PHIL2210. Philip Dick.

Val Plumwood was a trenchant critic of the way in which human civilization, especially modern
Western civilization, subordinates and dominates the natural world. As humans we have
positioned ourselves “above” nature; we view ourselves - owing to a long history going back to
antiquity - as ethically superior to nature, and it is this supposed superiority - this “ethical hyper-
seperation” - which grants us the right to exploit nature, to use nature and the many living beings
it contains as mere means to our self-sanctioned ends. (Hall, 2011, p. 375)

According to Plumwood, our millennia-long project of ecological plundering has, since the very
beginning, been supported and sustained by a “family” of philosophical traditions, a family
which may be roughly designated as the “Western” philosophical tradition. Whilst there is
certainly much variation and debate within the Western tradition, there is nevertheless a great
deal of accordance, especially when it comes to the axiomatic pre-suppositions and values upon
which it functions. Thus, while the many family “members” of Western philosophy may display
significant differences, they are nevertheless deeply united in that they share the same basic
conceptual framework, the same conceptual “deep-core”. It is this core which Plumwood firmly
places within her critical gaze.

What are the philosophical characteristics of Western philosophy’s deep-core? Plumwood seems
to suggest that it can be boiled down to one thing: the long-standing dualisms of human/nature,
mind/body, masculine/feminine, etc. (Plumwood, 2001, p. 4) But it is not the dualisms
themselves that Plumwood implicates as the root casue of our ecological domination. Rather, it is
the fact that the Western tradition has consistently privileged the former component of the
dualism over the latter: human over nature, mind over body, man over woman.

So, where in the history of Western philosophy do these dualisms begin? And when do they start
to become “non-neutral”, that is, when do they start to privilege the former over the latter?

It is in the Ancient Greek philosophers that we see some of the earliest and most developed
arguments in favour of mind/body dualism, which I view as underpinning human/nature dualism
(more on that later). Plato, most notably, drew a clear distinction between the mind and body.
His justification for this requires a brief detour into his notion of the realm of Forms.

Plato is famous for his positing of the realm of Forms, a super-sensible (i.e. immaterial) and
eternal realm of abstract absolutes such as Beauty, Truth and Goodness. According to him, only
the rational mind (which he called the “soul”) could access this realm, only it was in possession
of the “transcendent” capacity required to contemplate the pure Forms. (Plumwood, 2012, p.
121) Because of its “transcendent capacity”, because the mind was at all able to contemplate the
Forms, Plato believed that it must also be metaphysically related to the Forms, that the mind was
itself transcendent. (Gerson, 1986, pp. 352-353) As one scholar paraphrases Plato, “the soul is
likely to be everlasting, that is, immortal, because it resembles the everlasting Forms” (Gerson,
1986, p. 352)
So where does this leave the body? For Plato, the world accessible to the body (through touch,
taste, sight etc.) was not the realm of Forms, but rather its shadowy “copy”. The body thus
occupies a lower place in Plato’s metaphysics, not because the body has any intrinsic moral
deficiencies but for the strictly epistemological reason that the body (unlike the mind) cannot
gain access to the eternal.

Plato has achieved two things here, one explicit the other implicit. In respect to the explicit, Plato
has established a mind/body dualism by arguing that the epistemological limitations of the mind
and body differ profoundly: the body is limited to the earthly and sensuous, whereas the mind
reaches out to the eternal. The two must, therefore, have different natures - they must be
essentially or metaphysically different. Hence, mind/body dualism.

In respect to the latter, Plato by establishing a mind/body dualism has also created a mind/nature
dualism. This is because the body, as we all know, is nature, or at the very least a particular
manifestation of nature. Therefore, when you create a rift between mind and body you
necessarily create a rift between mind and nature. How this mind/nature dualism eventually turns
into human/nature dualism (ecological dualism) is also clear: you merely identify the essence of
humanity as being the mind, and this is precisely what Plato and much of the Western tradition
have done.

It must be said though that despite Plato’s clear privileging of the (rational) mind, he and the
Greeks nevertheless maintained a deep reverence for the natural, whether that be bodily or
ecological. This is because even though ideal Forms such as Beauty and Harmony were not
themselves to be found in nature, nature was indeed able to represent, however partially, such
ideality. Nature did not contain Beauty, but it was beautiful; it didn’t contain Harmony, but it
was harmonious. The world of Forms are thus expressed through the natural, through the
sensuous, through the bodily. For Plato and his successors, then, it is precisely because the
natural world is a “copy” of an Ideal world, that they deem the former worthy of reverence.
(Kureethadam, 2017, pp. 54-56)

Classical philosophy, insofar as Plato may acts as its proxy, does indeed present us with a clear
mind/body dualism. But this dualism is not, I claim, quite the kind of dualism Plumwood blames
for our ecological crisis. This is because Platonic dualism is neutral in that it doesn’t actually
devalue the natural but rather maintains a high level of respect for it. Platonic dualism does
indeed grant the mind a privileged position, but it doesn’t privilege the mind over the natural, at
least not in any significant way.

