If “environment” means “that which environs us,” it isn’t clear why environmentalist thinkers so often identify it with nature and not with the built environment that a quick glance around would reveal is what we’re actually environed by. It’s a familiar claim that we’re “alienated from nature,” but I argue that what we’re really alienated from is the built environment itself. Typically talk of alienation from nature involves the claim that we fail to acknowledge nature’s otherness, but the built environment (...) is just as other from us as the natural one. And just as we are said to fail to recognize the role of nature as the origin of everything with which we have to do in the world, so too we fail to recognize the role of socially organized human labor in the objects that surround us. Overcoming alienation would require acknowledging the builtness and the sociality of the world we inhabit. (shrink)

In this article I consider and reflect upon the aesthetic significance of Simon Hailwood's conception of nature as articulated in an earlier volume of this journal in his paper 'The Value of Nature's Otherness' (Environmental Values 9.3: 353-72). I provide a brief elucidation of Hailwood's conception of nature as other and I maintain that recognition of the value of nature's otherness and respect for nature's otherness requires as a necessary condition that one know and perceive that nature is other. I (...) then go on to consider Hailwood's concerns over the possibility of locating nature's value as other in aesthetic responses to nature. I argue that such reservations are warranted insofar as they focus on an inadequate 'subjectivist' account of aesthetic experience but are not warranted for all accounts of aesthetic experience, in particular, I will argue that such reservations do not apply to the 'cognitive' model of aesthetic appreciation proposed by Allen Carlson as the 'environmental model' and developed in the work of Yuriko Saito. I conclude this paper by claiming that aesthetic value is a necessary component of otherness as a ground of nature's value and that this needs to be conceded if we are to be able to acknowledge the reality of something other than ourselves, to treat it appropriately and with respect. (shrink)

One of the hardest questions in environmental philosophy is the debate between anthropocentric and ecocentric accounts of value. I argue that a great deal of the disagreement in this debate arises from a) misunderstanding of the concepts used in the debate and b) unfruitful reading of vaguely framed arguments. The conceptual and argumentative analysis of the debate shows that many arguments can be ignored as they either contain conceptual confusion or concern issues that are actually irrelevant to the centrism division. (...) However, there are arguments that maintain their relevance, and these arguments have important consequences on the practical environmental ethics. Hence, contrary to Bryan G. Norton’s optimism about the “centrism convergence” on the level of practical environmentalism, I contend that disagreements prevail even in practice. As a solution, I suggest that the centrism debaters should focus on the practical level and work to find space for agreement. (shrink)

In this article I consider and reflect upon the aesthetic significance of Simon Hailwood's conception of nature as articulated in an earlier volume of this journal in his paper 'The Value of Nature's Otherness' (Hailwood 2000: 353–72). I provide a brief elucidation of Hailwood's conception of nature as other and I maintain that recognition of the value of nature's otherness and respect for nature's otherness requires as a necessary condition that one know and perceive that nature is other. I then (...) go on to consider Hailwood's concerns over the possibility of locating nature's value as other in aesthetic responses to nature. I argue that such reservations are warranted insofar as they focus on an inadequate 'subjectivist' account of aesthetic experience but are not warranted for all accounts of aesthetic experience, in particular, I will argue that such reservations do not apply to the 'cognitive' model of aesthetic appreciation proposed by Allen Carlson as the 'environmental model' and developed in the work of Yuriko Saito. I conclude this paper by claiming that aesthetic value is a necessary component of otherness as a ground of nature's value and that this needs to be conceded if we are to be able to acknowledge the reality of something other than ourselves, to treat it appropriately and with respect. (shrink)

Something is wrong with the desire to dominate nature. In this paper, I explain both the causes and solution to anti-environmental attitudes within the framework of Hegel's master–slave dialectic. I argue that the master–slave dialectic (interpreted as a metaphor, rather than literally) can provide reasons against taking an attitude of domination, and instead gives reasons to seek to be worthy of respect from nature, though nature cannot, of course, respect us. I then discuss what the social and economic conditions of (...) moving to a post-domination philosophy appear to be. (shrink)

The book has two interrelated objectives. One objective is meta-theoretical and concerns the exploration of theoretical debates connected to issues of studying society and environmental problems; another objective is empirical/analytical, referring to the analysis of "green" public participation in the electricity and waste sectors in Sweden, and partly in the Netherlands as well as the UK. The metatheoretical part draws the conclusion that the ontology of critical realism, combined with a problem-subjectivist tenet, is a particularly fruitful basis for the social (...) sciences in order to provide an understanding environmental conflicts. The empirical questions refer to preconditions and obstacles to public participations in the "greening" of the domestic practices related to electricity and waste. Methodologically, the empirical part is based on a combination of statistical data and comparative case study research, conducted through semi-structured interviews with local authorities, housing organizations, energy companies, a windpower cooperative, and households. The challenges of providers are divided into making visible, making acceptable, and making doable, based on both material and socio-political characteristics of the sectors. Households, in turn, face the challenges of constructing combinations of green identity as a foundation of their motivation: ecological, environmental, economic, and social green identities. The study shows how differences in identity-combinations across cases-although materially influenced-are rarely materially determined in any irrevocable way. Instead, policy reform may substantially strengthen the social support of action-motivating combinations of green identities. (shrink)