Nathan Kowalsky
University of Alberta, St. Joseph's College, Faculty Member
- Technological Society, Religion and Ecology, Philosophy, Environmental Philosophy, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, and 27 moreDeep Ecology, Environmental Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy Of Religion, Human dimensions of wildlife, Hunting (Human Animal Relations), Hunting (Anthropology), Archaeology of Hunting, Palaeodiet, Environmental Archaeology, Human Behavioral Ecology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Hunters, Fishers and Gatherers' Archaeology, Landscapes in prehistory, Anthropology of Hunting, Hunter-Gatherers (Anthropology), J Baird Callicott, Wilderness (Environment), Environmental Sustainability, Critical Theory, Frankfurt School, Paul Shepard, Primitivism, Anarcho-Primitivism, Constructivism, Environmental ethics (Philosophy) (Philosophy), and Problem of Eviledit
- Nathan Kowalsky is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada... moreNathan Kowalsky is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He also teaches philosophy courses for the University of Alberta's Department of Philosophy as an affiliated faculty member. Furthermore, he is Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and, through a secondment agreement, Associate Professor of Science, Technology & Society, both through the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta.edit
Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countless cultures throughout history -- in fact, it is older than civilization itself. Yet few pursuits continue to be as controversial, for the... more
Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countless cultures throughout history -- in fact, it is older than civilization itself. Yet few pursuits continue to be as controversial, for the hunting of prey strikes at the very core of such fundamental questions as death, embodiment, nonhuman life, and morality.
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting
The experiences and perspectives of the hunter
The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature
Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
Link to Publisher's Website: http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1444335693.html
Google Books link: http://books.google.ca/books?id=6iPRfC1jIZcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hunting+philosophy+for+everyone&hl=en&ei=YUFgTLPwCInmsQOAz8SqCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting
The experiences and perspectives of the hunter
The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature
Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
Link to Publisher's Website: http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1444335693.html
Google Books link: http://books.google.ca/books?id=6iPRfC1jIZcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hunting+philosophy+for+everyone&hl=en&ei=YUFgTLPwCInmsQOAz8SqCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Research Interests: Philosophy, Philosophy of Technology, Environmental Philosophy, Phenomenology, Religion and Ecology, and 15 moreEnvironmental Ethics, Hunting (Food and Nutrition), Deep Ecology, Hunting Literature, Hunting (Human Animal Relations), Hunting (Anthropology), Anthropology of Hunting, Archaeology of Hunting, Bushmeat Hunting, Bow Hunting, Hunting, Hunting strategies, Hunting weaponry, Radio tracking, recreational hunting, deer as a hunting and farming resource, and History of Hunting
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The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between... more
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between Civilization and the Wild more effectively than Tolkien was able to achieve with the competing Baggins and Took instincts in Bilbo. As such, the Mirkwood Elves present an opportunity for reconciliation between indigenous peoples and Westerners who might otherwise perpetuate the narrative of heroic conquest in their own fairy stories.
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Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure... more
Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure evil” that numerous religious traditions have sought to define themselves against and condemn. If the heart of the religious experience is (broadly speaking) the affirmation of all life, then hunting’s deliberate taking of another life might speak of a dark and malevolent delight in killing completely antithetical to the religious impulse. Perhaps this is why the topic of hunting and religion has attracted far less scholarly attention than its provocative subject matter would merit. This tacit foreclosure of the debate is unfortunate, since hunting, like few other subjects, is a challenge to examine and possibly rethink a number of issues that lie at the center of religious thought, such as the relationship between life and death, love and hate, spirit and flesh, dominance and respect, and human and non-human. It is in the effort to correct this scholarly lacuna that the following papers are offered. This collection begins with Nathan Kowalsky’s paper “Predation, Pain and Evil: Anti-Hunting as Theodicy.” In this paper Kowalsky situates the hunting debate within the Christian theological discourse of theodicy and the problem of natural evil. He argues that much of the condemnation of hunting found in the anti-hunting literature functions as a secular theodicy and implicitly rests on an understanding of natural processes, particularly predation, as evil. He therefore asks us to consider whether the
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Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone (Nathan Kowalsky). Part I: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter. 1 Taking a Shot: Hunting in the Crosshairs (Jesus... more
Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone (Nathan Kowalsky). Part I: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter. 1 Taking a Shot: Hunting in the Crosshairs (Jesus Ilundain-Agurruza). 2 But They Can't Shoot Back: What Makes Fair Chase Fair? (Theodore Vitali). 3 A Shot in the Dark: The Dubious Prospects of Environmental Hunting (Lisa Kretz). 4 Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors (Tovar Cerulli). 5 What You Can't Learn from Cartoons: Or, How to go Hunting After Watching Bambi (Gregory A. Clark). Part II: The Hunter's View of the World. 6 Hunting for Meaning: A Glimpse of the Game (Brian Seitz). 7 Getting By with a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to Hounds in English Foxhound Packs (Alison Acton). 8 Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Anishinabe Bush Hunter (Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne). 9 Living with Dead Animals? Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt (Garry Marvin). Part III: Eating Nature Naturally. 10 The Carnivorous Herbivore: Hunting and Culture in Human Evolution (Valerius Geist). 11 The Fear of the Lord: Hunting as if the Boss is Watching (Janina Duerr). 12 Hunting: A Return to Nature? (Roger J. H. King). 13 The Camera or the Gun: Hunting through Different Lenses (Jonathan Parker). 14 Flesh, Death and Tofu: Hunters, Vegetarians and Carnal Knowledge (T.R. Kover). Part IV: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition. 15 The Sacred Pursuit: Reflections on the Literature of Hunting (Roger Scruton). 16 Big Game and Little Sticks: Bow Making and Bow Hunting (Kay Koppedrayer). 17 Going to the Dogs: Savage Longings in Hunting Art (Paula Young Lee). 18 The New Artemis? Women Who Hunt (Debra Merskin). 19 Off the Grid: Rights, Religion and the Rise of the Eco-Gentry (James Carmine). Notes on Contributors.
