humanism and anti-humanism in environmental values

476 Pages·2013·20.13 MB·English

HUMANISM AND
ANTI-HUMANISM IN
ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
Michael Frederick Smith
Department of Philosophy
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in the University of Stirling.
ABSTRACT
This thesis identifies a family of humanist presuppositions which, I argue,
pervade modern Western society and are partly responsible for our inability to
escape from a spiral of environmental destruction. For example, humanist
ethical theories frequently assume the existence of an objective / subjective
divide, autonomous rational individuals and a neutral rationality. Iarguethat
these assumptions, which are peculiar to our society, provide a wholly
inappropriate basis for the expression of many environmental concerns.
Humanism imposes particular taxonomies and interpretations on social and
environmental relations; these facilitate the treatment of nature as a resource
rather than as a part of our (ethical) community. At the theoretical level,
humanism develops explicit systems of ''formal rationaiity" which purport to be
neutral e.g. axiological systems like neoclassical economics and utilitarianism.
However, these systems reduce environmental evaluation to the bureaucratic
application of abstract methodologies and, far from being neutral, they impose a
particular humanist ideology on decision making processes which marginalises
those who speak in a different voice.
Idevelop an alternative perspective; a critical theory informed by the anti-
humanism of Althusser, the later Wittgenstein and Bourdieu. This post-humanist
theoretical problematic works in two ways. First, it explains how ideologies
interpellate individuals into social structures and reproduce current social
values. Second, it advocates an alternative "ecological paradigm", embedded
in anti-humanist and radical traditions which would give due regard to the
constitutive role of 'nature' in the formation of our moral values.
For my mother and father
Acknowledgements
lowe a great deal to Andrew Brennan for his enthusiasm, help and
criticism and for allowing me the space to develop this thesis in all the
directions which seemed important. With a less open-minded
supervisor this work would have been a much more parochial affair.
Ares Axiotis gave invaluable encouragement and excellent advice in
areas where Iwas a comparative novice. Anthony Dufftook on the
role of supervisor at short notice and has been of great assistance
philosophically and practically. Iwould also like to thank Yvonne
McClymont and Richard King for their friendship and assistance.
Above all I would like to thank Beth Crossan.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION p. 1
CHAPTER 1: HUMANISM p.13
Humanism and the Environment p. 19
Environmental Anti-humanism p. 24
Rationality and Humanism p. 38
CHAPTER 2: HUMANISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES p. 46
Environmental economics p. 46
Axiological Extensionism. (The Expanding Circle.) p. 53
Paradigm Transformation and Deep Ecology p. 64
CHAPTER 3: ALTHUSSER AND ANTI-HUMANISM p. 83
Preliminaries p. 83
Althusser, Spinoza and Environmental Ethics p. 88
Structure and the Social Formation p. 93
Ideology and the Interpellation of the Subject p. 105
The Epistemological Break: Ideology, Marxist Science and Philosophy p.114
Correspondence Theory, Humanism and Althusser p. 118
Spinoza and Coherence Theories of Truth p. 128
Jorge Larrain and the 'Objects' of Theory p. 135
Conventionalism p. 140
Conclusions p. 144
Excursus on Althusser and Structuralism p. 145
CHAPTER 4: SCIENCE, THEORY AND IDEOLOGY p. 148
Introduction p. 148
Philosophical Criticism of Althusser's Epistemology p. 150
Karl Mannheim 161
Scientific Practice, Philosophy and Ideology p. 168
Canguilhem p. 174
Foucault p. 182
Althusser, Ideology and Science p. 189
CHAPTER 5: PRACTICE AND THEORY p. 200
i). Practice as Material Objects p. 204
ii). Practice and Idealism p. 212
iii). Practice as Hermeneutics p. 218
Wittgenstein and Practices p. 225
CHAPTER 6: PRODUCTION AND 'NATURE' INSOCIAL PRACTICE p. 254
Nature and the Dialectic: Active and Passive Roles p.268
New History: The Annales School p. 282
Human Ecology p. 295
CHAPTER 7: THE HUMAN SUBJECT p. 302
Reprise p. 302
Humanism and Moral Autonomy p. 312
Sartre and the Promethean Conception of Moral Autonomy p. 320
The Communitarian Critique of the Impoverished Self p.331
Taylor, Ethics and Personal Preferences p. 337
Anti-humanism and Moral Values p. 353
CHAPTER 8: JIM CHENEY: ENVIRONMENTALPOSTMODERNISM AND ANTI-
HUMANISM p. 365
Preliminary Remarks p. 365
Jim Cheney and the Myth of Postmodernism p. 371
The World and Language p. 375
Modernism and its Context p. 387
CHAPTER 9: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND COMMUNITY p. 397
The Epistemological Critique p. 398
Bourdieu's Concept of Habitus p. 404
The Habitus, Codification and Ideology p. 410
Recontextualising Ethics: The Feminist Critique of Humanism p. 423
The Habitus and Ethical Theory: Towards an Epistemology of Morals p. 432
Discourse and the Community of Ethics p. 438
BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 447
A Klee painting named "Angelus Navalis" shows an angel looking
as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly
contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings
are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. Hisface
is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events,
he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage
upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would
like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been
smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught
in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close
them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which
his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows
skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
Walter Benjamin "Theses on the Philosophy of
History"
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,Walter Benjamin I/uminations pp. 259-260.
