Nature, Purity, Ontology

Abstract

Standard defences of preservationism, and of the intrinsic value of nature more generally, are vulnerable to at least three objections. The first of these comes from social constructivism, the second from the claim that it is incoherent to argue that nature is both 'other' and something with which we can feel unity, whilst the third links defences of nature to authoritarian objectivism and dangerously misanthropic normative dichotomies which set pure nature against impure humanity. I argue that all these objections may be answered by recasting the relationship between man and nature into a tripartite spectrum of ontological form between nature and artifact, with the key question being the extent to which nature has been humanised in accordance with certain modes of strongly instrumental rationality, these in turn being defined by reference to the split between abstract reason and natural feeling which was exacerbated by specific elements in the Enlightenment period. This new model may grant normative force by linking external nature to a broader conception of human psychological wellbeing than that offered by the quantitatively orientated models of human rationality and agency.

Debate - The Green only Blooms amid the Millian Flowers. A Reply to Marcel Wissenburg

“…So a core disagreement exists, for I see no need to keep neo-Lockean liberals on board. Solutions, to my mind, will emerge by acknowledging that greens' estrangement complaints reflect problems whose resolution will involve rethinking some Enlightenment assumptions about agency, rationality and property [Stephens, 1999[Stephens, , 2000. These factors, along with his recognition of limits to growth and relational emphasis, make Mill the best bridge between green and liberal thought, for whilst he did not directly champion external nature, his advocacy of broad human flourishing uniquely allows a merger in which greens need not sell their souls.…”

Ideal and unsullied: Purity, subjectivity and social power

“…Such studies of purity in contemporary Western societies are by far the most prevalent of all research on the topic. There has been work, in particular, on racial discourses of purity (Warren, 2003), ideas of purity in the art world (Raverty, 2005), environmental discourses of nature and purity (Stephens, 2000) and sexual purity themes associated with the rise of the New Right in the United States since the 1980s (Lienesch, 2007). There has also been extensive research on the theme of childhood purity, due in part to the rapid growth of the sociology of childhood since the early 1990s (Prout and James, 1997).…”

Reconstruction of the Ethical Debate on Naturalness in Discussions About Plant-Biotechnology

“…(Williams 1983;Soper 1995;Lovelock 2000;Stephens 2000;Verhoog et al 2003;Anderson 2005;Gremmen 2005;Hansen 2006;Siipi 2008). In the discourses on agriculture we described earlier, naturalness seems to appear as one kind of argument describing the relation between technology and the effect it has on nature.…”