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The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006).... more
The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006). Its proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but both Venezuela and Alberta consist mostly of the “unconventional oil” source known as oil sands or tar sands.
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Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting... more
Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting with nature. Yet he understands culture to ...
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Research Interests: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Animal Ethics, Critical Animal Studies, Environmental Ethics, and 13 moreÉmmanuel Lévinas, Levinas, Naturalism, Animals in Culture, Anthropocentrism, Animals in Philosophy, Anthropocene studies, Animals, Anthropocene, Wildness, The Anthropocene, Mainstream, and Emmanuel Levinas
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In this chapter, Nathan Kowalsky reconnects the wolf as a symbol for the wild, with some of the themes that were developed earlier in this volume. Kowalsky criticizes the idea that cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of... more
In this chapter, Nathan Kowalsky reconnects the wolf as a symbol for the wild, with some of the themes that were developed earlier in this volume. Kowalsky criticizes the idea that cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are hybrids that step outside the binary thinking of humanity vs. nature, and thus offer grounds for a more cosmopolitan and cross-culturally relevant environmental ethic. To the contrary, he argues, the equation of cultural with agricultural landscapes reinforces the very dichotomy it proposes to dissolve. Kowalsky uses Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” to show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates. Kowalsky argues that domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and that recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others.
Research Interests: Environmental Philosophy, Max Horkheimer, Cultural Landscapes, Landscape History, Environmental Ethics, and 15 moreBiology, Agriculture, Environmental Hermeneutics, Adorno, Landscape, Anthropology of Hunting, Humanity, Hunting, Domestication, Environmental Ethics and Environmental Issues, Environmental History Horkheimer, Horkheimer Adorno, Adorno and Horkheimer, Horkheimer Max Adorno Theodor W Dialectic of Enlightenment Philosophical Fragments, and Harmony with Nature
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or... more
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or reforming those lifeforms which are not. I develop an ethic of animal treatment premised on the species difference of undomesticated animals, which has the potential to reunite not only animal and environmental ethics, but environmental and interhuman ethics: each species has evolutionarily specified patterns of behaviour for the proper treatment of members of its own species and members of other species, and vice versa.
Research Interests: Applied Philosophy, Environmental Philosophy, Animal Ethics, Critical Animal Studies, Continental Philosophy, and 15 moreEnvironmental Ethics, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan, Émmanuel Lévinas, Edmund Husserl, Animal Welfare Theories, Jacques Derrida, Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, Contemporary Philosophy, Ethical veganism, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, General Interest, and Ethical vegetarianism
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of... more
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of technology presents ostensibly physical phenomena, such as the tar sands, as social phenomena wherein all values are subsumed under the efficient mastery of nature. The effect of technological rationality is totalizing because technical means establish themselves as the exclusive facts of the matter, which creates a socio-political environment wherein ethical engagement is precluded. Analyzing the tar sands controversy through Ellul’s hermeneutic challenges environmental ethics to a more radical stance than the continuation of the technological worldview, and thus offers meaningful and hopeful alternatives to the status quo.
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The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between... more
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between Civilization and the Wild more effectively than Tolkien was able to achieve with the competing Baggins and Took instincts in Bilbo. As such, the Mirkwood Elves present an opportunity for reconciliation between indigenous peoples and Westerners who might otherwise perpetuate the narrative of heroic conquest in their own fairy stories.
Research Interests:
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between... more
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between Civilization and the Wild more effectively than Tolkien was able to achieve with the competing Baggins and Took instincts in Bilbo. As such, the Mirkwood Elves present an opportunity for reconciliation between indigenous peoples and Westerners who might otherwise perpetuate the narrative of heroic conquest in their own fairy stories.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of... more
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of technology presents ostensibly physical phenomena, such as the tar sands, as social phenomena wherein all values are subsumed under the efficient mastery of nature. The effect of technological rationality is totalizing because technical means establish themselves as the exclusive facts of the matter, which creates a socio-political environment wherein ethical engagement is precluded. Analyzing the tar sands controversy through Ellul’s hermeneutic challenges environmental ethics to a more radical stance than the continuation of the technological worldview, and thus offers meaningful and hopeful alternatives to the status quo.
Research Interests:
In this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”) ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that... more
In this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”) ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that this emphasis on similarity is a reason why these two fields are generally anti-naturalistic and ultimately (though ironically) anthropocentric. Moreover, on the assumption of a general Levinasian ethic of alterity, this anti-naturalism and anthropocentrism is violently immoral. I propose, therefore, an ethic of animal difference based on an ethically naturalistic reading of intra- and inter-specific behavior sets. However, such naturalism is problematic if the Anthropocene is understood to be a naturalized fact which undermines all (metaphysical or normative) claims to naturalness or wildness. In response, I argue that the Anthropocene is not a naturalized fact but a socially-contingent and constructed fact, and as such is open to moral evaluation. M...
