Chapter Three

Eco-philosophy and Deep Ecology

Deep ecology is reputed to be an extreme interpretation of eco-philosophy. The term

‘deep ecology’ was first introduced by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosophy professor

in the1970s. He was a renowned Norwegian social activist and the first chairperson of

Greenpeace in Norway and within environmental ethics, his eco-philosophy, deep

ecology, holds centrality as the definitive non-anthropocentric approach. The very

objective of eco-philosophy is to establish non-anthropocentrism instead of

anthropocentrism. Within the sphere of eco-philosophy, deep ecology movement

commands an important role. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the

deep ecological movement enjoys wide currency and considerable status in the

international environmental movement. Before delving into this issue let us, at the

very outset, find out the distinction between Deep and Shallow ecology. We think the

distinction between deep and shallow ecology will help us to properly understand the

program of deep ecology in proper. Here we will attempt to develop a coherent ethical

scheme to serve as a common foundation for the ethics of our dealings with other

humans, with nonhuman individuals, and with ecosystems and other environmental

wholes. Following Naess’s concept of deep ecology, many writers distinguish

between environmental philosophies that are shallow and those that are deep. Shallow

ecology is primarily concerned solely with the welfare of human beings or one

particular group of human beings. In this regard, it would remain anthropocentric in

some sense or other. Of course, it would not be a strong anthropocentrism, but weak

anthropocentrism. Shallow ecology deals with those philosophies that broaden the

scope to include concern for non-human organisms. These are said not to be deep

because they still focus on discrete individuals, whereas deep philosophies are holistic

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in nature. According to Naess, deep ecology entails, “rejection of the man-in-

environmental image in favor of the relational, total-field image. Organisms as knots

in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relationships hold between two things. An

intrinsic relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the

definitions or basic constitutions of A and B, so that without the relation, A and B are

no longer the same things. Thus, we think that the total field-image dissolves not only

the man-in-image environment concept, but every compact things-in-milieu concept-

except when talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication.” 30

We think that the terms deep and shallow have tended to become evaluative to those

environmental philosophers who adopt a deep philosophy. Deep often seems to be

used to suggest a deeper, more aware understanding, and deeper, more significant

values, whereas shallow seems to suggest limited awareness and superficial values.

This clearly suggests that from anthropocentric perspective deep ecology is more

preferable than shallow ecology. Philosophers of course prefer something

philosophically deep rather than philosophically shallow. However, when we deal

with environmental philosophy, we are in some sense or other concerned with both

deep and shallow ecology. Unlike shallow ecology, deep ecology represents a holistic

view and takes everything as a whole. Having said this, one cannot have the

perception of deep ecology without the perception of shallow ecology. Therefore, to

discuss about deep ecology, we have to discuss about shallow ecology.

While elucidating deep and shallow ecology, Naess proposes several points as

applicable to both environmental philosophy and social philosophy and then he tries

to extract considerable analogy between the two fields. He then seems to realize that

30
Naess, “The Shallow and Deep Ecology, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary” Inquiry 16,
1973, p.95.

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both environmentally and socially, the individual is seen as a knot in a holistic fabric

stitched together by intrinsic relations. Human societies always attempt to extend

diversity, complexity, autonomy, decentralization, symbiosis, the principle of ‘live

and let live’, egalitarianism, and classlessness. In this regard, ecosystems or eco-

philosophy seems to be healthy because of its diverse, complex, autonomous,

decentralize and symbiotic nature. Eco-philosophy thus paves the way for deep

ecology and without the perception of eco-philosophy, it would be very difficult to

come by about the very nature of deep ecology. Ecosystem is an environmental

system of philosophy where ecological justice in the real sense of the term can be

protected and preserved. Ecosystem ensures the equal right to live and blossom and

ensures no beings are in a privileged moral position compared to others. Thus, in our

sense, eco-system or eco-philosophy is directed towards promulgating non-

anthropocentrism in the realm of environmental ethics. Eco-system thus brings a

message based on a holistic web where no beings are to have a privileged moral

position and that all have an equal right to live and blossom. Within this holistic web,

the moral standing of the individuals would be determined within the whole. What is

good for the whole would be equally good for the individual. That means individual

or atomic goodness does not make any sense without preconceiving the good of the

whole. According to Naess, individuals has its identity only in terms of the whole

does lend itself to the interpretation that individuals have only a derivative moral

identity and significance. There are those social philosophies that take a purely

holistic stance.

