| Many environmental philosophers currently hold that animal liberation theories are not relevant to the development of the field of environmental ethics. Instead, they contend that the field is traversed most successfully within the context of ecocentric and/or wilderness perspectives.; In this thesis, I utilize textual and conceptual analysis to argue that animal liberation theories are vital to environmental ethics. I examine and critique the reasons given by prominent environmental ethicists---including, most notably, John Rodman, Baird Callicott, Robert Elliot, and Val Plumwood---for marginalizing animal liberation views within environmental ethics. While most of human-centered ethics has rested on a human/nature dichotomy in which the human side is overvalued, much of environmental ethics (especially that developed by ecocentric and wilderness proponents) rests on the same dichotomy, but weights the value on the nature side instead. I hold that many of the reasons for claiming that animal liberation theories fall outside of the scope of environmental ethics rest on a commitment to the nature/human dualism.; I maintain that our contemporary world is not divided into the natural and the human, but, rather, consists of an ongoing, shifting relationship between human and nonhuman nature. I claim that the appropriate aim of environmental ethics is to explore the human relationship to the nonhuman natural world, and that this aim cannot be accomplished by theories committed to a human/nature dualism. I conclude that, by focusing on the significance of our choices as human beings in relationship to morally considerable others, the animal liberation movement offers us a way to theorize about environmental issues that transcends the human/nature dichotomy.; This project is morally and politically compelling because the way in which environmental ethics as a field is defined has ramifications not only for the relationship of individual nonhuman animals to the natural environment, but for the relationship of humans to the natural environment as well. Looking at the relationship between human and nonhuman nature allows us iv to address the human roles and responsibilities not simply in the human community, but in the broader context of nonhuman nature as well. |