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Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure... more
Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure evil” that numerous religious traditions have sought to define themselves against and condemn. If the heart of the religious experience is (broadly speaking) the affirmation of all life, then hunting’s deliberate taking of another life might speak of a dark and malevolent delight in killing completely antithetical to the religious impulse. Perhaps this is why the topic of hunting and religion has attracted far less scholarly attention than its provocative subject matter would merit. This tacit foreclosure of the debate is unfortunate, since hunting, like few other subjects, is a challenge to examine and possibly rethink a number of issues that lie at the center of religious thought, such as the relationship between life and death, love and hate, spirit and flesh, dominance and respect, and human and non-human. It is in the effort to correct this scholarly lacuna that the following papers are offered. This collection begins with Nathan Kowalsky’s paper “Predation, Pain and Evil: Anti-Hunting as Theodicy.” In this paper Kowalsky situates the hunting debate within the Christian theological discourse of theodicy and the problem of natural evil. He argues that much of the condemnation of hunting found in the anti-hunting literature functions as a secular theodicy and implicitly rests on an understanding of natural processes, particularly predation, as evil. He therefore asks us to consider whether the
Research Interests:
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or... more
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or reforming those lifeforms which are not. I develop an ethic of animal treatment premised on the species difference of undomesticated animals, which has the potential to reunite not only animal and environmental ethics, but environmental and interhuman ethics: each species has evolutionarily specified patterns of behaviour for the proper treatment of members of its own species and members of other species, and vice versa.
Research Interests: Environmental Philosophy, Animal Ethics, Critical Animal Studies, Jurgen Habermas, Continental Philosophy, and 15 moreEnvironmental Ethics, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan, Émmanuel Lévinas, Edmund Husserl, Animal Welfare Theories, Jacques Derrida, Animal Welfare, Martha Nussbaum, Animal Rights, Ethical veganism, J Baird Callicott, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, and Ethical vegetarianism
The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006).... more
The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006). Its proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but both Venezuela and Alberta consist mostly of the “unconventional oil” source known as oil sands or tar sands.
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Research Interests: History, Philosophy, Philosophy of Technology, Environmental Philosophy, Applied Ethics, and 15 morePhenomenology, Religion and Ecology, Environmental Ethics, Hunting (Food and Nutrition), Deep Ecology, Hunting Literature, Hunting (Human Animal Relations), Anthropology of Hunting, Archaeology of Hunting, Bushmeat Hunting, Bow Hunting, Hunting, Hunting strategies, Hunting weaponry, and History of Hunting
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Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting... more
Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting with nature. Yet he understands culture to ...
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Anthropocentrism and Natural Suffering Nathan Kowalsky Abstract One task of environmental ethics is to delineate our duties toward the values in nature. The existence of natural evil makes this project problematic. Evil is thought to be... more
Anthropocentrism and Natural Suffering Nathan Kowalsky Abstract One task of environmental ethics is to delineate our duties toward the values in nature. The existence of natural evil makes this project problematic. Evil is thought to be present in nature because the world is rife ...
In this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”) ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that... more
In this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”)
ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that this emphasis on similarity is a reason why these two fields are generally anti-naturalistic and ultimately (though ironically) anthropocentric. Moreover, on the assumption of a general Levinasian ethic of alterity, this anti-naturalism and anthropocentrism is violently immoral. I propose, therefore, an ethic of animal difference based on
an ethically naturalistic reading of intra- and inter-specific behavior sets. However, such naturalism is problematic if the Anthropocene is understood to be a naturalized fact which undermines all (metaphysical or normative) claims to naturalness or wildness. In response, I argue that the Anthropocene is not a naturalized fact but a socially-contingent and constructed fact, and as such is open to moral evaluation. My proposed ethic of animal difference offers one such critique, and one more effective than those found in mainstream humane ethics or critical animal studies.
ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that this emphasis on similarity is a reason why these two fields are generally anti-naturalistic and ultimately (though ironically) anthropocentric. Moreover, on the assumption of a general Levinasian ethic of alterity, this anti-naturalism and anthropocentrism is violently immoral. I propose, therefore, an ethic of animal difference based on
an ethically naturalistic reading of intra- and inter-specific behavior sets. However, such naturalism is problematic if the Anthropocene is understood to be a naturalized fact which undermines all (metaphysical or normative) claims to naturalness or wildness. In response, I argue that the Anthropocene is not a naturalized fact but a socially-contingent and constructed fact, and as such is open to moral evaluation. My proposed ethic of animal difference offers one such critique, and one more effective than those found in mainstream humane ethics or critical animal studies.
Research Interests:
Is there a uniquely Canadian perspective on nature? The question itself is philosophically problematic. On the one hand, environmental philosophy has been criticised for assuming the primacy of the North American experience of nature,... more
Is there a uniquely Canadian perspective on nature? The question itself is philosophically problematic. On the one hand, environmental philosophy has been criticised for assuming the primacy of the North American experience of nature, importing its assumptions (especially about “wilderness”) to the developing world and even Western Europe without attending to that experience’s fit (or lack thereof) with other contexts. So even if there is a uniquely Canadian perspective of nature, it may not be welcome. On the other hand, the concept of “nature” as something distinct from human cultures (often radicalised by the aforementioned notion of wilderness) is being increasingly criticised as incoherent, especially given the notion of the Anthropocene: there is not, nor has there ever been, a purely natural world that surrounds human beings which is not also constituted by human interaction with, and/or human modification of, it. There can be no Canadian perspective on nature because there is no such thing as “nature.” Finally, Canada is the world’s second largest country by area. How could there be a singular “Canadian perspective” derived from that immense landmass? No set of residents could ever hope to experience it all, let alone claim that they possess a generic Canadian experience when that could not be possibly shared by anything remotely approaching a majority of the population.
