After the Death of Nature by Allison Elizabeth

Author:Allison, Elizabeth [Allison, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2018-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

Moral considerations for humans and nonhuman nature;

Respect for cultural diversity and biodiversity;

Inclusion of women, minorities, and nonhuman nature in the code of ethical accountability.

An ecologically-informed management that is consistent with the continued health of both the human and the nonhuman communities.

Although her work has had significant influence in the evolution of ecofeminist thinking, Merchant encouraged consideration of arguments critical of that orientation. One reference in particular that highlighted contrasting viewpoints was Janet Biehl’s Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics (Biehl 1991), which promotes the radical political orientation of social ecology as a more liberating framework for both men and women. Biehl characterizes ecofeminism as spreading “theism, irrationalism, and mystification in both the ecology and the feminist movements,” which she sees as undermining the Enlightenment project and divorcing ecological concerns from political engagement.

Biehl’s reference to the Enlightenment raises a theme that was central to my work on the history and significance of systems thinking. Inspired by the insights of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, particularly in the work of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno ( Dialectic of Enlightenment [Horkheimer and Adorno 1972]), I wrote the following in the Prologue to my book The Science of Synthesis: Exploring the Social Implications of General Systems Theory :

Although the rise of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century is often associated with the emergence of political democracies in the West, this dual heritage from the Enlightenment contains an inherent dialectical tension. As critical theorists in the Frankfurt School have argued, the promise of progress through the control of nature ultimately entails the control of human nature, undermining the liberal impulse of democracy and the ideals of social justice that are also part of the Enlightenment tradition.

(Hammond 2003:2)

Just as Biehl appeals to the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment in her critique of ecofeminism, emphasizing political engagement and a narrowly positivistic rationality, she fails to appreciate the potential for domination and control inherent in the underlying ethos.

The same kind of tension can be seen in perspectives on mechanistic science. In contrast to arguments about the limitations of the mechanistic paradigm that I had found compelling, I was surprised to discover that appeals to more holistic, organic conceptions of nature and science tended in most academic circles to be dismissed as retrograde and reactionary, if not delusional, and often associated with authoritarian and fascist implications. (See especially Martin Lewis (1995), “Radical Environmental Philosophy and the Assault on Reason”) I was truly mystified by this perspective, and it became a central theme in my dissertation research, which drew a great deal of inspiration from the rich tapestry of philosophical and ethical frameworks to which I was introduced in Carolyn’s Environmental Philosophy and Ethics course.

Further insights gained in teaching the course in 1989 with Yaakov Garb, a graduate student in the School of Education, and in 1994 with Patsy Hallen, a visiting professor from Murdoch University, enriched my own teaching of the course in the fall of 1996, as I was finishing up my dissertation. In the intervening years, Carolyn had published Key Concepts in Critical Theory: Ecology (Merchant 1994, 2nd ed.

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