Unlike shallow ecology, deep ecology banks on the total field model or total image

model that dissolves not only the man-in-environment concept, but every compact

thing-in-milieu concept. Individuals have self-identity, but they also have identity as

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components of greater wholes. There is self-identity at the individual level as well as

at the holistic level. Therefore, we must not neglect the shallow concern for

individuals in favor of the depths of holism. There are morally significant interests on

all levels. In this regard, our environmental philosophy must have both deep and

shallow significance. Within shallow ecology individuals compare with individuals,

ecosystems with ecosystems, and the interests of individuals may well compete with

those of ecosystems. While there is symbiosis in nature, live and let other live,

interaction for mutual benefit, there are also conflicts of interest. Fortunately, we are

not called upon to police the biosphere. This is not just because we lack wisdom and

power; rather our actions have consequences for others, human and non-human, and

we must conduct ourselves accordingly. We cannot prevent injuries even to ourselves,

but surely we can strike and maintain balances.

Sooner or later, wherever we draw moral lines, we must in some way arrive at an

accommodation with the world around us. There are different ways in which we may

do so and while in so doing we must arrive at some accommodation where we are

aware that entities other than individual human beings have morally significant

interests. This awareness at the shallow level will often be enough to allow us to reach

morally adequate decisions. There is the biosphere as a whole and the biosphere is a

self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the

chemical and physical environment. It thus has a composite identity with its own

characteristic signature, as distinct from being the mere sum of its parts. 31 According

to Lovelock, the biosphere is a homeostatic organic unity, a life process with its own

self-identity and wellbeing needs. In this regard he further remarks that it ‘is an

alternative to that pessimistic view which sees nature as a primitive force to be

31
See, Lovelook, J. E., Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, ix-
x.

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subdued and conquered. It is also an alternative to that equality depressing picture of

our planet as a demented spaceship, forever traveling, driverless and purposeless,

around an inner circle of the sun.”32 Lovelock here does not peruse the ethical

implications; rather he asserts that the interests of the biosphere are morally

significant.

Naess in his article published in 1973, contrasted a ‘shallow’ ecological movement

with a ‘deep’ one. He characterized shallow ecology summarily as involving an

exclusive concern with issues of pollution and resource conservation. The deep

ecology movement was more fully elaborated by him in terms of seven principles.

These are:

(i) A metaphysics of inter-relatedness

(ii) An ethos of biospherical egalitarianism

(iii) The values of diversity and symbiosis

(iv) An anti-class posture

(v) Opposition of pollution and resource depletion

(vi) The value of complexity

(vii) An emphasize on local autonomy and decentralization

On the basis of the aforesaid seven principles, Naess creates an ecological world

view. The first principle is metaphysical in nature. It states that the identity of

each individual at any ecological level is not logically independent from the rest

of reality. Rather it would be a function of the relations of the individual in

question with other individuals. Thus, reality is viewed as fundamentally

relational or ecological rather than as aggregative in its structure. Importantly for

