This article explores the relationship between ecofeminism, food, and the philosophy of place. Using as example my own neighborhood in a racially integrated area of Philadelphia with a thriving local foods movement that nonetheless is nearly exclusively white and in which women are the invisible majority of purchasers, farmers, and preparers, the article examines what ecofeminism contributes to the discussion of racial, gendered, classed discrepancies regarding who does and does not participate in practices of locavorism and the local foods movement (...) more broadly. Ecofeminism, it is argued here, with its focus on the ways that race, class, gender, and place are ontologically entangled, helps to highlight the ways identity and society are made and re-made through our encounters with food. (shrink)

To consider blackness and cognitive disability together is paradoxical. On one hand, supposed black intellectual deficit has been used by white elites as a justification for antiblack oppression. On the other, both black children who are struggling in school and black adults labeled with developmental disabilities are less likely than their white counterparts to access the best support services available. These problems cut across a commonly drawn—but, I argue, erroneous—divide between the “judgment” categories of mild cognitive impairment into which black (...) children are disproportionately placed and the “organic” categories of severe cognitive impairment. This division is itself part of the contemporary collective denial of the racialized history and construction of our notion of intellect that ends up harming black Americans. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ecological Ethics: An IntroductionDavid Keller (bio)Patrick Curry, Ecological Ethics: An Introduction. Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2007, 173pages.Were I in Bath having drinks with Patrick Curry, we would have much to agree about. Explaining his choice of title of his book, Ecological Ethics, he rightly points out that the more common descriptor "environmental ethics" presupposes a dualism between human beings and the nonhuman environment—an assumption which is itself anthropocentric (...) (p. 4). For philosophers interested in studying the human/ nonhuman dynamic, the legitimacy of anthropocentrism is itself an open question. Because the word 'ecology' treats humans, as biota, as integral parts of ecological systems, the phrase "ecological ethics" is less presumptuous and hence more accurate. The word 'ecological' also has the benefit of conveying the message that the subject is notgoing to involve extending moral considerability from humans out into the "environment." Instead, ecological systems as the locus of value provide the starting point for the elaboration of ethics (p. 2). For Curry, as for Leopold (1960) and Callicott (1989), "ecological community" is coextensive with the ethical community.To correlate the ethical community with the biotic community within the rubric of "ecological ethics" is nothing novel. Curry's claim that "there is something ancient about an ecological ethic" (p. 7) got me thinking: [End Page 153]prior to Abrahamic monotheism and Greek rationalism, ancient peoples, particularly nomadic hunter-gatherers, probably considered themselves as integral parts of what encompassed them, moving with herds, in concert with meteorological and seasonal changes, seeing themselves as one amongst other living beings. They probably did not see themselves apart from the "environment" as we have learned to do. Then with the advent of agriculture, linear furrows and controlled inundations must have fostered an addictive sense of security from flood and famine. Later, the innovations of industrial civilization further distanced us from the caprice of nature's wild vicissitudes. Yet that comfort comes at the expense of lost awareness of our responsibilities as bioticcitizens. Therefore, Curry says, following Sylvan (1973), we need a new ecological ethic since traditional Western morality "is no longer up to the job" (ibid.).Curry remarks that ethics, cast in this light, is not something "optional," something to be addressed after one's belly is full, debts settled, and lodging secured. Rather, ethics cuts directly to the core of human action, of all human activity (p. 5)—a claim reminiscent of Socrates' exhortation to Thrasymachus that it is no small matter that they are discussing, nothing of less importance than the right way to live one's life (Plato 2005, p. 603).Over the first sips of ale, I would praise him for giving his book a simple and straightforward structure that makes a challenging subject accessible, especially to students. After laying down the groundwork of basic concepts in moral philosophy (chapter 3)—objectivism versus relativism, the problem of the is/ought gap, religious morality and environmental philosophy (domination, stewardship, and managerialism), and virtue and rule-based ethics (chapter 4)—Curry addresses axiology (chapter 5). Are humans the sole locus of value (anthropocentrism), or are there other entities worthy of some sort of moral consideration who themselves do not carry the burden of moral responsibility (zoocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism)? Curry answers the latter in the affirmative, arguing that ontological interconnectedness of humans with other living beings within ecological systems discloses that something greater than humanity is the locus of value (p. 46).The most useful part of the book for my students out in Utah would be the middle chapters (6–8) in which Curry casts degrees of nonanthropocentrism [End Page 154]in shades of green. These shades range from light green or "shallow" anthropocentric ethics such Bookchin's Social Ecology (p. 50), Hardin's Lifeboat Ethics (pp. 52–54), and mainstream environmentalism (p. 51), through medium green ethics based on the extension of traditional human-oriented moral philosophy to nonhumans such as Singer's Animal Liberation (pp. 56–59), Regan's Animal Rights (pp. 59–60), and Taylor's Biocentrism (pp. 60–62). Curry proceeds to the dark green ethics of ecocentrism, such as Land Ethics (pp. 65–68), the Gaia Hypothesis (pp. 68–71... (shrink)

