Papers by Russell Edwards
Although animal advocacy and environmentalism have had a long association as social and political... more Although animal advocacy and environmentalism have had a long association as social and political movements, the relationship has not been without conflict, both in theory and in practice. An opportunity to defuse such conflict is to be found in the ecological feminist analysis of Val Plumwood. The foundation of Plumwood's position is an ecological outlook which, consistent both with indigenous worldviews and with the modern scientific understanding of the natural world, sees nature in terms of a community of interdependent self-willed agents, who are owed ethical consideration along with the communities they form and the ecological processes and places they depend upon. Plumwood strongly opposed other theoretical approaches that led to universal duties to veganism, articulating a series of ways in which normative veganism is in conflict with a non-anthropocentric ecological outlook that 'situates humans ecologically, and nonhumans ethically.' A recent attempt by Esther Alloun to integrate Plumwood's insights into uncritically universalist veganism is therefore fundamentally ill-conceived. In this paper, I reiterate why an ecological outlook precludes any universal duty to veganism, and refute some of the counter-claims that have been made against Plumwood's repudiation of universalist veganism. I then outline how ecological nonanthropocentrism casts the eating of nonhuman persons (including animals) as potentially respectful use within an ecological network of gift exchange, and in fact restrains human interference with the more-than-human world-including with individual nonhuman animals-differently but even more strongly than veganism. In the longer term, we must move towards food production methods that can co-exist with intact, healthy wild ecosystems, upon which all wild organisms depend. To motivate such a shift will take radical cultural change, which begins with each of us correcting our worldview. Key to this process is embracing our ecological situatedness, which is best done experientially, by direct, visceral participation in the wild food web: by hunting, fishing or foraging.
The worldview of Margaret Atwood's God's Gardeners accepts some ecological truths that are denied... more The worldview of Margaret Atwood's God's Gardeners accepts some ecological truths that are denied by the dominant Western culture. However, Gardener doctrine ultimately fails in constructing a properly ecological outlook, because, like other universalist ethical vegetarian positions, it exceptionalises humans from animals, and animals from the rest of nature. This point is made by examining passages from Atwood's books, and comparing with the works of Val Plumwood, Paul Taylor and J. Claude Evans.
This is a PDF version of a blog post. References have failed to render in the PDF. They can be found by going direct to the blog post, http://bit.ly/1QxxHRN
Uploads
Papers by Russell Edwards
This is a PDF version of a blog post. References have failed to render in the PDF. They can be found by going direct to the blog post, http://bit.ly/1QxxHRN
This is a PDF version of a blog post. References have failed to render in the PDF. They can be found by going direct to the blog post, http://bit.ly/1QxxHRN