And yet I will argue that there is something peculiar about experiencing nature in Canada: this experience, though phenomenologically local, can be generalised as Canadian in a geographical sense; there is reason, in the Canadian context, to distinguish between what has heretofore been referred to as “nature” and “culture”; and lastly, the implications of these experiences are philosophically instructive in other non-Canadian contexts.
I will defend these conclusions by bracketing the use of the term “nature” and rather analysing the notion of the “outside” or the “out of doors.” The majority of Canada’s population lives in urban centres, and there the first “out of doors” locality might be the front porch, the back yard, or the neighbourhood playground. And yet we know there to be an outside relative to these contexts. Beyond Canadian settlements there is the rural expanse, much less densely populated that agricultural regions in, say, Europe. And further yet, beyond the Canadian farmland, lies “the bush,” the outside to our patterns of cultural sedentism. Here there are First Nations reservations, logging roads, the oil patch, crown lands, hunting territories, national and provincial parks – all places of human interactions in and with an outside which still environs both the urban and the rural spheres, rather than the inverse, like in Western Europe, where urban settlements and rural landscapes environ so-called natural spaces that are hoped to be free of “human” domination or control while being bounded by precisely that domination and control.
These notions of going outside, then, can be derived from the geographical realities of Canadian settlement patterns along the 49th parallel being exceeded by the looming presence of “the North” (unlike the contiguous United States), as well as local experience in Canadian urban or rural areas. I argue that these factors suggest a notion of “nature” as transcendent rather than pristine, because it is a transcendence in which humans are unmistakably immanent. Canadian multiculturalism is not limited to its ethnic patchwork, but also includes different ways of culturally engaging with the embedding landscape. The lesson for non-Canadian contexts is, I propose, that there is an outside to the industrial-agrarian domination of the planet which is metaphysically, even if no longer politically, possible. Canadian perspectives, while not necessarily universalisable in every sense, can point to conceptual possibilities that are otherwise precluded by the Anthropocene.
And yet I will argue that there is something peculiar about experiencing nature in Canada: this experience, though phenomenologically local, can be generalised as Canadian in a geographical sense; there is reason, in the Canadian context, to distinguish between what has heretofore been referred to as “nature” and “culture”; and lastly, the implications of these experiences are philosophically instructive in other non-Canadian contexts.
I will defend these conclusions by bracketing the use of the term “nature” and rather analysing the notion of the “outside” or the “out of doors.” The majority of Canada’s population lives in urban centres, and there the first “out of doors” locality might be the front porch, the back yard, or the neighbourhood playground. And yet we know there to be an outside relative to these contexts. Beyond Canadian settlements there is the rural expanse, much less densely populated that agricultural regions in, say, Europe. And further yet, beyond the Canadian farmland, lies “the bush,” the outside to our patterns of cultural sedentism. Here there are First Nations reservations, logging roads, the oil patch, crown lands, hunting territories, national and provincial parks – all places of human interactions in and with an outside which still environs both the urban and the rural spheres, rather than the inverse, like in Western Europe, where urban settlements and rural landscapes environ so-called natural spaces that are hoped to be free of “human” domination or control while being bounded by precisely that domination and control.
These notions of going outside, then, can be derived from the geographical realities of Canadian settlement patterns along the 49th parallel being exceeded by the looming presence of “the North” (unlike the contiguous United States), as well as local experience in Canadian urban or rural areas. I argue that these factors suggest a notion of “nature” as transcendent rather than pristine, because it is a transcendence in which humans are unmistakably immanent. Canadian multiculturalism is not limited to its ethnic patchwork, but also includes different ways of culturally engaging with the embedding landscape. The lesson for non-Canadian contexts is, I propose, that there is an outside to the industrial-agrarian domination of the planet which is metaphysically, even if no longer politically, possible. Canadian perspectives, while not necessarily universalisable in every sense, can point to conceptual possibilities that are otherwise precluded by the Anthropocene.
Research Interests:
Every possible story of hunting I could tell both starts and finishes with home. Not the house I grew up in, but the semi-wild shortgrass prairies of southeastern Alberta. When I hunt them, I dwell there again; otherwise, I’m just... more
Every possible story of hunting I could tell both starts and finishes with home. Not the house I grew up in, but the semi-wild shortgrass prairies of southeastern Alberta. When I hunt them, I dwell there again; otherwise, I’m just visiting. The prey animal, rather than being the obvious focal point of hunting, is rather for me a portal into a larger experience of being environed. The prey, after all, is – like me – hidden by the land: the grass, the scrub brush, the coulees, the creek beds, and eventually, the darkness. In this paper I will interpret this aspect as both participation within the preexisting ecosystem and consanguinity with its other inhabitants, my prey especially.
To hunt is to tacitly affirm that nothing about this environing world needs to be changed. Neither the prey animal’s freedom nor mine, not the wild biota, not my visceral contact with the animal’s mortality – and, by extension, my own. All of this – the death, the life, the default absence of domestication – fits into the axiologically transcendent order of the cosmos which hunting accepts. I see this as consonant with St. Augustine’s theodicy in the Confessions: “Far be it then that I should say, ‘These things should not be.’” Holmes Rolston, III says that hunting is a sacramental affirmation of the way the world is made, but perhaps the land covers the Lord as well? As I see it, the hunt reveals wild life as a sacrament of a wild God who “is inordinately fond of rough places” (Robert Farrar Capon), the numinous, mysterious, and fascinating terror which in its grace gives us peace (Rudolf Otto). Perhaps the hunt reveals a morally ambiguous world, but then, by natural theology, so is the divine. God is the other-than-all of us, and so we should expect to be transcended. Anything less is onto-theology (Heidegger). The Spirit blows where it wills and, as I experience it, hunting refuses to put it on a leash. In such an untamed God do I find myself at home.