While Karen Warren offers an ecofeminist ethic that is pluralistic, contextualist, and challenges Cartesian dualism, one area that remains underdeveloped in her theory is embodiment. I will examine Merleau-Ponty’s notion of embodied subjectivity and show that it would fit consistently with her theory. I will also explore some other areas in which the two theories supplement each other.

Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., humancenteredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, and social ecology to politics; (4) the attempt to apply (...) traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; and (5) the focus of environmental literature on wilderness, and possible future developments of the discipline. (shrink)

Challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants.

Anthropocentrism has been claimed to be the root of the global environmental crisis. Based on a multidisciplinary (e.g. environmental philosophy, animal ethics, anthropology, law) and multilingual (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese) literature review, this article proposes a conceptual analysis of ‘anthropocentrism’ and reconstructs the often implicit argument that links anthropocentrism to the environmental crisis. The variety of usages of the concept of ‘anthropocentrism’ described in this article reveals many underlying disagreements under the apparent unanimity of the calls to reject anthropocentrism, (...) both regarding what exactly is the root of the problem, and the nature of the possible solutions. It highlights the limitations of the argument of anthropocentrism as the scapegoat of the environmental crisis and identifies two main challenges faced by attempts to go beyond anthropocentrism: an epistemological challenge regarding knowledge and the place of sciences, and a metaethical challenge related to values and cultural pluralism. Beyond the issue of an anthropocentric point of view, the core of the problem might be an intertwinement of views and assumptions that work together to undermine attempts to protect the environment from the greed of some humans, such as the human-nature dichotomy, capitalism, consumerism, industrialism, etc. Finally, this article suggests that making the nuances and the presuppositions that underlie various versions of the anti-anthropocentric rhetoric explicit is necessary to foster constructive dialogue among different anti-anthropocentrism proponents, as well as with their detractors. (shrink)

This essay examines the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska as sharing key similarities with modern feminist practice in science. Szymborska’s poetry invites such an analysis because of its interest in anthropology and the natural sciences, and because of its preoccupation with the creation, limitations, and effects of knowledge. I argue that Szymborska’s privileging of uncertainty, of the personal, the particular, and the ‘insignificant’, as well as her process- and question-oriented method of creating meaning aligns her with feminist science. Szymborska’s poetry explores (...) such key feminist ideals as contextualization of all knowledge, relationship of equality and unity of scientist and subject (expert and non-expert), coexistence of contradictions, and an emphasis on process and questioning rather than on knowledge and findings. Wislawa Szymborska practises in poetry the very same decentring of the patriarchal standards of expertise, objectivity, and absolute truth that is taking place in feminist science. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical dimensions of lionfish removal and provides an argument supporting hunting lionfish for consumption. Lionfish are an invasive species found around the world. Their presence has fueled management strategies that predominantly rely on promoting human predation and consumption. We apply rights-based ethics, utilitarian ethics, and ecocentric environmental ethics to the question of whether hunting and eating lionfish is ethical. After applying these perspectives, we argue that, from a utilitarian perspective, lionfish should be culled. Rights-based ethics, on (...) the other hand, are not applicable in this case, while ecocentric environmental ethics would support lionfish removal. (shrink)

Biomedical research is increasingly carried out in low- and middle-income countries. International consensus has largely been achieved around the importance of valid consent and protecting research participants from harm. But what are the responsibilities of researchers and funders to share the benefits of their research with research participants and their communities? After setting out the legal, ethical and conceptual frameworks for benefit sharing, this collection analyses seven historical cases to identify the ethical and policy challenges that arise in relation to (...) benefit sharing. A series of recommendations address possible ways forward to achieve justice for research participants in low- and middle-income countries. (shrink)