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INTRODUCTION
It should not be necessary to begin an essay in environmental ethics with the
by now familiar litany of ecological disasters. I assume that we are all well
aware of the earth's current predicament and its human causes.' Suffice it to
say that the tempest of progress has now blown us "far from paradise".
Benjamin's dystopian imagery finds increasingly frequent echoes in the
writings of many environmentalists angered and sickened by the scale of our
destructive actlvitles.'
The current obscene scale of damage inflicted upon our natural environment
is a product of our society, of modern Westernsocial structures and
ideologies. This thesis attempts to characterise, deconstruct and offer
alternatives to the dominant ideology which legitimises this carnage, that
which I refer to as "humanism". Following Ehrenfeld and many other
environmentalists, I hold that humanist assumptions and presuppositions
(characterised in detail in chapter one) are deeply implicated in our
destructive and shortsighted policies towards the non-human world.'
The argument of this thesis is that the survival of remaining wilderness areas,
however small, is a matter for mora/concern. Their preservation will not be
,The Worldwatch Institute provides a concise summary of our current environment intheir
annual State of the World Atlas.
Far From Paradise isthe title of John Seymour's and Herbert Girardet's chronicle of
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environmental devastation. See also Kirkpatrick Sale's timely counter-blast to the celebration
of the SOOthanniversary of the 'discovery' of the Americas, The Conquest of Paradise. The
golden age is a recurrent theme amongst environmentalists which, although romantically
appealing, does have its own dangers in idealising a past of which we know so little. (See
chapter 8.)
David Ehrenfeld The Arrogance of Humanism.
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urged in the usual terms of human utility. For example, rainforests are often
referred to as gene banks, potential resources for sustainable development,
oxygen factories and so on. Though in some sense they may be all of these
things, to justify their preservation by reference to these roles is to accept the
language and rationale of their exploitation. These are expressions of
human-centred attitudes towards nature and concrete examples of the
imposition of managerial and financial constraints upon nature. Just as in
our present bureaucratic/consumer society all has to be managerially
approved and financially profitable, wilderness too, it is often argued, needs
to justify its continued existence on the same grounds. Though the defence
of wild places by such means may sometimes be successful as a short term
expedient, to justify their preservation only, or even primarily, inthese terms
is tacitly to accept the status quo and the ultimate hegemony of human
self-i nterest.
Systems of institutionalised rights are frequently touted as alternatives to an
unrestricted instrumental rationality. They supposedly introduce ethical
constraints into political and economic structures. However they fail to
challenge humanistic presuppositions at their deepest levels. Often they
simply reiterate anthropocentric assumptions and reinforce the bureaucratic
institutions of modern society. Even where such rights are biocentrically
disposed, e.g. towards animal or environmental rights, their a-contextual
abstraction makes them ill suited to deal with the immense complexities of
human / environmental interactions. What is more, Ishall argue that these
systems of explicit rules and regulations rely upon a very narrow conception
of ethical values, they (erroneously) claim to represent real values but
provide no insight into how ethical values might be produced and how such
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values actually function in societies.
Whilst this essay argues that, in our current situation, it makes sense to
speak of the ethical value of natural objects, as opposed to their instrumental
value, it does not attempt to justify a specific normative stance on the moral
value of the environment. Its refusal to produce a philosophical justification
of particular values is not motivated by a wish to remain 'objective' or by any
lack of concern over these issues. Quite the contrary. Rather,it represents
an opposition to a form of humanist philosophical practice which, I shall
argue, istoo restrictive. Instead, this thesis attempts to understand how
humanity might, in different times and places, have come to hold such a
bewildering variety of values where relations with our encompassing
environment are concerned.
It would therefore be a mistake to read this essay as supporting a radical and
absolute dichotomy between two essentially different kinds of value; ethical
and instrumental. Rather, Iargue that all values are products of our social
and environmental relations and that the particular historical development of
our own Western society (Gesel/schaff) has produced this humanist
dichotomy; has divorced the instrumental from the ethical, increasingly
privileging the former and fragmenting the latter. My re-privileging of the
ethical is a manoeuvre intended to show the inadequacies of
instrumentalism and the society which produced and relies so heavily upon
it. The ultimate aim of the essay is to give a theoretical account of the
production of environmental values which avoids, so far as is possible,
reliance upon those humanist dichotomies and presuppositions which are
entwined with society's headlong ecocidal dash toward oblivion. The