: None dispute that Aldo Leopold has made an invaluable contribution to environmental discourse. However, it is important for those involved in the field of environmental ethics to be aware that his works may unwittingly promote an attitude of domination toward the nonhuman world, due to his frequent and unregenerate hunting. Such an attitude runs counter to most strains of environmental ethics, but most notably ecofeminism. By examining Leopold through the lens of ecofeminism, I establish that the effect of such (...) narrative is to portray the natural world as an object available for exploitation, thereby casting it as the "other" referred to in feminist writings. Thus I conclude that Leopold's work, if accepted uncritically, may actually reinforce the very notions that have been revealed as damaging to the nature/culture relationship. (shrink)

None dispute that Aldo Leopold has made an invaluable contribution to environmental discourse. However, it is important for those involved in the field of environmental ethics to be aware that his works may unwittingly promote an attitude of domination toward the nonhuman world, due to his frequent and unregenerate hunting. Such an attitude runs counter to most strains of environmental ethics, but most notably ecofeminism. By examining Leopold through the lens of ecofeminism, I establish that the effect of such narrative (...) is to portray the natural world as an object available for exploitation, thereby casting it as the "other" referred to in feminist writings. Thus I conclude that Leopold's work, if accepted uncritically, may actually reinforce the very notions that have been revealed as damaging to the nature/culture relationship. (shrink)

In the following essay, I argue for an alternative anthropocentrism that, eschewing failed appeals to traditional moral principle, takes (a) as its point of departure the cognitive, perceptual, emotive, somatic, and epistemic conditions of our existence as members of Homo sapiens, and (b) one feature of our experience of/under these conditions particularly seriously as an avenue toward articulating this alternative, the capacity for aesthetic appreciation. To this end, I will explore, but ultimately reject philosopher Allen Carlson's ecological aesthetics, and I (...) will adopt with modification aspects of the work of Ronnie Hawkins, Val Plumwood, and Donna Haraway. My central claim is that, equipped with a better understanding of our interdependent relationship to/within human and nonhuman nature, an understanding made especially available to those who occupy situations imbued by subjugation, we can come to understand our human-centeredness not as a justification of entitlement, but as an opportunity for critical self-reflection upon those actions which endanger the ecological conditions of human and nonhuman being. I suggest, then, that developing criteria for an aesthetic appreciation ground in such a centeredness can make a vital contribution to a more ecologically defensible moral and political activism. (shrink)

In the following essay, I argue for an alternative anthropocentrism that, eschewing failed appeals to traditional moral principle, takes (a) as its point of departure the cognitive, perceptual, emotive, somatic, and epistemic conditions of our existence as members of Homo sapiens, and (b) one feature of our experience of/under these conditions particularly seriously as an avenue toward articulating this alternative, the capacity for aesthetic appreciation. To this end, I will explore, but ultimately reject philosopher Allen Carlson's ecological aesthetics, and I (...) will adopt with modification aspects of the work of Ronnie Hawkins, Val Plumwood, and Donna Haraway. My central claim is that, equipped with a better understanding of our interdependent relationship to/within human and nonhuman nature, an understanding made especially available to those who occupy situations imbued by subjugation, we can come to understand our human-centeredness not as a justification of entitlement, but as an opportunity for critical self-reflection upon those actions which endanger the ecological conditions of human and nonhuman being. I suggest, then, that developing criteria for an aesthetic appreciation ground in such a centeredness can make a vital contribution to a more ecologically defensible moral and political activism. (shrink)

: As Val Plumwood argues, the Christian otherworldly is ecologically problematic. In relation to time, space, being and agency, this article considers the tendency to dualism in Christian appeals to the otherworldly. In the context of Plumwood's critique of nature-skepticism, I ask whether we should also critique an otherworldly skepticism. I then set out five possibilities for understanding the Christian otherworldly in relation to nature and culture. I argue that the otherworldly can be understood not only as a problematic cultural (...) notion that participates in the devaluation of nature, but as a way of understanding the otherness of nature, as having purposes and agencies beyond the cultural construction of earth as world. An understanding of nature as other-worldly presents challenges for both Christian theologies and environmental ethics. (shrink)

An ecological focus is not simply an additional perspective to add to a multidimensional approach to feminist theologies. Ecological thinking requires a fundamental shift of perspective, so that the focus of feminism, traditionally a human focus, is rethought within the frame of the materiality that constitutes not only humans but Earth and cosmos. As a way of situating feminist theological discourses and experiences ecologically, this article focuses on a shared materiality as a basis for reframing human being, dwelling, agency and (...) labour, in terms of co-being, habitat, co-agency and more-than-human labour. This reframing implies a rethinking of human freedom that has implications for how we engage with feminist theologies in relation to the future of Earth and humankind. (shrink)