Sikap kritis terhadap krisis ekologi yang berdampak buruk pada perempuan telah dimulai oleh Francoise d’Eaubonne dalam bukunya La Feminsme au la Mort (1974). Inilah awal terminologi ekofeminisme diperkenalkan. d’Eaubonne mengungkapkan adanya keterkaitan yang erat antara penindasan terhadap perempuan dan penindasan terhadap alam yang berakar pada kultur patriarki. Dalam sistem ini, perempuan menempati konstruksi posisi yang sama dengan alam yaitu sebagai objek, bukan subjek. Ekofeminisme kemudian lahir untuk memecahkan masalah kehidupan manusia dengan alam yang berangkat dari pengalaman perempuan dan menjadikannya sebagai (...) salah satu sumber belajar dalam pengelolaan dan pelestarian alam. Dalam artikel ini, saya akan mencoba melakukan kritik terhadap beberapa gagasan ekofeminisme. Kritik dalam gagasan ekofeminisme yang akan dilayangkan adalah terkait: relasi antara perempuan dan alam, sifat ideal perempuan, etika kepedulian, gagasan “Ibu Bumi”, dan gagasan menyembuhkan Bumi. Dengan metode studi pustaka, saya akan membedah gagasan dan solusi yang ditawarkan oleh ekofeminisme dalam menghadapi alam saat ini dan melihat apakah ekofeminisme masih relevan dalam epos Antroposen. (shrink)

In this article, Bailey analyzes the relationship between ethical vegetarianism and white racism. This plays out in the dreaded comparison of animals with people of color and Jews as exemplified in the PETA campaign and the need for human identification with animals in ethical vegetarianism. To support the viability of ethical vegetarianism, Bailey resolves the dread of this comparison by locating ethical vegetarianism as a strategy of resistance to classist, racist, heterosexist, and colonialist systems of power that often rely on (...) the assumptions of speciesism to ground these axes of oppression. The author carries out this argument to contextualize African American responses to animal welfarism and ethical vegetarianism. (shrink)

The local food movement is, increasingly, becoming a part of the modern American landscape. However, while it appears that the local food movement is gaining momentum, one could question whether or not this trend is, in fact, politically and socially sustainable. Is local food just another trend that will fade away or is it here to stay? One way to begin addressing this question is to ascertain whether or not it is compatible with liberalism, a set of influential political theories (...) that have shaped and continue to shape our political system. In this paper, I argue that the local food movement is partially compatible with forms of liberalism that accept the limited application of the principle of neutrality, as there are two directions or trends within local food: (1) The systems based direction and (2) the individual focused direction. The systems based direction is not compatible while the individual focused movement is largely compatible with liberalism. I go on to argue that the two directions form a dialectic that increases the political and social sustainability of the movement as a whole. Conceiving of the individual focused and the systems focused directions as in opposition to one another is, itself, a mistake. (shrink)

According to Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach (CA) to justice, a (liberal) society is just if it provides people with the means to actualize basic capabilities that are necessary for a dignified human life. In Frontiers of Justice, Nussbaum (2006) expands the CA to include sentient nonhuman animals in the sphere of justice (as opposed, for instance, to the sphere of compassion). As it does for humans, justice requires that sentient creatures have the ability to access capabilities necessary for their flourishing, (...) as specified by a ‘species norm’ dictating the central capabilities typical to an animal’s kind. Although Nussbaum (2006) does not extend the CA beyond sentient creatures, I will argue .. (shrink)

In his book The Incompleat Eco-Philosopher, Anthony Weston addresses interrelated methodological, conceptual, epistemological, educational and philosophical issues in contemporary reformist (or mor...

: The paper's first interest is in re-forming exploitive human-environment relations. It shows that culture/nature dichotomies are not only false, but obscure the commonality of culture to humans and nonhuman beings and processes. The paper draws upon the Roman genesis of "culture" to describe its function in finding appropriateness among co-evolving human and nonhuman projects. Culture, thus, is the process through which co-eval projects are brought together. The study argues that through dialectic interrelationships, culture works to move biospheric relations towards (...) mutualism and away from parasitism (or exploitation). This is evident among nonhuman beings and processes as well as cultures in which humans are more central. The paper draws upon various interrelationships in the Mississippi watershed to illustrate these points. It then briefly explores the usefulness of a culture of nature perspective in planning and managing development projects. (shrink)