To hunt is to tacitly affirm that nothing about this environing world needs to be changed. Neither the prey animal’s freedom nor mine, not the wild biota, not my visceral contact with the animal’s mortality – and, by extension, my own. All of this – the death, the life, the default absence of domestication – fits into the axiologically transcendent order of the cosmos which hunting accepts. I see this as consonant with St. Augustine’s theodicy in the Confessions: “Far be it then that I should say, ‘These things should not be.’” Holmes Rolston, III says that hunting is a sacramental affirmation of the way the world is made, but perhaps the land covers the Lord as well? As I see it, the hunt reveals wild life as a sacrament of a wild God who “is inordinately fond of rough places” (Robert Farrar Capon), the numinous, mysterious, and fascinating terror which in its grace gives us peace (Rudolf Otto). Perhaps the hunt reveals a morally ambiguous world, but then, by natural theology, so is the divine. God is the other-than-all of us, and so we should expect to be transcended. Anything less is onto-theology (Heidegger). The Spirit blows where it wills and, as I experience it, hunting refuses to put it on a leash. In such an untamed God do I find myself at home.
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Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be " the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought " (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add " the perfect type of pure... more
Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be " the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought " (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add " the perfect type of pure evil " that numerous religious traditions have sought to define themselves against and condemn. If the heart of the religious experience is (broadly speaking) the affirmation of all life, then hunting's deliberate taking of another life might speak of a dark and malevolent delight in killing completely antithetical to the religious impulse. Perhaps this is why the topic of hunting and religion has attracted far less scholarly attention than its provocative subject matter would merit. This tacit foreclosure of the debate is unfortunate, since hunting, like few other subjects, is a challenge to examine and possibly rethink a number of issues that lie at the center of religious thought, such as the relationship between life and death, love and hate, spirit and flesh, dominance and respect, and human and non-human. It is in the effort to correct this scholarly lacuna that the following papers are offered. This collection begins with Nathan Kowalsky's paper " Predation, Pain and Evil: Anti-Hunting as Theodicy. " In this paper Kowalsky situates the hunting debate within the Christian theological discourse of theodicy and the problem of natural evil. He argues that much of the condemnation of hunting found in the anti-hunting literature functions as a secular theodicy and implicitly rests on an understanding of natural processes, particularly predation, as evil. He therefore asks us to consider whether the
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The classical problem of natural evil holds that the suffering of sentient beings caused by natural processes is an evil for which a divinity is morally responsible. Theodicies either explain natural evil as a punitive imperfection in... more
The classical problem of natural evil holds that the suffering of sentient beings caused by natural processes is an evil for which a divinity is morally responsible. Theodicies either explain natural evil as a punitive imperfection in nature, which humans ought to avoid and/or purify, or as a constituent part of a greater good whereby the evil is redeemed. The environmental ethics literature has taken the latter route with respect to the secular problem of natural evil, arguing that local disvalues such as predation or pain are transmuted into systemic-level ecological goods. The anti-hunting literature takes the former route, arguing that humans should not participate in the predatory aspects of the natural order. The anti-predation literature, furthermore, argues that nature should be redeemed – so far as is technologically and economically possible – of its unsavoury predatory aspects. While all sides of the debate employ strategies analogous to those found in the philosophy of religion, the immanentizing function of secularism moves the target of ultimate moral evaluation away from the divine and onto the natural. Environmental ethics' teleological approach culminates with nature as a transcendent good, whereas anti-hunting and anti-predation critiques view nature in the here-and-now as riven with evil, requiring humans to distance themselves while decontaminating it.
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Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or... more
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or reforming those lifeforms which are not. I outline an ethic of animal treatment premised on the species difference of undomesticated animals, which has the potential to reunite not only animal and environmental ethics, but environmental and interhuman ethics: each species has evolutionarily specified patterns of behaviour for the proper treatment of members of its own species and members of other species, and vice versa.
Research Interests: Environmental Philosophy, Animal Ethics, Critical Animal Studies, Continental Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, and 5 moreEnvironmental ethics (Philosophy) (Philosophy), Ethical veganism, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Ethical vegetarianism, and Animal Rights, Animal Ecology, Animal Studies, Animal Ethics, Animal Cognition, Animal Liberation, Animals in Culture, Philosophy Of Animals, Animals & Society studies, Ethics of Animals, and Laboratory Animal Welfare, Animal Law
The Oxford theologian of animals, Andrew Linzey, argues that hunting is immoral because it happily participates in the fallenness of the physical world. Eschewing hunting therefore prefigures the Kingdom of God wherein all of nature is... more
The Oxford theologian of animals, Andrew Linzey, argues that hunting is immoral because it happily participates in the fallenness of the physical world. Eschewing hunting therefore prefigures the Kingdom of God wherein all of nature is redeemed from its predatory and parasitic aspects. Natural history, however, makes a cosmic Fall enormously implausible. As such, Linzey is left with an altogether negative assessment of the material universe per se, placing him in the company of the 2nd century Gnostics, despite his protestations to the contrary. Linzey's rejection of hunting is therefore part and parcel of his heterodox rejection of the goodness of the created and creaturely world, while hunting, inversely, appears consistent with the affirmative materialism of the Christian tradition.
