Deep Ecology, the Holistic Critique of Enlightenment Dualism, and the Irony of History

Abstract

In the 1970s, deep ecologists developed a radical normative argument for 'ecological consciousness' to challenge environmental and human exploitation. Such consciousness would replace the Enlightenment dualist 'illusion' with a post-Enlightenment holism that 'fully integrated' humanity within the ecosphere. By the 2000s, deep ecology had fallen out of favour with many green scholars. And, in 2014, it was described as a 'spent force'. However, this decline has coincided with calls by influential advocates of 'corporate social and environmental responsibility' (CSER) and 'green growth' (GG) that urge market actors to ensure voluntarily that social and environmental 'problems are addressed holistically'. Given that CSER and GG have also been associated with rent seeking, privatisation and reducing incomes of the poor, could it be that some of deep ecology's once radical ideas today serve to legitimate forms of exploitation that they once decried? A critical realist perspective can problematise deep ecology's highly normative response to exploitation and alienation. By settling ontological questions in favour of holism and promoting moral voluntarism, deep ecology failed to address how actors with different interests might adopt green ideas. This blind spot can be cured by focusing instead on the active deployment of ethics, morality, values, beliefs, ideas and knowledges by political actors in historically specific contexts. Both critical normative and critical realist modes of engaging with environmental values are important; however, at a time when holism and voluntarism are gaining influence, critical realism offers helpful insight into the uses and abuses of such values.

Deep Ecology and Nature: Naess, Spinoza, Schelling

“…Nature cannot dictate what should happen, because it is still unfolding. In this way the need for politics is illustrated through the open-endedness of Schellingian ontology, avoiding the deadlock that Scerri (2016) noted.…”

Reformists, Decouplists, and Activists: A Typology of Ecocentric Management

“…This requires limiting individual freedoms and protecting ecological rights and needs (Grey, 1993). While radical, these principles of equal rights and changes to modern lifestyle can resolve the intractable environmental sustainability tension of either to “economize the ecology” or to “ecologize the economy” (Clark & York, 2005; Drengson, 1995; Scerri, 2016).…”

Connecting paradigms to practice: Grounding and growing discourses on environmental values and ethics with community gardeners

“…Despite its roots in the 1940s, environmental ethics gained real traction in academic discourses in the 1970s when scholars challenged traditional Western moral foundations of human-nature relationships (Brennan & Yeuk-Sze, 2020;Scerri, 2016). Traditional Western moral theories centred on the moral agency of humans, emphasising the intrinsic value of humans above non-human life as well as the notion that nature exists to serve and satisfy human needs (Talukder, 2018).…”

“…Western traditions of thought trace back to the Enlightenment period and are embedded in anthropocentric knowledge systems that prioritise humans' needs above nature (Jackson, 2011;Yu et al, 2019). The foundations of Western philosophical thinking are grounded in dualism -a divide between humans and nature which implies that nature has no moral value other than to serve human needs (Talukder, 2018;Akamani, 2020;Scerri, 2016). The perceptions of a human-nature divide are explicit in hegemonic social and economic practices, which further embeds these misconceptions of a disconnect between humanity and the environment.…”