Arguing that a crisis is upon us, the Bush Administration has proposed an energy strategy remarkable in its scope and audacity. While much criticism has been directed towards the plan’s ecological impacts, it also guarantees the continuing collapse of communities tha stand in the way of the full realization of the current energy economy. This situation is best understood reference to evolving notions of environmental justice. Unfortunately, the variety of meanings attributable to environmental justice often times come into conflict when (...) applied to specific cases. Until a way is found to reconcile the idea’s many diverse meanings and to prevent one or another to be used in a specific institutional context to the exclusion of all others, environmental justice will, in a perverse way, be turned into yet another means to disregard society’s most vulnerable members. (shrink)

This essay responds to Donna J. Haraway's (2016) provocation to ‘stay with the trouble’ of learning to live well with nonhumans as kin, through practice-based approaches to learning to care for nonhuman others. The cases examine the promotion of care for trees through mobile game apps for forest conservation, and kinship relations with city farm animals in Kentish Town, London. The cases are analysed with a view to how they articulate care practices as a means of making kin. Two concepts (...) are proposed, ‘learning from’ and ‘facing’ the Other, which are thickened through discussions of how caring takes place in each case in relation to a particular category of nonhuman other: animated tree and urban farm animal. Thus while attendant to situations of care involving a specific nonhuman subject, the cases also broker thinking on learning from and facing (the) other kinds of trees and animals, and the interspecies dynamics of which they are a part. The intersectional implications of the practice sites and participants are elaborated, to complexify and affirm situated but also reflexive approaches to caring. In doing this, the authors attend to their own positionalities, seeking to diversify Western-based ecofeminist engagements with caring, while asking what their research can do for the nonhuman other. They formulate and apply a collaborative methodological approach to the case studies, developed through cultivating attentiveness to the nonhuman subject of research. The authors consider in particular how attentiveness to the nonhuman other can facilitate practices of knowing that further a non-anthropocentric and non-innocent ethic of caring. By further interconnecting situations of caring for nonhuman animals and plants, the authors advocate for practices of care that antagonise how species boundaries are drawn and explore the implications for learning to care for nonhumans as kin. (shrink)

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking : Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises, and (...) other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah, this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap. Ruddick’s maternal thinking provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling. (shrink)

This essay concerns the dignity of nonhuman animals. It is composed of three sections. The first recounts my experience of a Moscow Circus performance and records some of my thoughts, feelings, and observations of this circus' famous bears. As is obvious from that account, the performance and presentation of the bears seemed to me to be undignified in a nontrivial, that is, morally objectionable sense of the word. The second section of the essay tries to specify that sense, to identify (...) the wrong(s) with these sorts of undignified performances, by developing a moral sense of dignity that might extend, generally, to nonhuman animals. I believe that the setting of this performance and my own frame of mind—the fact that it took place in Moscow and in the midst of my exposure to sites and stories of communist oppression—helped me to see the oppression of human and nonhuman animals as linked and the performance as a performance of power relations. The third section of the essay explores these power relations from an ecofeminist perspective through the circus' depiction of the 'momma bear.'. (shrink)

: This essay examines the content and significance of the notion of "identification" as it appears in the works of theorists of deep ecology. It starts with the most frequently expressed conception of identification—termed "identification-as-belonging"—and distinguishes several different variants of it. After reviewing two criticisms of deep ecology that appear to target this notion, it is argued that there is a second, less frequently noticed type of identification that appears primarily in the work of Arne Naess—"identification-as-kinship." Following this analysis, it (...) is suggested that identification-as-kinship may be less vulnerable to the criticisms that are aimed at identification-as-belonging. (shrink)

This article asks, what is worth knowing? The concept of objectivity in contemporary philosophy of science is argued to de-value indigenous knowledge-systems and gendered approaches. Community bias is argued to confound rogue research with gendered and indigenous situatedness. This problem is resolved using the innovation of ‘ecosystem services.’ Technoscience is explained as the appropriation of science by capital interests and strong critique from Vandana Shiva in the global South is provided. Finally, because philosophers of science resist discussion of sociopolitical issues, (...) the “very notion of philosophy of science” is argued to be in crisis caused by limited understanding of ‘knowledge’ that has been reduced to post-Enlightenment science, and by neglect of the broader human context within which the sciences work. (shrink)

