Lectures on Environmentalism for PS 240 Intro to Political Theory, Spring 2015, University of Kentucky.

1. Environmentalism(s)
Dr. Christopher S. Rice

2. First Wave Environmentalism
“Romantic”

3. Theodore
Roosevel
t

4. Egocentric Ethics
• Based on a Mechanistic framework
• Reflect Protestant work ethic, grounded
in Judeo-Christian legitimation of
domination of nature
• Also rooted in Hobbesian ideas of
competition
• “Tragedy of the Commons” springs from
this framework

5. Second Wave Environmentalism
“Environmental Justice”

7. Homocentric Ethics
• Strong Utilitarian roots
• Reflects Judeo-Christian stewardship
ethic
• Problem 1: Fails to internalize
ecological externalities
• Problem 2: Man remains philosophically
separate from Nature

8. Third Wave Environmentalism
“The Ecological Way”

10. Arne
Naess

11. Ecocentric Ethics
• Primary importance given to survival of
all living and non-living things
• Stems in part from Leopold’s “Land
Ethic”
• Rooted in a holistic, rather than
Mechanistic, physics

12. Problems with Eco-centrism:
• May actually be homocentric at its
root – assigning values of species,
etc.
• Fuzziness between facts and
values, is and ought.
• Assumption of moral progress.
• Feminist critique – glosses over
issues of race, gender, class,
species difference.

13. Deep Ecology

14. Arne
Naess

15. Ecosophy
A philosophy of ecological
harmony or equilibrium.

16. Ecosophy T

17. The Principles of Deep EcologyArne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary,” Inquiry, 16 (1972): 95-100.
Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology, p.87.
• Rejection of the man-in-environment
image in favor of the relational, total-field
image.
• Biospherical egalitarianism.
• Principles of diversity and of symbiosis.
• Anti-class posture.
• Fight against pollution and resource
depletion.
• Complexity, not complication.
• Local autonomy and decentralization.

18. Cowboy
Economy

19. Spaceship Economy

21. Dominant Western Worldview
(DWW)
+
Human Exceptionalism Paradigm
(HPP)
vs.
New Ecological Paradigm (NEP)

22. Dominant Western
Worldview (DWW)
Human Exceptionalism
Paradigm (HEP)
New Ecological
Paradigm (NEP)
Assumptions about the
nature of human beings:
People are fundamentally different
from all other creatures on Earth,
over which they have dominion.
Humans have a cultural heritage in
addition to (and distinct from) their
genetic inheritance, and thus are
quite unlike all other animal
species.
While humans have exceptional
characteristics (culture,
technology, etc.), they remain one
among many species that are
interdependently involved in the
global ecosystem.
Assumptions about
social causation:
People are master of their destiny;
they can choose their goals and
learn to do whatever is necessary
to achieve them.
Social and cultural factors
(including technology) are the
major determinants of human
affairs.
Human affairs are influenced not
only by social and cultural factors,
but also by intricate linkages of
cause, effect, and feedback in the
web of nature; thus purposive
human actions have many
unintended consequences.
Assumptions about
the context of human
society:
The world is vast, and thus
provides unlimited opportunities
for humans.
Social and cultural environments
are the crucial context for human
affairs, and the biophysical
environment is largely irrelevant.
Humans live in and are dependent
upon a finite biophysical
environment which imposes potent
physical and biological restraints
on human affairs.
Assumptions about
constraints on
human society:
The history of humanity is one of
progress; for every problem there
is a solution, and thus progress
need never cease.
Culture is cumulative; thus
technological and social progress
can continue indefinitely, making
all social problems ultimately
soluble.
Although the inventiveness of
humans and the powers derived
therefrom may seem for a while to
extend carrying capacity limits,
ecological laws cannot be repealed.
Source: William R. Catton, Jr. and Riley Dunlap. “A New Ecological Paradigm for Post-Exuberant Sociology,” American
Behavioral Scientist, 24, no. 1 (Sept./Oct. 1980): 34. Also Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology, pp. 90-91.

23. Human Nature

24. Principle of
Biospheric Equality
Humans are on an equal level with all
other beings in an organismic
democracy. While humans have
exceptional characteristics, they are
merely one among many
interdependent species within the
global ecosystem.

25. We are an event, not an ego

26. The Self

27. Dialectical Idealism
Taoist concept in which being
and non-being create/constitute
each other. False dualism
between Subject/Object &
Self/Other are broken down.

28. “Spiritual progress does demand at some stage
that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures
for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.” - Gandhi

29. “Do not kill, but
rather preserve and
cherish all life” –
Siddhartha Gautama,
the Buddha

30. Christian Tradition

31. “Love your neighbor as yourself”
(Matthew 22:39)

32. “For now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know
even as also I am known.”
(Corinthians I 13:12)

33. Eco-science

34. Chaos Theory

35. Goals of Deep Ecology
• Biospherical Egalitarianism
• End of class differences and
structures
• End pollution & resource depletion
• Local Autonomy & Decentralization
• Human Transvaluation/Self-
Realization