ongoing debates about the political relationships among nature, culture, and economics in the current global system. "Tim Luke has emerged as one of the most exciting writers on global politics today. Shifting registers from the sociality of cyberspace, in Ecocritique Luke addresses the natural realm. Luke's book is an ecocritique of the ecological critics: both of the thinkers and the social movements. Challenging notions of biosystemic equilibrium, Luke reexplores ecology through recasting the aggregate of human/machine, human/animal and human/plant relations. Luke is the green movement's deep technophile." Scott Lash Contents Introduction: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy and Culture Deep Ecology as Political Philosophy Ecological Politics and Local Struggles: Earth First! as an Environmental Resistance Movement The Nature Conservancy or the Nature Cemetery: Buying and Selling "Perpetual Care" as Environmental Resistance Worldwatching at the Limits of Growth Environmental Emulations: Terraforming Technologies and the Tourist Trade at Biosphere 2 Green Consumerism: Ecology and the Ruse of Recycling Marcuse and the Politics of Radical Ecology Developing an Arcological Politics: Paolo Soleri on Ecology, Architecture, and Society Community and Ecology: Bookchin on the Politics of Ecocommunities and Ecotechnology Conclusion: New Departures for Ecological Resistance Timothy W. Luke is professor of political science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Ott, Konrad. 1993. Ökologie und Ethik: Ein Versuch praktischer Philosophie( Ecology and Ethics: An Attempt at Practical Philosophy). Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, 1993.

Ott's book has three main parts: 1. The Concept of Ecology. 2. Critical Theory and Nature. 3. Ecoethical Arguments. In part one, he discusses the history of the discipline of philosophy and various ecological approaches to environmental philosophy, such as human ecology, speculative ecology, including Schorsch's mystical holism, Roszak's subversive ecology,, Hösle's objective idealism, and Christian ecology. In part two, he finds that we can learn from Adorno's and Horkheimer's views on nature, the early Habermas' view in Knowledge and Human Interests, and the later Habermas' view in his discourse ethical writings. Part three presents a taxonomy of ecoethical arguments: a) utilitarianism, b) aestheticism, c) the human right to nature, d) ethics of compassion and ecological pathognomics, e) objective and subjective theories of value in nature, and f) evolutionism. Ott is widely read and draws on both German and English sources. He himself opts for a teleologically grounded physiocentric position, which he calls "ecological pathognomics" (p. 144, pp. 153-155). He believes that we should further the good of teleological nature for its own sake.

Thero, Daniel P. 1995. "Rawls and Environmental Ethics: A Critical Examination of the Literature." Environmental Ethics 17(1995):93-106.

The original position contractarian model of ethical reasoning put forth by John Rawls has been examined as a basis for an environmental ethic on three previous occasions in this journal and in Peter Wenz's Environmental Justice. In this article, I critically examine each of these treatments, analyzing the proposals offered and identifying their shortcomings. I find a total of seven different proposals in this literature for modifying Rawls' theory to augment its adequacy or as a ground environmental ethics. The diverse difficulties that arise in attempting to apply Rawls suggest the conclusion that Rawlsian ethics may not be a suitable foundation for an adequate long-term environmental ethics.

vanBuren (van Buren), John. 1995. "Critical Environmental Hermeneutics." Environmental Ethics 17(1995):259-275.

Local, national, and international conflicts over the use of forests between logging companies, governments, environmentalists, native peoples, local residents, recreationalists, and others--e.g., the controversy over the spotted owl in the old-growth forests of the Northwestern United States and over the rain forests in South America--have shown the need for philosophical reflection to help clarify the basic issues involved. Joining other philosophers who are addressing this problem, my own response takes the form of a sketch of the rough outlines of a critical environmental hermeneutics. I apply hermeneutics, narrative theory, and critical theory to environmental ethics, and use this hermeneutical theory as a method to illuminate the "deep" underlying issues relating to the perception and use of forests. In applying this method, I first take up the analytical problem of identifying, clarifying, and ordering the different interpretive narratives about forests in terms of the underlying epistemological, ethical, and political issues involved. I then address the critical problem of deciding conflicts between these different interpretations of forests by working out a set of legitimation criteria to which all parties concerned would ideally be able to subscribe. (EE)

Vogel, Steven. 1996. Against Nature: The Concept of Nature in Critical Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press.

The history of the concept of nature in Critical Theory, with chapters on Lukıcs, Horkheimer and Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas. The tradition has been marked by serious difficulties with respect to the concept of nature. These problems are relevant to contemporary environmental philosophy as well. A solution to them requires taking seriously--and literally--the idea of nature as socially constructed.

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Capitalism and the Welfare State

Arneson, R. J. 1990. "Liberalism, distributive subjectivism, and equal opportunity for welfare," Philosophy and Public Affairs 19: 158-94.

Habermas, J. 1989. "The New Obscurity: The Crisis of the Welfare State and the Exhaustion of Utopian Energies," in The New Conservatism

Lodh, Sudhir C . 1996. "Critical Studies in Accounting Research, Rationality and Habermas: A Methodological Reflection"

Narveson, J. F. 1978. "Raws on Equal Distribution of Wealth," Philosophia 7:281-92.

Schram, Sanford F. 1995. Words of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Van Parijs, P. 1991. "Why surfers should be fed: The liberal case for an unconditional basic income," Philosophy and Public Affairs Van Parijs, P. 1992. "Basic income capitalism," Ethics 102: 465-84.

Weber, Bryce. 1997. "It's a Very Long Way From Frankfurt to Virginia and Rochester: On the hierarchy/market distinction as a false dichotomy."

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