Food sovereignty asserts the right of peoples to define and organize their own agricultural and food systems so as to meet local needs and so as to secure access to land, water and seed. A commitment to gender equity has been embedded in the food sovereignty concept from its earliest articulations. Some might wonder why gender justice should figure so prominently in a food movement. In this paper I review and augment the arguments for making gender equity a central component (...) of food sovereignty. The most common argument is: if women constitute the majority of the world’s food producers, then agricultural policy is a women’s issue. And insofar as patriarchal social relations continue to dominate the globe, then changing agricultural policies will require explicit attention to gender injustice. I suggest that this is a good argument, but that an ecological feminist perspective can provide additional theoretical reasons for maintaining the centrality of gender justice in food sovereignty discourse. Moreover, ecological feminism can provide a robust theoretical framework that coheres a concept and movement with a wide set of concerns. My critique positions food sovereignty’s call to social justice as embedded in a truly radical re-thinking of dominant conceptual frameworks, and re-envisioning of political and ethical relations. (shrink)

This theoretical exploration is an attempt to conceptualize the link between gender and urban environmental health. The proposed ecofeminist framework enables an understanding of the link between the urban physical and social environments and health inequities mediated by gender and socioeconomic status. This framework is proposed as a theoretical magnifying glass to reveal the underlying logic that connects environmental exploitation on the one hand, and gendered health inequities on the other. Ecofeminism has the potential to reveal an inherent, normative conceptual (...) analysis and argumentative justification of western society that permits the oppression of women and the exploitation of the environment. This insight will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying gendered environmental health inequities and inform healthy public policy that is supportive of urban environmental health, particularly for low‐income mothers. (shrink)

Early ecofeminists often emphasized the similarities of the oppression of women and earth and delineated both as rape. Is it helpful for ecofeminists today to connect women and nature in such a way? Is this metaphor an adequate expression for third wave feminists or does it cast female bodies and the cosmos into passive victimization? This article uses Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath as a platform to tease out three important aspects of the metaphor of rape, by examining the (...) green apolcalypse present in Steinbeck‘s book, by pointing out Steinbeck’s identification of the exploitatoin of nature as a rape, and by thinking about the ways in which women are portrayed as earth mothers. Through an examination of the metaphors of rape as exploitation and grapes as apocalyptic wrath, the article seeks to counter the hidden apocalyptic and dualistic structures of maternal images and ecorapes and to identify them, question them and channel that powerful linguistic energy. (shrink)

Notions of care for humans and more-than-humans appear at the margins of the sustainability transformations debate. This paper explores the merits of an ethics of care approach to sustainability tr...

It is a pleasure and honor to continue this philosophical exchange in Ethics, Policy & Environment. Many thanks to Eric Katz, Christopher Preston, and Karen Warren, whose commentaries appear here;...

Looking back over the last 40 years of work in the philosophy of religion provides a fascinating vantage point from which to assess the state of the discipline today. I describe central features of American philosophy of religion in 1970 and reconstruct the last 40 years as a progression through four main stages. This analysis offers an overarching framework from which to examine the major contributions and debates of process philosophy of religion during the same period. The major thinkers, topics, (...) positions, and controversies are presented, analyzed, and critiqued. In the concluding section I offer a critical appraisal of the state of the field today based on the results of these historical analyses. (shrink)

While not a monolithic movement, ecofeminists are united in their conviction that there are important connections between the exploitation of both women and nature. They are internally divided, however, on the propriety of applying their theoretical claims and activist strategies across social contexts. This paper explores three debates within ecofeminism that largely turn on this universalist versus particularist tension: whether ecofeminist theorizing can adequately account for cultural variation; whether its common usage of essentialist rhetoric is productive or troubling; and whether (...) resources for social activism could legitimately be culled from an assembly of heterogeneous and foreign sources. I conclude that the universalism of the women–nature connection can indeed be justified if perceived in multivalent ways, that “earthcare” or “ecomaternalist” discourse can be helpful in some contexts but harmful in others, and that selective retrieval of other cultures for the purposes of advocacy should not be ruled out as necessarily imperialistic or otherwise inappropriate. (shrink)

Something is wrong with the desire to dominate nature. In this paper, I explain both the causes and solution to anti-environmental attitudes within the framework of Hegel's master–slave dialectic. I argue that the master–slave dialectic (interpreted as a metaphor, rather than literally) can provide reasons against taking an attitude of domination, and instead gives reasons to seek to be worthy of respect from nature, though nature cannot, of course, respect us. I then discuss what the social and economic conditions of (...) moving to a post-domination philosophy appear to be. (shrink)

