Ethics and the Environment 14. 2
Guest editor, Chris Cuomo
The latest issue of Ethics and the Environment is a collection of essays written in posthumous tribute to Val Plumwood, the prominent environmentalist, feminist, and anti-dualist philosopher who helped bring ecofeminism and ecological metaphysics to the fore in the 1990s, whose personal story included surviving a near-fatal attack by a crocodile, and who was among the most influential Australian intellectuals of her generation.
From wilderness preservation to anti-colonial criticism to animal rights to the fundamentals of metaphysics, Val Plumwoods’ writing on a great range of topics blended analytic logic with poetic vision and passion. In the words of contributor Piers Stephens, “Plumwood advance(d) the view that sustainability should be properly seen as emergent from an ecofeminist partnership ethic of nourishment and support between humans and nonhuman nature.” It is fitting that the contributors to this special issue focus on extensions and applications of her insights and philosophical innovations.Contributor Donna Reeves illustrates how U.S. law has as recently as 1955 characterized native people as primitive and uncivilized, and therefore incapable of occupying land in a way that constitutes legal ownership. Ronnie Hawkins reiterates Plumwood’s criticism of rationalism and argues for more embodied, relational, and intuitive understanding and communication so as to “dynamically re-frame the way we understand our human situation.” Lori Gruen develops a theory of “engaged empathy” that stresses the great potential for interspecies communication, care, and companionship, especially as evidenced through intra-mammalian relations. Yet as Noel Sturgeon describes in “Considering Animals: Kheel’s Nature Ethics and Animal Debates in Ecofeminism,” fundamental questions about harm and protection remain controversial among both feminists and environmentalists, and such disagreements can be difficult to manage.
Chaone Mallory explores the nuances of Plumwood’s position regarding political solidarity with the natural world, and Bryan Bannon considers implications of Plumwood’s view that natural beings do not have minds but have “mind-like properties,” which are evidence of “substantial continuity between humanity and the rest of the natural world.” Lisa Kretz advocates an understanding she describes as “open continuity,” and asks how acknowledging physical truths such as the fact that human beings cannot live without breatheable air might help rewrite physical and philosophical boundaries. Al-Yahsa Ilhaam traces anti-dualist feminist messages in the play “The Challenge of Fende” (1969) by Cameroonian playwright Kwo Victor Elame Musinga, and shows how postcolonial African cultural politics perform alternative possibilities.Visit INscribe to subscribe or to purchase a single issue.
