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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