Providing an overview of Integral Ecology, this article defines and explains some of the key terms and concepts that underlie an approach to the environment that is inspired by and makes use of Ken Wilber's Integral Theory. First Integral Ecology is distinguished from other environmental approaches. Then Wilber's Integral Theory is introduced, which provides a foundation for a participatory approach to ecology. Next, the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of environmental phenomena is examined in light of Wilber's framework and illustrated with (...) multidimensional examples of recycling. Finally, an Integral Ecology platform is presented. (shrink)

In this paper I explore how we ought to respond to the problematic inner lives of those that we love. I argue for an understanding of love that is radical and challenging—a powerful form of resistance within the confines of everyday relationships. I argue that love, far from the platitudinous and saccharine view, does not call for our acceptance of others’ failings. Instead, loving another means believing in their potential to grow and holding them to account when they fail. I (...) argue that loving others means meeting them where they are and working to understand the role that oppressive ideologies, coupled with cognitive biases, play in generating and entrenching their problematic mental states. I then argue that we ought not disengage with our loved ones or write them off as lost causes, nor should we accept that we will simply “agree to disagree.” Instead, we should stand in moral solidarity with our loved ones and press them to become better while simultaneously understanding that such moral growth is usually a slow and painful process—often, the project of a lifetime. (shrink)

Geoengineering has been broadly and helpfully defined as “the intentional manipulation of the earth's climate to counteract anthropogenic climate change or its warming effects” (Corner and Pidgeon , 26). Although there exists a rapidly growing literature on the ethics of geoengineering, very little has been written about its gender dimensions. The authors consider four contexts in which geoengineering appears to have important gender dimensions: (1) the demographics of those pushing the current agenda, (2) the overall vision of control it involves, (...) (3) the design of the particular technologies, and (4) whom geoengineering will most affect and benefit. After detailing these four gender dimensions, we consider three ways in which the geoengineering discourse could be enriched if it became more sensitive to issues of gender. These include increasing the focus on the concrete other, recognizing the socially transformative potential of geoengineering technologies, and engaging in value-sensitive design. Although ultimately remaining agnostic on the desirability of geoengineering, the paper brings gender considerations into a discussion from which they have been conspicuously absent. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatists are committed to analyzing questions of environmental policy. Bryan Norton's pragmatic critique of environmental decision-making shows how an implicit commitment to the fact/value distinction has hindered productive environmental action. Nonetheless, Norton, as well as the majority of environmental ethicists, have devoted more attention to theorizing value disagreements as a primary cause of controversy than to examining epistemic structures. A case study demonstrates why and how Norton's procedural account may be supplemented with sensitive attention to the construction of epistemic (...) authority in environmental disputes. I recommend supporting the development of local knowledges and just distributions of epistemic authority. (shrink)

How has engineering ethics addressed gender concerns to date? How have the ideas of feminist philosophers and feminist ethicists made their way into engineering ethics? What might an explicitly feminist engineering ethics look like? This paper reviews some major themes in feminist ethics and then considers three areas in which these themes have been taken up in engineering ethics to date. First, Caroline Whitbeck’s work in engineering ethics integrates considerations from her own earlier writings and those of other feminist philosophers, (...) but does not use the feminist label. Second, efforts to incorporate the Ethic of Care and principles of Social Justice into engineering have drawn on feminist scholarship and principles, but these commitments can be lost in translation to the broader engineering community. Third, the film Henry’s Daughters brings gender considerations into the mainstream of engineering ethics, but does not draw on feminist ethics per se; despite the best intentions in broaching a difficult subject, the film unfortunately does more harm than good when it comes to sexual harassment education. I seek not only to make the case that engineers should pay attention to feminist ethics and engineering ethicists make more use of feminist ethics traditions in the field, but also to provide some avenues for how to approach integrating feminist ethics in engineering. The literature review and analysis of the three examples point to future work for further developing what might be called feminist engineering ethics. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is ethical and practical necessity for including women's needs, perspectives, and expertise in international climate change negotiations. I show that climate change contributes to women's hardships because of the conjunction of the feminization of poverty and environmental degradation caused by climate change. I then provide data I collected in Ghana to demonstrate effects of extreme weather events on women subsistence farmers and argue that women have knowledge to contribute to adaptation efforts. The final section surveys (...) the international climate debate, assesses explanations for its gender blindness, and summarizes the progress on gender that was made at Copenhagen and Cancun in order to document and provoke movement toward climate justice for women. (shrink)

