Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:12:02.568Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Caring about Nature: Feminist Ethics and the Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Abstract

In this essay I examine the relevance of the vocabulary of an ethics of care to ecofeminism. While this vocabulary appears to offer a promising alternative to moral extensionism and deep ecology, there are problems with the use of this vocabulary by both essentialists and conceptualists. I argue that too great a reliance is placed on personal lived experience as a basis for ecofeminist ethics and that the concept of care is insufficiently determinate to explicate the meaning of care for nature.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Basso, Keith. 1987. “Stalking with stories”: Names, places, and moral narratives among the Western Apaches. In On nature: nature, landscape, and natural history, 95116. Halpern, Daniel, ed. San Francisco: North Point Press.Google Scholar
Caldecott, Léonie and Leland, Stephanie. 1983. Reclaim the earth: Women speak out for life on earth. London: The Women's Press.Google Scholar
Cheney, Jim. 1987. Ecofeminism and deep ecology. Environmental Ethics 9(2): 115–45.10.5840/enviroethics19879229CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheney, Jim. 1989. Postmodern environmental ethics: ethics as bioregional narrative. Environmental Ethics 11(2): 117–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collard, Andrée, with Contrucci, Joyce. 1989. Rape of the wild: Man's violence against animals and the earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Devall, Bill. 1980. The deep ecology movement. Natural Resources Journal 20(1980): 299322.Google Scholar
Devall, Bill, and Sessions, George. 1985. Deep ecology: Living as if nature mattered. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books.Google Scholar
Fox, Warwick. 1986. Approaching deep ecology: A response to Richard Sylvan's critique of deep ecology. University of Tasmania Environmental Studies Occasional Paper 20. University of Tasmania.Google Scholar
Fox, Warwick. 1989. The deep ecology‐ecofeminism debate and its parallels. Environmental Ethics 11(1): 525.10.5840/enviroethics198911120CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garland, Anne. 1988. Women activists: Challenging the abuse of power. New York: Feminist Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Carol. 1983. The woman question: Philosophy of liberation and the liberation of philosophy. In Philosophy of woman: An anthology of classic and current concepts. Mahowald, Mary Briody, ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Kheel, Marti. 1985. The liberation of nature: A circular affair. Environmental Ethics 6(Winter): 339–45.Google Scholar
Kheel, Marti. 1990. Ecofeminism and deep ecology: Reflections on identity and difference. In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Fenman, eds. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Google Scholar
King, Roger J. H. 1991. Environmental ethics and the case of hunting. Environmental Ethics 13(1): 5985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Roger J. H. In press. How to construe nature: Interpretation and environmental ethics. Between the Species.Google Scholar
King, Ynestra. 1990. Healing the wounds: Feminism, ecology, and the nature/culture dualism. In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Fenman, eds. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Google Scholar
Lauritzen, Paul. 1989. A feminist ethic and the new romanticism‐‐‐mothering as a model of moral relations. Hypatia 4(2): 2944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Merchant, Carolyn. 1990. Ecofeminism and feminist theory. In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Fenman, eds. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Google Scholar
Naess, Arne. 1984. A defense of the deep ecology movement. Environmental Ethics 6(Fall): 265–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noddings, Nel. 1984. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry. 1986. Is female to male as culture is to nature? In Women and values: Readings in recent feminist theory. Pearsall, Marilyn, ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Plumwood, Val. 1986. Ecofeminism: An overview and discussion of positions and arguments. Australasian Journal of Philosophy supplement to vol. 64 (June): 120–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plumwood, Val. 1988. Women, humanity, and nature. Radical Philosophy 48(Spring): 1624.Google Scholar
Quinby, Lee. 1990. Ecofeminism and the politics of resistance. In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Fenman, eds. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Google Scholar
Regan, Tom. 1982. All that dwell therein: Animal rights and environmental ethics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1980. Maternal thinking. Feminist Studies 6(1): 342–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salleh, Ariel Kay. 1984. Deeper that deep ecology: The eco‐feminist connection. Environmental Ethics 6(Winter): 339–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, Peter. 1975. Animal liberation: A new ethics for our treatment of animals. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter, ed. 1985. In defense of animals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Walker, Margaret Urban. 1989. Moral understandings: Alternative “epistemology” for a feminist ethics. Hypatia 4(2): 1528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Karen. 1987. Feminism and ecology: Making connections. Environmental Ethics 9(Spring): 320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Karen. 1990. The power and the promise of ecological feminism. Environmental Ethics 12(2): 125–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael. 1987. Feminism, deep ecology, and environmental ethics. Environmental Ethics 9(1): 2144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael. 1990. Deep ecology and ecofeminism: The emerging dialogue. In Reweaving the World: The emergence of ecofeminism. Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Fenman, eds. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Google Scholar