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Environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of human culture. Be they nature/culture monists, dualists, or something in-between, the relationship between ‘culture per se’ and ‘nature’ is not understood to be subject to... more
Environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of human culture. Be they nature/culture monists, dualists, or something in-between, the relationship between ‘culture per se’ and ‘nature’ is not understood to be subject to shifts. I argue that this way of modelling the relation leads to anti-ecological social acquiescence. If we understand nature/culture relations as allowing for the possibility of rupture, however, then monism, dualism, and intermediary/supernumerary positions can be seen in temporal and contingent terms. A metaphysic of crisis allows us to consider whether some forms of culture have gone bad while others may not have. Ultimately this leads to a kind of discomfort, for it undermines certain penchants for environmental pragmatism and exposes a radicality at the root of otherwise mainstream naturalistic environmental ethics.
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The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of... more
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul’s theory of technology presents ostensibly physical phenomena, such as the tar sands, as social phenomena wherein all values are subsumed under the efficient mastery of nature. The effect of technological rationality is totalizing because technical means establish themselves as the exclusive facts of the matter, which creates a socio-political environment wherein ethical engagement is precluded. Analyzing the tar sands controversy through Ellul’s hermeneutic challenges environmental ethics to a more radical stance than the continuation of the technological worldview, and thus offers meaningful and hopeful alternatives to the status quo.
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The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul's theory of... more
The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century. Jacques Ellul's theory of technology presents ostensibly physical phenomena, such as the tar sands, as social phenomena wherein all values are subsumed under the efficient mastery of nature. The effect of technological rationality is totalizing because technical means establish themselves as the exclusive facts of the matter, which creates a socio-political environment wherein ethical engagement is precluded. Analyzing the tar sands controversy through Ellul's hermeneutic challenges environmental ethics to a more radical stance than the continuation of the technological worldview, and thus offers meaningful and hopeful alternatives to the status quo.
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The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given... more
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given these, how could it be plausible to suggest that hunting today is actually subversive of mainstream social realities, rather than the complete inverse?
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
Research Interests:
The Belgian radical environmental group Aardewerk invited me to give a presentation on my research, so I quickly invented this title (it's a bit too Star Warsy, perhaps) and combined material from two of my papers on hunting. Not sure how... more
The Belgian radical environmental group Aardewerk invited me to give a presentation on my research, so I quickly invented this title (it's a bit too Star Warsy, perhaps) and combined material from two of my papers on hunting. Not sure how it turned out, but it was fun nonetheless.
Research Interests:
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or... more
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or reforming those lifeforms which are not. I develop an ethic of animal treatment premised on the species difference of undomesticated animals, which has the potential to reunite not only animal and environmental ethics, but environmental and interhuman ethics: each species has evolutionarily specified patterns of behaviour for the proper treatment of members of its own species and members of other species, and vice versa.
Research Interests: Jurgen Habermas, Continental Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan, and 17 moreÉmmanuel Lévinas, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Animal Welfare Theories, Jacques Derrida, Animal Welfare, Animal Rights/Liberation, Martha Nussbaum, Animal Rights, J Baird Callicott, Peter Singer, Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare, Tom Regan, Mary Midgley, Theodicy Holmes Rolston, Paul Shepard, and Holmes Rolston, III
“Traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK) is an important aspect of Canadian conservation management, but the very notion of TEK is controversial. It can be seen as conflicting with empirically-validated conservation science; its... more
“Traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK) is an important aspect of Canadian conservation management, but the very notion of TEK is controversial. It can be seen as conflicting with empirically-validated conservation science; its incorporation into environmental assessment can be seen as colonialist; some argue that TEK perpetuates the myth of the ecological Indian; others argue that identifying “authenticity” with “tradition” denies indigenous peoples access to modernity. The philosophical issues here are myriad. Does TEK necessarily essentialize indigenous peoples by requiring their identities to be static and rooted in the past? Does viewing indigenous peoples as a counterpart to Western civilization paradoxically denigrate and venerate them as “the Other” and assume a dichotomous framework ignorant of how they actually live? Critics continue to analyze indigeneity in terms of purity and degradation, as if the logic of virginity was not itself an historical and contingent construction of colonialism.
I argue that this fashionable skepticism is as mistaken as the “myths” it seeks to desecrate. Debate rages as to how TEK should or should not be critiqued, but how TEK might critique mainstream Canadian culture is conveniently neglected. Indigenous perspectives are thus in a bind: scholars criticize them or defend them from criticism, and yet neutralize their ability to criticize the status quo. The uncritical result is tacitly affirmative “hybridity,” social acquiescence to modernity as a fait accompli. Skeptics thus presuppose that there can be no norms to which cultures are beholden, meanwhile contradicting their own relativism when interpreting tradition through the lens of Enlightenment progressivism.
By contrast, a model for understanding how appropriating indigenous knowledge can be appropriate is needed. Though it is usually summarily dismissed, I suggest the radical environmental philosophy known as “primitivism” to this end: the use of contemporary, historic and pre-historic hunting-gathering as grounds for criticism of contemporary Canadian life. The paradoxes of TEK are manufactured by the agrarian logics which primitivism calls into question. Understanding TEK as social critique may illumine not only the failings of so-called civilization, but also many of the struggles faced by aboriginals in Canada.
I argue that this fashionable skepticism is as mistaken as the “myths” it seeks to desecrate. Debate rages as to how TEK should or should not be critiqued, but how TEK might critique mainstream Canadian culture is conveniently neglected. Indigenous perspectives are thus in a bind: scholars criticize them or defend them from criticism, and yet neutralize their ability to criticize the status quo. The uncritical result is tacitly affirmative “hybridity,” social acquiescence to modernity as a fait accompli. Skeptics thus presuppose that there can be no norms to which cultures are beholden, meanwhile contradicting their own relativism when interpreting tradition through the lens of Enlightenment progressivism.