Ecofeminism is a term coined by Françoise D’Eubonne in her book Feminism or Death to show the affinities between ecology and feminism. Both women and nature are perceived as passive elements and like women who complain about patriarchal constraints, ecologists shed light on the impacts of human exploitation over nature which is affected by pollution. Some dimensions of ecofeminism are present in Leslie Marmon Silko’s The Yellow Woman. The postmodern novel contains a female character who forges a link with the (...) natural surroundings and is in a direct contact with some natural elements like plants and animals. What is specific about the heroine is that she escapes her matriarchal society and goes back to nature in order to reconstruct her identity. At the end of the narrative, the female narrator leaves the natural setting and goes back to her family to replay social roles. The present article sets out to study the importance of Mother Nature for the female narrator and to examine the affinities between Earth Mother and the female protagonist. The first part will offer a theoretical background about the basic principles of ecofeminism. Then, my analysis will touch upon the aspects of ecofeminism in the novel. However, the last part will focus on the way the narrator goes beyond her matriarchal culture and reshapes female identity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRoy Bhaskar's concrete utopianism assumes that a key role for intellectuals, given the current precarious situation of humanity, is the envisaging of alternative possible futures, coherently grounded in the deep structure of what already exists, which includes what people already know and have. Without this grounding, people will not be able to make a persuasive case for change. With this grounding, and by combining the realism of the intellect with the optimism of the will, they may be able to usher (...) in a future of which the youthful Marx said ‘the world has long since dreamed’. This paper is both motivated by Bhaskar's position, and takes it as its starting point. I therefore begin by presenting three scenarios for the world's future, which I take to be real possibilities. I consider which of these possibilities would be worth striving for, and in so doing, I introduce a strategy that I take to be a means to that end. Specifically, this strategy involves harmonizing interventions with critical realist eco-philosophical ambitions. I argue that such interventions should therefore have an interdisciplinary framework, be dedicated to an ethics of dialogue and care, and be directed by dialectical change and learning. (shrink)

Corporate engagements with pressing environmental challenges focus on expanding the role of the market, seeking opportunities for growth and developing technologies to manage better environmental resources. Such approaches have proved ineffective. I suggest that a lack of meaningful response to ecological degradation and climate change is inevitable within a capitalist system underpinned by a logics of appropriation and an instrumental rationality that views the planet as a means to achieve economic ends. For ecofeminism, these logics are promulgated through sets of (...) hierarchical and interrelated dualisms which define the human in opposition to the realm of “nature”. This has led to the resilience of ecosystems, social reciprocity and care being unvalued or undervalued. An ecofeminist, care-sensitive ethics is proposed that focuses on the interconnections between human and nonhuman nature and on affective engagements with the living world. A practical morality is developed that sees the self not as atomized nor as self-optimizing, but as a self in relationship. Such an ethics is necessary to motivate action to contest capitalism’s binary thinking, evident within corporate environmentalism, which has re-made the web of life in ways that are not conducive to planetary flourishing. (shrink)

Posthumanist feminist theory has been instrumental in demonstrating the salience of gender and sexism in structuring human–animal relationships and in revealing the connections between the oppression of women and of nonhuman animals. Despite the richness of feminist posthumanist theorizations it has been suggested that their influence in contemporary animal ethics has been muted. This marginalization of feminist work—here, in its posthumanist version—is a systemic issue within theory and needs to be remedied. At the same time, the limits of posthumanist feminist (...) theory must also be addressed. Although posthumanist feminist theory has generated a sophisticated body of work analyzing how gendered and sexist discourses and practices subordinate women and animals alike, its imprint in producing intersectional analyses of animal issues is considerably weaker. This leaves theorists vulnerable to charges of essentialism, ethnocentrism, and elitism despite best intentions to avoid such effects and despite commitments to uproot all forms of oppression. Gender-focused accounts also preclude understanding of the importance of race and culture in structuring species-based oppression. To counter these undesirable pragmatic and conceptual developments, posthumanist feminist theory needs to engender feminist accounts that centralize the structural axes of race and culture. (shrink)

