Alienation and Nature in Environmental Philosophy

Abstract

Many environmental scientists, scholars and activists characterize our situation as one of alienation from nature, but this notion can easily seem meaningless or irrational. In this book, Simon Hailwood critically analyses the idea of alienation from nature and argues that it can be a useful notion when understood pluralistically. He distinguishes different senses of alienation from nature pertaining to different environmental contexts and concerns, and draws upon a range of philosophical and environmental ideas and themes including pragmatism, eco-phenomenology, climate change , ecological justice, Marxism and critical theory. His novel perspective shows that different environmental concerns-both anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric-can dovetail, rather than compete, with each other, and that our alienation from nature need not be something to be regretted or overcome. His book will interest a broad readership in environmental philosophy and ethics, political philosophy, geography and environmental studies.

Particularizing Nonhuman Nature in Stakeholder Theory: The Recognition Approach

“…5 Consequently, nature's expressivity is a matter of humans' capacity to listen to and interpret its communication and ecological semiotics (Dobson, 2014;Romero & Dryzek, 2020;Whiteman & Cooper, 2011). While listening to nonhuman signals does not make humans able to fully step beyond the 'human perspective,' it may nevertheless significantly improve understanding about and sensitivity to the otherness while accepting its fundamental difference (Hailwood, 2015).…”

“…The recognition of nature has also received notable attention in recent years (e.g., Hailwood, 2015;Laitinen & Kortetmäki, 2019;Romero & Dryzek, 2020;Schlosberg, 2007Schlosberg, , 2014, which demonstrates a shift away from the previously anthropocentric orientation in social and political theory. While the organizations and stakeholder research is yet to discuss the recognition of nature, some of the existing ideas point toward similar thinking.…”

“…This is an important expansion: while the intersubjective model of recognition also questions value hierarchies that devalue the voices differing from the dominant logic (Pless & Maak, 2004), it also, ironically, delimits this criticality to the human sphere, entrenching human/nature dualism and the depiction of nature as a voiceless background (cf. Hailwood, 2015).…”

“…Recognition concept has been previously applied to discuss the particularities of organizational actors (Pless & Maak, 2004;Alamgir and Alakavuklar, 2020) and embodied corporeality (Hancock, 2008). In environmental ethics, recognition has also been extended to the study of human-nonhuman relations (Hailwood, 2015;Kavalski and Zolkos, 2016;Laitinen & Kortetmäki, 2019;Schlosberg, 2007Schlosberg, , 2014. Building on these insights, we develop new ways to approach nonhuman nature in stakeholder research.…”

Toward a Terrestrial Turn in Philosophy of Technology

“…9 Third, we humans are, I will urge, essentially technological entities whose environment is already largely built. In other words, my understanding of the end-Holocene is meant to align with the recent 'postnatural' environmental philosophies-which together encompass ontology, ethics and politics-of thinkers like Bruno , Braden Allenby and Daniel Sarewitz (2011), Andrew Biro (2005), Steven Vogel (2015), Simon Hailwood (2015), and Jedediah Purdy (2015).…”