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A Critique of Deep Ecology
Author(s) -
GREY WILLIAM
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.1986.tb00420.x
Subject(s) - naturalism , natural (archaeology) , epistemology , environmental crisis , environmental ethics , product (mathematics) , expression (computer science) , sociology , set (abstract data type) , deep ecology , ecology , world view , ecological crisis , philosophy , computer science , history , biology , mathematics , geometry , archaeology , programming language
Our environmental crisis is commonly explained as a product of a set of attitudes and beliefs about the world which have been developed by post‐Cartesian technological society. Deep ecologists claim that the crisis can only be overcome by adopting an alternative non‐technological paradigm, such as can be discovered in non‐Western cultures. In this paper I (a) express misgivings about the use of the expression ‘Paradigm’ by deep ecologists, (b) question the claim that a science‐based world‐view inevitably fosters manipulative and exploitative attitudes to the natural world, (c) suggest that non‐technological cultures do not necessarily provide exemplary and superior models for relating to the natural world, and (d) defend a scientific naturalism as a satisfying way of realising our unity with the natural world.