Abstract

It has been claimed that Val Plumwood’s work is vulnerable to the same charge of “assimi­lationism” that she has leveled against moral extensionist viewpoints. It is argued that while one might regard Plumwood’s position as suspect because of its emphasis on human-nature continuity, associating claims of continuity with assimilationism could lead one to seek a mode of relating to nature as absolutely other, a move which is claimed to be problematic for several reasons. Because the extensionist error is not simply that of acknowledging human-nature continuity, Plumwood’s position is not extensionist in any objectionable sense. This issue is connected up with the ongoing debate about “perspectival anthropocentrism” in environmental ethics; however, allowing for human epistemic locatedness does not force the conclusion that all environmental ethics is ultimately assimilationist.