By contrast, a model for understanding how appropriating indigenous knowledge can be appropriate is needed. Though it is usually summarily dismissed, I suggest the radical environmental philosophy known as “primitivism” to this end: the use of contemporary, historic and pre-historic hunting-gathering as grounds for criticism of contemporary Canadian life. The paradoxes of TEK are manufactured by the agrarian logics which primitivism calls into question. Understanding TEK as social critique may illumine not only the failings of so-called civilization, but also many of the struggles faced by aboriginals in Canada.
Extending moral considerability to animals seems like a natural development of the expanding circle of human sympathy, moral concern and even the attainment of a higher consciousness. Indeed, it is very hard to justify the ill-treatment... more
Extending moral considerability to animals seems like a natural development of the expanding circle of human sympathy, moral concern and even the attainment of a higher consciousness. Indeed, it is very hard to justify the ill-treatment of animals, although much systematic cruelty continues on behind closed doors in even those nations that pride themselves on the supposed superiority of their civilization. When animal welfare and animal rights have come under criticism for distracting us from pressing issues of human injustice, the response has often been that the humane treatment of animals goes hand in hand with the respect for human rights. There are no exclusive distinctions to be made within the larger family of moral progress.
I accept that animals are indeed morally considerable, but not in the way assumed by progressives. Moral extensionism is expansionistic: extending out from the core of human morality, it incorporates whatever it can under its protection in the name of development and justice while rejecting or reforming what it cannot. Not only is this disturbingly reminiscent of paternalism and colonialism, it also replicates the very anthropocentrism it seeks to avoid. Starting with the 30-year-old split between environmental ethics and humane ethics, I will sketch out an ethic of animal treatment which is premised on the independence and difference of undomesticated animals, rather than on their similarity to urbanized human beings. Indeed, we would do well to consider ourselves in like manner.
I accept that animals are indeed morally considerable, but not in the way assumed by progressives. Moral extensionism is expansionistic: extending out from the core of human morality, it incorporates whatever it can under its protection in the name of development and justice while rejecting or reforming what it cannot. Not only is this disturbingly reminiscent of paternalism and colonialism, it also replicates the very anthropocentrism it seeks to avoid. Starting with the 30-year-old split between environmental ethics and humane ethics, I will sketch out an ethic of animal treatment which is premised on the independence and difference of undomesticated animals, rather than on their similarity to urbanized human beings. Indeed, we would do well to consider ourselves in like manner.
Cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are often seen as hybrids that step outside the binary thinking of humanity vs. nature at the heart of the received notion of wilderness, and capable of providing grounds for a... more
Cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are often seen as hybrids that step outside the binary thinking of humanity vs. nature at the heart of the received notion of wilderness, and capable of providing grounds for a more cosmopolitan and cross-culturally relevant environmental ethic. To the contrary, I will argue that the concept of cultured landscape as it is currently used reinforces the very dichotomy it proposes to dissolve.
Using Prokofiev’s musical symphony for children “Peter and the Wolf” as a point of departure, I will show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. This is seen in the threat of the wolf who invades the hybrid zone of the meadow, and in the heroic cleverness of Peter who subdues the wolf without succumbing to wild savagery as do the foolish and fearful hunters. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates.
Prokofiev’s archetypes are all too familiar: the forest is as uncultured as the hunters who roam there. But if the social construction of wilderness tells us anything, it is that wilderness always was a cultured landscape. If so, then domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and the figure of the hunter transgresses the new boundaries between “hybrids” and the “purities” they reject. Recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others. Hybridity may no longer be permitted to reinforce the societal status quo, any more than cultural landscape hermeneutics may pass over the obliteration of wildness as an ethically unremarkable fait accompli.
Using Prokofiev’s musical symphony for children “Peter and the Wolf” as a point of departure, I will show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. This is seen in the threat of the wolf who invades the hybrid zone of the meadow, and in the heroic cleverness of Peter who subdues the wolf without succumbing to wild savagery as do the foolish and fearful hunters. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates.
Prokofiev’s archetypes are all too familiar: the forest is as uncultured as the hunters who roam there. But if the social construction of wilderness tells us anything, it is that wilderness always was a cultured landscape. If so, then domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and the figure of the hunter transgresses the new boundaries between “hybrids” and the “purities” they reject. Recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others. Hybridity may no longer be permitted to reinforce the societal status quo, any more than cultural landscape hermeneutics may pass over the obliteration of wildness as an ethically unremarkable fait accompli.
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given... more
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given these, how could it be plausible to suggest that hunting today is actually subversive of mainstream social realities, rather than the complete inverse?
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
As long as the status of intrinsic natural values and cultural critique is pragmatically sidestepped, environmental ethics will not provide an alternative to the dominant approaches towards anthropogenic climate change. Climate change is... more
As long as the status of intrinsic natural values and cultural critique is pragmatically sidestepped, environmental ethics will not provide an alternative to the dominant approaches towards anthropogenic climate change. Climate change is approached predominantly in terms of how to technologically ameliorate effects, as this is perceived to be non-ideological. Providing these “solutions” without causing economic harm is perceived as a technical rather than an “ethical” question. When economics trump mitigation,“the environmentalists” are castigated for trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Rather than being value-free, symptomatic “policy analysis” is biased in favor of social trajectories that stand to benefit from “solutions” to whatever the status quo perceives as “problems.” Environmental ethics should return to evaluating cultures environmentally, envisioning new ways of thought and action that fail to cause deleterious effects. In this way, climate change would be tackled co-operatively at both ends: at one, by philosophers; at the other, by technicians.