The origin of the ecological dualism Plumwood targets (the kind which is non-neutral and which
actively devalues the body/nature) is not, therefore, to be found in Classical philosophy. Instead,
it is to be found in Modern philosophy, most especially in the philosophy of Rene Descartes.
(Kureethadam, 2017, p. 48)

I argue that Descartes is the most historically significant antecedent of non-neutral ecological
dualism, not because of his mind/body dualism, but because of his additional doctrine of
“mechanistic reductionism”, a doctrine which does indeed devalue the world and position mind
over it. First we will discuss Descartes account of mind/body dualism, considering afterwards
how this arguably neutral dualism becomes non-neutral when combined with his reductionism.

From the very beginning of his philosophical project, Descartes sets up a clear mind/body
dualism. The mind is immaterial and outlives the body; the body is material and finite. And in a
similar vein to Plato’s “transcendent capacity of the mind” , Descartes also positions the mind
such that it alone has access to truth: real knowledge of the world is, for Descartes, only attained
in the “clear and distinct” conceptions of the rational mind. (Kureethadam, 2017, p. 175) Thus,
like Platonic dualism, we have a situation wherein the rational mind superior epistemological
footing: it has access to eternal truths, whereas the body and its sense organs are mostly deceived
by indistinct perceptions. Unfair as this account may be, however, there is still active
devaluation of nature here. That comes later, in Descartes account of a mechanistic cosmos.

Unlike Plato, Descartes does not hold a very high opinion of nature. In fact, Descartes regards
nature and the living beings it contains as nothing more then “automata… pure machines,
without a spiritual, incorporeal soul” (i.e. the mind). (Strickland, 2013, p. 291) Descartes
“reduces” nature to the status of machine, and in doing so denies the natural world the sentience
enjoyed by rationally-minded/souled humans. (Wee, 2006, p. 611) It is easy to understand, then,
the case made by Plumwood, namely, that Cartesianism leads to a non-neutral ecological
dualism which positions humans over and above an “inferiorised and manipulable nature.”
(Plumwood, 2001, p. 4) (Plumwood, 2001, p. 179) Through Descartes, nature becomes actively
devalued, it becomes an inert resource be exploited by the “instrumental” rationality of man. In
fact, Descartes explicitly believes that the goal of humanity is “the mastery of nature, its
subjection to man's purpose” (Kruse, 1995, p. 17)

I cordially agree with Plumwood’s historical analysis of ecological dualism, which I have
roughly summarized in the above paragraphs. The only issue I take is with her causal analysis,
namely, the fact that she seems to identify Cartesianism (or more broadly, the Western tradition)
as the cause of current ecological exploitation. I do not think this is the case. I think that the
Western tradition has merely used ecological dualism as a way of justifying, after the fact, our
ecological exploitation.

So if Western ecological dualism is not the cause of ecological exploitation - what is? Though it
is in some sense a truism, I would say that the cause of our domination over nature is the same
cause which has caused species of all kinds, since the beginning of natural history, to dominate
other species: the evolutionarily-programmed need to survive, and the unavoidable fact that such
survival can only ever be attained at the expense of another living being (whether that being be a
strand of kelp or an entire cow).

It is often said that we in the West should “return” to a more balanced ecologically-embedded
way of living, a way of life more in line with our distant ancestors, the “hunter-gatherers”. To
some extent, I agree with this sentiment. But can it not also be argued that, in some sense, we
still are living like hunter-gatherers - just on a much, much larger scale (exploiting nature to feed
billions of people rather than a couple dozen) and in a much more systematic fashion (requiring
factory-farms and agriculture in place of wild-caught meat and vegetables etc.) Now, I am not
saying that factory-farming etc. is a good thing. My point is simply that it is not at all clear
whether a more “balanced and ecologically-embedded” way of life is actually possible when we
have such a large population. Ok, so am I just subtly advocating for “population control” then?
Absolutely not. All I can say is that even if we did transcend our non-neutral ecological dualism
(which it already seems we slowly are), I do not think this would necessarily help us in our
attempt to alleviate ecological crises.

Plumwood states clearly that we need a “post-Cartesian” ontology, that we need to leave behind
the legacy of “hyper-seperation” and instead develop an “environmental culture that values and
fully acknowledges the non-human sphere and our dependency on it” (Plumwood, 2001, p. 3). I
agree with all of these things, but not because it will lead us out of the environmental crisis. It
might. But if I am correct in saying that the true cause of ecological exploitation is deeper than
our conceptual dualisms - then it probably won’t.

Bibliography
Gerson, L. P. (1986). Platonic Dualism. The Monist, 352-369.
Hall, M. (2011). Beyond the human: extending ecological anarchism. Environmental Politics,
374-390.
Kruse, F. E. (1995). An Ordinal Context for Ecofeminism. The Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, 14-35.
Kureethadam, J. I. (2017). The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis : Descartes and the
Modern Worldview. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publisher.
Plumwood, V. (2001). Environmental Culture : The Ecological Crisis of Reason. London:
Taylor and Francis Group.
Plumwood, V. (2012). Ecofeminism: an Overview and Discussion of Positions and Arguments.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 120-138.
Strickland, L. (2013). God’s creatures? Divine nature and the status of animals in the early
modern beast-machine controversy. International Journal of Philosophy and Theology,
291-309.
Wee, C. (2006). Animal sentience and Descartes's dualism: Exploring the implications of Baker
and Morris's views. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 611-626.