Spinoza and Deep Ecology

Challenging Traditional Approaches to Environmentalism

Eccy de Jonge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351898607
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Spinoza and Deep Ecology explores the philosophical, psychological and political assumptions that underpin a concern for nature, offering specific suggestions how the domination of humans and nature may be overcome. It is primarily intended as an introduction to the philosophy of ecology, known as deep ecology, and to the way Spinoza's philosophy has been put to this aim. Only a self-realisation, along the lines of Spinoza's philosophy, can afford a philosophy of care which is inclusive of humans and the non-human world, which recognises the need for civil laws and democratic politics for human flourishing. In stark contrast to texts written by or on behalf of deep ecologists, Spinoza and Deep Ecology is not afraid of criticising existing versions of deep ecology which fail to accept that human concerns are integral to environmental issues.

Chapter 1
Deep Ecology and Environmental Ethics

This chapter explores the relationship between deep ecology and modern environmental ethics. This relationship is tenuous, for although deep ecologists draw heavily on environmental ethical theory, they claim that deep ecology is not a branch of environmental ethics. While both schools of thought address the current environmental crisis, deep ecologists have rejected the position of moral theory, turning instead to Spinoza’s metaphysics to underpin their arguments.

However, many of the key terms used to substantiate and justify deep ecology are shared by environmental ethicists. The notion of ‘intrinsic value’, the theories of ‘biocentric egalitarianism’ and ‘ecological holism’ are embedded in both the deep ecological polemic and environmental moral theory. Although it is not uncommon for different disciplines to share the same views, this poses a problem for the deep ecologist. Above all, it raises the question: how can deep ecology claim to be divorced from a form of ethics that makes such an important contribution to its discourse? Exacerbating this niggling problem is the failure, on the part of deep ecologists, to explain precisely what they, rather than other environmental philosophers, mean by the terms being evoked. Since the meaning of key terms, such as ‘intrinsic value’, is left obscure, it is necessary to turn to philosophers who have no interest in defending a particular deep ecology but who are instead, more concerned with defining and upholding various moral positions. This would be both useful and enlightening if we wanted to defend an environmental ethics at the expense of deep ecology. However, since our objective is to show how a philosophy of care that is inclusive of the non-human world can be achieved, we must examine why deep ecologists turn to more traditional theories. But before examining theories prevalent in both deep ecology and environmental ethics, we shall first explore the basis of deep ecology, a basis which lies in its critique of anthropocentrism.

An Integrated Philosophy of Care

Though deep ecologists are not unanimous in how best to approach the subject of ‘deep ecology’, they all agree on one point: the bedrock of environmental disharmony is the prevailing attitude of anthropocentrism. Since an attitude is responsible for ecological devastation, deep ecologists argue that human beings need to change their perception of the way things are, rather than developing a better ethics. But ultimately, this is the purpose of any ethical theory – to alter one’s perceptions – at least with regard to the particular ethical problem under consideration. Accepting this, we can safely bet that environmental ethics is concerned with altering our views of the environment, by, for example, getting us to care about the depletion of natural resources or the effect of pollution on the ozone layer. However, these examples focus on particular environmental concerns. In contrast, a philosophy concerned with criticizing anthropocentrism in general is not interested in any particular environmental issue but with offering an alternative to the prevalent view that regards human beings as superior to nature. It is non-anthropocentrism that deep ecologists argue must be realized if ecological destruction is to be avoided: we need to furnish an attitude of humility, in which we see ourselves as part of not separate from, the natural world.

Deep ecologists and philosophers of environmental ethics use notions such as ‘intrinsic value’, ‘biocentrism’ and other key terms in fundamentally different ways. Philosophers of environmental ethics use these ideas as ends in themselves, serving as justifications for environmental ethics. By contrast, deep ecologists view these concepts as a means to an end, as a methodology to help us to realize our true, that is, non-anthropocentric, selves. For this reason we must first examine what the term ‘anthropocentric’ means in order to ascertain why a non-anthropocentric philosophy of care – a deep ecology – should be deemed desirable.

Non-Anthropocentrism

Although anthropocentrism literally means ‘human-centred’, where ‘human’ translates the Greek word anthropos, there are several ways to understand its meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘anthropocentrism’ as the view that ‘man is the centre of existence’. Since only humans can define and ascribe meaning to the world, anthropocentrism is upheld: we are the centre of existence, since only we can make judgements about the world. Warwick Fox calls this interpretation weak, trivial and tautological. What really matters, Fox argues, is the recognition that certain views exhibit an unwarranted differential treatment towards other people on the basis of their sex or race, and towards other species on the basis that they are not human.¹ We may argue that this position is too general, for not all human beings play an equal part in the domination of the natural environment. Anthropocentrism may represent the human will to dominate the environment, but it threatens the human world as much as the non-human world.