La relación entre seres humanos y otros anymales (anymals) (Kemmerer, 2006) es, por definición, asimétrica. A lo largo de la historia se han esgrimido múltiples argumentos para justificar un supuesto excepcionalismo humano (excepcionalism), desde la atribución de derechos divinos a una mayor inteligencia, legitimando así un sistema de explotación denominado dominación (domination) (Manfredo et al. 2019). Las relaciones entre especies y cómo se conciben son un tema difícil. Hay muchos modos de enfocar las relaciones entre el humano y los anymales, (...) desde la adoración religiosa (vacas en la India) a la explotación (investigación biomédica). Además en Occidente surgen formas alternativas de ver y entender estas relaciones (por ejemplo, la relación con animales domésticos). La pertenencia a una u otra especie es un factor fundamental que influye en la posición que cada animal tiene en estas jerarquías asimétricas. Sin embargo, se deben considerar otros elementos relevantes, como los vínculos entre individuos, de la misma manera que el afecto por otras personas depende en líneas generales del tipo de vínculo que tengamos con ellas (por ejemplo, la relaciones familiares o de amistad). (shrink)

Although intersectionality has been widely disseminated across the disciplines as a tool to center women of color's developed perspectives on social reality, it has been notably absent in the scholarship of feminist philosophy and philosophy of race. I first examine the causes and processes of the exclusions of women of color feminist thought more generally, and of intersectionality in particular. Then, focusing attention on Black feminisms, I read Sandra Jackson-Opoku's 1997 novel, The River Where Blood Is Born, with and against (...) Paget Henry's Africana ethnophilosophy. I model an interdisciplinary, intersectional approach to Henry's ethnophilosophy, broadening its philosophical scope by historicizing the liminality that characterizes the realities of many diasporic Black women. I also develop an interpretation of the female protagonists to suggest how many Black women within different historical contexts develop practices to recover African symbolic and discursive registers as a means to claim their subjectivities. Additionally, I challenge Henry's teleological explanation for an increasingly secular Africana philosophical identity. (shrink)

In this paper I introduce the concept of eco-masculinities as a philosophical and critical project to understand the links between gendered and pro-environmental behaviour. The background of the feminist project, the sociology of masculinity, and the post-gendered world to which they both aspire, alongside a brief history of the project of ecofeminism, occupy the bulk of the paper. In the last section I briefly consider how these philosophical approaches might impact upon analysis of an EU Project entitled Digital Environment Home (...) Energy Management System. (shrink)

The portrayal of novel neurotechnologies in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report serves to inoculate viewers from important moral considerations that are displaced by the film’s somewhat singular emphasis on the question of how to reintroduce freedom of choice into an otherwise technology driven world. This sets up a crisis mentality and presents a false dilemma regarding the appropriate use, and regulation, of neurotechnologies. On the one hand, it seems that centralized power is required to both control and effectively implement such technologies (...) and, on the other hand, individual heroic resistance is required to protect citizens from the invasions of personal privacy and state control made possible through neurotechnologies. While Minority Report, as a dystopic vision of emergent neurotechnologies, engages surface ethical issues it risks cheapening them through its rather simplistic, dichotomous analysis. Most conspicuously absent from this approach is a sense of the social matrices that work to circumscribe or augment expressions of human freedom, privacy, control and power that are all implicated in our engagement with novel neurotechnologies. Were Minority Report unique in this respect it would have little interest, but we think this type of cheapening of ethical discourse about novel technologies is common. Because science fiction film informs the social imaginary in which ethical considerations and ultimately policy decisions take place, such cheapening risks subverting pervasive and tangible ethical issues by focusing on the sensationalistic and simplistic. (shrink)

To mitigate animal suffering under industrial farming conditions, biotechnology companies are pursuing the development of genetically disenhanced animals. Recent advances in gene editing biotechnology have brought this to reality. In one of the first discussions of the ethics of disenhancement, Thompson argued that it is hard to find compelling reasons to oppose it. We offer an argument against disenhancement that draws upon parallels with human disenhancement, ecofeminism’s concern with the “logic of domination,” and a relational ethic that seeks to preserve (...) a meaningful relationship between farmers and their animals. In addition, we respond to two arguments in favor of animal disenhancement—one grounded in the non-identity problem and one that argues disenhancement is the best we can do to protect animal well-being right now. We argue that animal disenhancement does not address the fundamental issue of oppression of animals in the context of contemporary animal agriculture. Therefore, we conclude that animal disenhancement is not nearly as valuable as it might appear initially. (shrink)