Rather than being value-free, symptomatic “policy analysis” is biased in favor of social trajectories that stand to benefit from “solutions” to whatever the status quo perceives as “problems.” Environmental ethics should return to evaluating cultures environmentally, envisioning new ways of thought and action that fail to cause deleterious effects. In this way, climate change would be tackled co-operatively at both ends: at one, by philosophers; at the other, by technicians.
J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston, III have prominently disagreed about the objectivity of nature’s intrinsic value. Callicott claims, however, that the two’s disagreement over the relationship between nature and culture is more... more
J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston, III have prominently disagreed about the objectivity of nature’s intrinsic value. Callicott claims, however, that the two’s disagreement over the relationship between nature and culture is more fundamentally divisive. Rolston accuses Callicott of a monism which would naturalise the pollution of Lake Michigan while Callicott accuses Rolston of a dualism which would naturalise a schism between human beings and the natural world. This debate spills out into other concerns such as the treatment of domesticated animals, sport hunting, wilderness preservation, and the ethics of the built environment. Would that we were able to find a middle way, like Val Plumwood’s ‘distinction without the dichotomy.’
The problem here is metaphysical: environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of culture, be they monists, dualists, or something in-between. The relationship between “culture per se” and “nature” is not understood to be subject to shifts. I argue that this way of modelling leads to anti-ecological social acquiescence, as much as environmental philosophers may want to generate ethical prescriptions for action. We should therefore attempt to understand nature/culture relations as dynamic, allowing for the possibility of rupture, the entrance of crisis into the relation. This conceptual tool permits nature/culture monism, dualism and intermediary/supernumerary positions to be understood in temporal and contingent terms, thus moving the nature/culture debate beyond “just so” stories. A metaphysic of crisis allows us to consider whether some forms of culture have “ruptured” or gone bad while others may not have, without naturalising or normalising their respective badness or goodness. Ultimately this leads to a kind of discomfort, however, for it undermines certain penchants for environmental pragmatism and exposes a radicality at the root of otherwise mainstream naturalistic environmental ethics.
The problem here is metaphysical: environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of culture, be they monists, dualists, or something in-between. The relationship between “culture per se” and “nature” is not understood to be subject to shifts. I argue that this way of modelling leads to anti-ecological social acquiescence, as much as environmental philosophers may want to generate ethical prescriptions for action. We should therefore attempt to understand nature/culture relations as dynamic, allowing for the possibility of rupture, the entrance of crisis into the relation. This conceptual tool permits nature/culture monism, dualism and intermediary/supernumerary positions to be understood in temporal and contingent terms, thus moving the nature/culture debate beyond “just so” stories. A metaphysic of crisis allows us to consider whether some forms of culture have “ruptured” or gone bad while others may not have, without naturalising or normalising their respective badness or goodness. Ultimately this leads to a kind of discomfort, however, for it undermines certain penchants for environmental pragmatism and exposes a radicality at the root of otherwise mainstream naturalistic environmental ethics.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Human Geography, Environmental Science, Philosophy, Ethics, and 11 moreCommunication, Forestry, Social Sciences, Conservation, Climate Change Adaptation, Environmental Communication, Environmental Ethics, Health, Environmental ethics (Philosophy) (Philosophy), Biodiversity Conservation, and Holmes Rolston, III
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Research Interests:
Just a short two-page reflection (in the "narratives and stories" section of the journal) on a visit I paid to a zoo in what passes for rural Belgium.
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The editorial introduction to the 30th Anniversary Special Issue of The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy.
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The Trumpeter was founded as an ecophilosophy newsletter in 1983 by Alan Drengson of the University of Victoria, Canada. Shortly thereafter it evolved into a scholarly research publication, facilitating the exploration of a diversity of... more
The Trumpeter was founded as an ecophilosophy newsletter in 1983 by Alan Drengson of the University of Victoria, Canada. Shortly thereafter it evolved into a scholarly research publication, facilitating the exploration of a diversity of “ecosophies,” defined, in the words of the journal’s founder, as personal life philosophies that try to live by an ecological wisdom in harmony with the natural world. It’s been more than thirty years since the founding of the journal, so this 30 Anniversary Special Issue comes a bit late. In our defence, this is the thirtieth volume of the journal; the first volume spanned two years, which throws the counting off a little. Regardless, because The Trumpeter has always had a clear orientation towards the deep ecology movement, this milestone presented an opportunity for both expanded and focussed reflection on the past, present, and future of deep ecology.
Research Interests:
A semi-phenomenological reflection of my first experience hunting from a tree-stand blind, including meditations on the hiddenness of the animal, the appropriateness of certain technologies, and the cry of the will when control is... more
A semi-phenomenological reflection of my first experience hunting from a tree-stand blind, including meditations on the hiddenness of the animal, the appropriateness of certain technologies, and the cry of the will when control is relinquished.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A short and hasty op-ed I wrote for my local city newspaper on the topic of major budget cuts to post-secondary education in my province which threatened the liberal arts, humanities and social sciences. (The newspaper website no longer... more
A short and hasty op-ed I wrote for my local city newspaper on the topic of major budget cuts to post-secondary education in my province which threatened the liberal arts, humanities and social sciences. (The newspaper website no longer lists it, I assume there's a time limit for keeping that content on the web which has expired.)
A short commentary on Dimitrios Dentsoras' conference paper on the defintions and differences between the concepts of hopelessness and despair.