The concept of intrinsic value offers another way to understand anthropocentrism. A distinction can be made between anthropocentrism as an attitude of unwarranted discrimination in favour of human beings, and anthropocentrism as the position that only human beings have, or possess, intrinsic value. Before analysing the meaning of intrinsic value, we shall explore anthropocentrism as the attitude of unwarranted discrimination. In particular, we shall consider three ways in which anthropocentrism is criticized by deep ecologists. First, we shall examine the view that anthropocentrism is a particular attitude of domination in which human ‘centredness’ denotes our superiority over the non-human world. Second, we shall consider anthropocentrism as it is used to cover all attitudes of superiority, from exploitation of the natural world to racist or sexist abuse. And third, we shall examine anthropocentrism as a particular attitude of domination which is limited to the attitudes, views and performances of certain human beings; in this case our understanding of anthropocentrism depends on what we take to be the defining feature or essence of humanity. As Warwick Fox says, ‘the history of anthropocentrism takes in not only the assumption of the centrality and superiority of humans in general but also the various claims and counterclaims that various classes of humans have made with regards to the exemplification of whatever attributes have been considered to be quintessentially human’.²

The American medieval historian Lynn White Jr is credited by deep ecologists as being one of the first authors to align the root cause of the environmental crisis with the doctrine of anthropocentrism, by recognizing anthropocentrism as the underlying attitude of domination.³ Rather than focusing on the symptoms of the environmental crisis, such as pollution, urban expansion, overpopulation and deforestation, White argued that only a thorough understanding of anthropocentrism would disclose whether or not humanity could develop a more enlightened attitude towards the natural environment. According to White, anthropocentrism emerged as the result of two historical developments:

1. i
   The modern Western democratic state which arose through conquering, looting and colonizing, what is now called the developing world; and
2. ii
   The Judaeo-Christian tradition which held that all things were created for the benefit and use of ‘man’, who God had chosen to have dominion over all the earth.⁴

It was the second of these two sources, the religious view, that White saw as forming the anthropocentric basis for the ecological crisis. Since it was religion that had played a dominant role in contributing to our biased attitude towards the environment, White concluded that the solution to the crisis would also need to be religious. Although he criticized the Judaeo-Christian tradition, White did not think it plausible or even necessary to abandon religion altogether. He argued that it was the anthropocentric bias of religion, rather than its esoteric core, that made it ethically dubious. White thus proposed developing a non-anthropocentric, egalitarian religion based on the radical Christian monk, Saint Francis of Assisi, though he did not elaborate on how such a religion could be developed.

Although most Western nations are now secular states and many individuals reject the very idea of a personal creator God, White’s paper emphasizes certain aspects of the Judaeo-Christian tradition which remain prevalent in contemporary attitudes. Even if the underlying assumption of the Judaeo-Christian message presented by White is rejected in favour of its alternative, which sees human beings as custodians of the earth, such a view does not refute the notion of anthropo-centrism. As guardians or keepers of the earth, we remain superior to non-human beings; we tend the flock, so to speak, not for its own sake but to ensure that nature remains productive and resourceful for our use. In other words, ‘anthropocentrism’ denotes humanity’s superiority over the non-human world, on the basis that human beings occupy a higher position on the Great Chain of Being.⁵

Concentrating on Lynn White Jr’s first position – that anthropocentrism arose due to Western imperialism – the deep ecologists, Bill Devall and George Sessions, identify anthropocentrism as the dominant worldview of technocratic-industrialized societies. Devall and Sessions argue that our understanding of human nature has been strongly conditioned by the paradigm of domination – a paradigm which regards human beings as isolated and fundamentally separate from nature and superior to the rest of nature. As a result, anthropocentrism has come to include all aspects of domination, for example, masculine over feminine, the powerful over the poor, Western cultures over non-Western cultures, and so on.⁶ They maintain that the obsession with domination derives from self-alienation, which can only be resolved through seeing ‘beyond our narrow contemporary cultural assumptions and values, and the conventional wisdom of our time and place [which] is best achieved by the meditative deep questioning process’.⁷

The meditative deep questioning process aims to lead us to examine the very nature of reality, who we are, what it means to be human, and how we relate to the natural world. As Devall and Sessions state, ‘we need to question whether humans are separate or superior to the rest of Nature and whether it is our role or destiny to dominate and control the rest of Nature’.⁸

If anthropocentrism underpins all forms of domination, then arguably understanding or focusing on any one form of domination, for example, racism, would help to root out the underlying cause of domination in general. Although deep ecologists readily link anthropocentrism to attitudes of domination, they ultimately reject the assumption that by focusing on one form of domination anthropocentrism can be undermined. As Warwick Fox, in agreement with Devall and Sessions, notes, ‘for deep ecologists it is simplistic on both empirical and logical grounds to think that one particular perspective on human society identifies the real root of ecological destruction’. It is simplistic because such an approach fails ‘to give due consideration to...