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ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY 37
resources, flora and fauna and the other “elements” associated with nature with
the same attitude (see Salleh 2019). The ecofeminists emphasize that the subjugation
of nature and such social groups as women, minorities, the disabled, and sexual
minorities, stems from the same root in modern societies: “the same kind of
domineering logic is used to legitimize the subjugation of nature as is cited to
justify the subordination of gender, racial, ethnic or social groups” (Warren 1990:
131). This hierarchical, segregating attitude has caused the contemporary crisis
situation as well.
In her book, The Death of Nature (1980), Carolyn Merchant closely examines
the relations between the mechanical worldview supported by the technological
revolution, the exploitation of the environment and the subordination of women.
Karen J. Warren asserts that ecofeminism is a good solution, for — in her view — it
provides a unified ethical framework for approaching the complex web of
suppressions affecting women and the Earth (Warren 1993). The state of
subjugated groups and the problems of nature cannot be separated. The ecological
crisis can only be solved by handling them together (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 114).
As put by German sociologist Maria Mies and Indian writer and activist Vandana
Shiva, “the liberation of women cannot be achieved in isolation, but only as part
of a larger struggle for the preservation of life on this planet” (Mies and Shiva
2014: 16; cited in Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 114). Ecofeminism believes that it
would be a great step, an advantage for society and nature if care and cooperation
were placed in the foreground instead of aggressive and dominant behavior
(Buckingham 2015).
The integration of ecofeminism into EH is indispensable — in Greta Gaard’s
view — because, for one thing, both rely on the fundamental rejection of the
dualistic and segregating approach to the world, claiming that the latter approach
is promoted by science, technology and the economy to the detriment of life on
earth (Gaard 2017: 82). Both ecological humanities and ecofeminism demand a
radical change in mentality and an epistemological revival.
PLANT ETHICS
Although a considerable part of the world comprises plants and every living being
stands in some connection with them, they have a marginalized role in Western
philosophy. This is probably because plants don’t call attention to themselves. They
dont make audible sounds; they are seemingly immobile, quiet, passive, static
“background entities” (Kallhoff — Paola — Schérgenhumer 2018: 1), and it is therefore
difficult to have a moral attitude towards them. Plants, however, have an important
and specific role for environmental ethics, too: they are necessary, useful, beautiful,
complex, diverse; they tell stories of people, times and places. Recent research has
repeatedly refuted the above views of plants, finding them as intelligent, conscious and
capable beings instead of part of a passive backdrop.
From the mid-2010s, the plant ethics research group of Vienna University (https://
plantethics.univie.ac.at) has been concerned with including plants into philosophy by
proposing themes for research such as the ontology and ethics of plants, the role of
plants in diverse areas of use, moral questions connected to plants, axiology,
morphogenesis of plants, etc. In their pioneering book of studies, Plant Ethics: Concepts
and Applications, they outline spreading, dominant approaches in plant ethics (the