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Nature, Self, and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Val Plumwood
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Abstract

Rationalism is the key to the connected oppressions of women and nature in the West. Deep ecology has failed to provide an adequate historical perspective or an adequate challenge to human/nature dualism. A relational account of self enables us to reject an instrumental view of nature and develop an alternative based on respect without denying that nature is distinct from the self. This shift of focus links feminist, environmentalist, and certain forms of socialist critiques. The critique of anthropocentrism is not sacrificed, as deep ecologists argue, but enriched.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 6 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Ecological Feminism , Spring 1991 , pp. 3 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Hypatia, Inc.

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