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Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective (Studies in Social, Political, & Legal Philosophy)

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In her recent book, "Nature Ethics," philosopher Marti Kheel activates my sympathy with "other than human" individuals. Like Chief Seattle spoke, animals are our sisters and brothers. Kheel examines the holist nature philosophers prevalent in the field of environmental ethics. After explaining their contributions, she critiques their platforms including hyper-masculinity, ecosystems, ethics, and Deep Ecology. She consistently uncovers a focus on the abstract or universal "whole" embodied in generic concepts like "species" and "ecosystems," rather than a concern for particular individuals like the deer fleeing the hunter's bullet, or a doomed cow interred in a slaughterhouse. After defining the characteristic thought in the literature, Kheel disseminates the dominant zeitgesit of ecofeminism. I wrote a paper on ecofemnism and Kheel's book covers the field. She explains the "ethics of care" and applies it to care for particular others within nature, such as the domesticated animals raised for food and research. She describes "allopathic ethics." For instance, modern medicine meets a health challenge with battle, to radiate and poison the cancer tumor. ALternative medicine restores the strength of the person by reducing what makes them sick in the first place therefore restoring innate balance. To understand why humans devalue nature, Kheel researches the psycho-social underpinnings of gender development.The book ends with the stories of "other-than human" individuals such as the pig profiled in the movie "Babe" or the actual story of "Emily the cow" who in 1994 escaped a slaughterhouse in Boston. Kheel validates emotions and motivates people to refrain from killing by adopting a vegan lifestyle in response to animal suffering. As a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I admire Kheel's commitment and her invitation to join an ethics of care for particular individuals as exemplified in her vegan ecofeminist philosophy. I highly recommend this book as a great review of ecofeminism and ecological philosophy. Kheel has been writing about this subject in journals and books for many years and is widely cited in the literature.

For scholar-activists concerned with systemic connections between animal, environmental and human oppression, Nature Ethics provides a lens through which to examine other philosophies, theologies and political and environmental theories. Exploring the connection that Kheel makes between human violence and socially constructed masculine identity is like donning a pair of 3-D glasses that exposes previously unseen dualisms in even the most esteemed perspectives on animal rights, Gandhian nonviolence, environmental protection and ecological holism.

The ecofeminist invitation to develop empathethic relationships with individual beings validates the experiences with animal suffering that move many toward activism in the first place. Kheel's refusal to rely solely on the "conceptual force" of rational arguments make her final call to a conscious ethos of contexualized care toward nature and individual other-than-human animals hard to resist. If you have ever been frustrated by rational or spiritual systems that don't seem to wed theory with praxis, Nature Ethics may illuminate why.

As an animal behaviorist, I find that one of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of my work is telling animals' stories. Telling the stories of nature and telling the stories of animals per se share many of the same inherent challenges and duties. When we tell our own stories, we have a duty to self and perhaps a duty to our audience, when there is one. When we tell stories that are not our own, we also have a duty to the other parties involved - especially when they cannot or do not take part in the telling.

In Nature ethics: An ecofeminist perspective Marti Kheel does a beautiful job of examining how prominent ethicists have framed nature - and thus how they tell the stories of nature (and describe our ethical responsibilities to nature). She finds many of the traditional approaches unsatisfactory and suggests a different approach, one of holistic ecofeminist philosophy that resonates with me:

"It is an invitation to dissolve the dualistic thinking that separates reason from emotion, the conscious from the unconscious, the 'domestic' from the 'wild,' and animal advocacy from nature ethics. It welcomes larger scientific stories of evolutionary and ecological processes*, but never loses sight of the individual beings who exist within these larger narratives. Ecofeminist philosophy never transcends or denies our capacity for empathy and care, our most important human connection with the natural world."

*I'd add ethological and perhaps even ethnographic here, too.

A timely and important examination of nature ethics that is sure to spark important thought and reflection. Highly recommended.

In this book, Marti Kheel calls into question the dominant utilitarian ethic in nature philosophy which regards the individual as expendable for the sake of the species. Ultimately, she validates the importance of subjective experience and emotion for ethical decision-making, challenging the masculinist orientations of previous nature philosophers.

This book is an important contribution to the work of bridging movements such as environmentalism, feminism, and animal rights, while raising questions and paving the way to implementing policy and measures to do so.

This is an essential read for anyone interested in the above topics.

this groundbreaking study will appeal to students and scholars alike, and is a must read for anyone interested in the environment, wildlife, domestic animals, feminism, the peace movement, vegetarianism, psychology and philosophy; with tremendous breadth and depth, the author expertly bridges disparate disciplines to present a powerfully original argument regarding masculinity and violence; the text is well organized and thoroughly referenced, which i found particularly useful, and a delight to read throughout; kheel's exploration of masculinity is tremendously important, very timely, and highly significant to understanding the violence of the current era; this book should be required reading for all men and fathers who aim to raise children with an appreciation for nature and respect for all life; highly recommended!

In this text, Kheel brilliantly weaves together the gendered, sexualized, and particularly violent relationship we share with other-than-human animals. Each chapter takes on the pressing issues that vegan ecofeminists face, and provides ways to navigate the alternatives. I enjoy all that I have read from Kheel, but this text in particular does an excellent job at breaking down the ways in which oppressive ideologies intersect and shape our relations with one another. This text is essential to the progression and success of the feminist care tradition as a large scale feminist approach. I highly recommend this text to those interested in gender, other-than-human animals, and everything in between.

Marti Kheel's new book is well-researched, entertaining, and informative, and she makes sure that her enlightening points are made throughout. Nature conservation, animal welfare, and environmental/animal rights are all issues that grow increasingly relevant to each of us. Ms. Kheel explores how four individual men dealt with these subjects in an interesting and provocative way, explicating their views while intertwining her own insightful ones along the way. In the last chapter, she delves into a thorough study of the ecofeminist perceptions that have colored the book all along. She provides guidance for each of us as we navigate the treacherous waters of the 21st century, in a strong and heartfelt plea to treat nature ethics with the care that they deserve. A necessary read for those who want to know how the past has influenced our current beliefs about nature and what we can do to bring those beliefs in line with our vision and needs of the future.

It is so important in thinking about subjects like our relationship with animals and with nature to examine, and re-examine, our point of view. We have gone so far astray in our relationship with the natural world and its creatures that it can be difficult to pull back far enough from the picture to allow ourselves to look at it in a new way. This book by Marti Kheel accomplishes that. It is a thoughtful and accessible examination of these issues, and has helped me view these fundamental relationships from what I guess would be termed an ecofeminist perspective. The acceptance that animals, like us, experience the world as individuals, and the incorporation of that acceptance into our treatment of the world around us sounds so simple, and is so intuitive, that reading the book is almost a kind of gestalt experience -- it is hard to recall, having seen things from this new perspective, how one ever saw the world differently, and as consisting of species, ecosystems and other rationally contrived constructs. While the author never disdains these constructs, she admirably moves beyond, and behind, them, to reveal the individuals with whom we share the world, one by one.