Some Problems With Ecofeminism :: Karen Warren Essays

Some Problems With Ecofeminism ABSTRACT: Karen Warren presents and defends the ecofeminist position that people are wrong in dominating nature as a whole or in part (individual animals, species, ecosystems, mountains), for the same reason that subordinating women to the will and purposes of men is wrong. She claims that all feminists must object to both types of domination because both are expressions of the same "logic of domination." Yet, problems arise with her claim of twin dominations. The enlightenment tradition gave rise to influential versions of feminism and provided a framework which explains the wrongness of the domination of women by men as a form of injustice. Yet on this account, the domination of nature cannot be assimilated to the domination of women. Worse, on the enlightenment framework, the claim that the domination of nature is wrong in the same way that the domination of women is wrong makes no sense, since (according to this framework) domination can only be considered to be unjust when the o bject dominated has a will. While ecofeminism rejects the enlightenment view, it cannot simply write off enlightenment feminism as non-feminist. It must show that enlightenment feminism is either inauthentic or conceptually unstable. Karen Warren claims that there is an interconnection between the domination of nature by humans and the domination of women by men. She uses the following argument schemas to set out the 'logic of domination'. A1. Humans do, and plants and rocks do not, have the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which they live. A2. Whatever has the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which it lives is morally superior to whatever lacks this capacity. A3. Thus, humans are morally superior to plants and rocks. A4. For any X and Y, if X is morally superior to Y, then X is morally justified in subordinating Y. A5. Thus, humans are morally justified in subordinating plants and rocks. (1) She points out that the assumptions A2 and A4 are critical, since without them, all that can be shown is that people are different from plants and rocks.A4 in particular expresses the logic of domination.(269) This key assumption recurs in the reasoning justifying male domination of females: B1. Women are identified with nature and the realm of the physical; men are identified with the "human" and the realm of the mental. B2. Whatever is identified with nature and realm of the physical is inferior to ("below") whatever is identified with the "human" and the realm of the mental; or conversely, the latter is superior to ("above") the former.