32
Ibid. p.12.

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Naess, this metaphysics of inter-relatedness is added to and enhanced by an ethics

of inter-relatedness. It would be a sort of interrelatedness where all forms of life

are equally entitled to live and blossom. Accordingly, it can be said that within

this theory, human beings are not morally privileged as we notice in the traditional

or classical ethics. In traditional ethics, it has generally been assumed that men are

the only legitimate moral agents and men alone have the power or capacity to

evaluate everything. However, men have completely lost such moral privilege

when we talk of the interrelatedness of the ecological scheme of things. Here, all

other forms of life are accorded moral consideration, similar to that afforded to

man. We are arguing in favor of ecological diversity and symbiosis and in turn we

invoke the service of the egalitarian ethic just by way of promoting the project of

life on earth. These moral standards actually help us to promote the egalitarian

project of life on earth. The great advantage of this theory is that it will enhance

the opportunities for all beings to live and blossom. This clearly suggests how the

metaphysical principle of inter-relatedness leads to the ethos of biospherical

egalitarianism. And this in turn paves the way for the recognition of the values of

diversity and symbiosis. We think that the value of diversity again leads to the

fourth principle which states that certain forms of difference are not to be

encouraged particularly those differences arising not out of mutuality but out of

exploitation and suppression of one group by another. The fight against pollution

and resource depletion is then included as part of the deep as well as shallow

ecological movement. The appeal to complexity is in effect a further appeal to

ecological thinking. Ecological thinking is a plea for recognition of the ontological

inter-relatedness forestalled to under the first principle as cited above.

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Many contend that the principles which Naess uses to define the deep ecology

approach in his early article are highly abbreviated and presented in an ad hoc

way. Despite this criticism, these principles point toward an interconnected

ecological world-view. Deep ecology could thus be read as signifying that our

world is ecological or relational to its ontological depths and our relationship with

nature has to be interpreted in the light of this. A proper understanding of deep

ecology would reveal that it covers an interdisciplinary stream of thought that was

developing during 1980s and at times it was described as constituting a ‘new

paradigm’. This new paradigm can be compared and contrasted with the dominant

paradigm. The dominant paradigm is anthropocentric in nature. In compare to

dominant paradigm, the new paradigm is non-anthropocentric in nature. The

dominant paradigm is deeply associated with the European Enlightenment that

was built on the classical scientific view of nature as well as the liberal view of

society. According to this view, the physical world was understood in mechanistic

terms where society was understood as an aggregate of autonomous rational

individuals driven together by the blind law of self-interest. Thus, the dominant

world view was a principle of division where matter was divided up into logically

independent parcels, and society into logically independent individuals. Within

this system morally significant attributes could be dualistically separated from

morally insignificant attributes. As a result of that human beings could be set apart

from and above the rest of nature. Under the dominant enlightenment world view,

nature could properly be subordinated to human purpose. Nature is for humans.

To humans, nature has only instrumental or use value and nothing more than that.

Under the dominant world view, humans dominate the rest of the world; here

things are divided and separated. Here humans are quickly led to a world of

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opposition and hierarchies and in which some groups see themselves as justified

in talking control of other groups. Here humanity sees itself as justified in and

capable of taking charge of nature. This paradigm is based on the principle of the

division of reality into independent parts or units. The new paradigm appears

within Naess’ deep ecology, the main objective of which is to deny the man-in-

environment image in favor of the relational, total-field-image. Thus Naess’ deep

ecology paradigm appears as a new paradigm and makes a ‘paradigmatic shift’ in

Western thought. It is based on the principle of relation rather than division, and

embraces forms of knowledge which already entail a broad commitment to

ontological ‘egalitarianism’. In other words, it can be said that the deep ecology

movement takes a paradigmatic shift from logical atomism to holism. It thus

offers a new ‘ecological’ world view based on relational or total-field image.

Besides Naess, some of its early interpreters and followers, namely, Fox, Devall

and Sessions have expressed the same regarding the deep ecology movement.

Even though Naess has been regarded as the main architect of the deep ecology

movement based on the relational whole, but the core relational principles could

be elaborated in a great variety of ways and with a variety of cultural and

conceptual tools. Even Naess himself acknowledges that he was influenced by

Spinoza and Gandhi while developing his idea of deep ecology. There are many

theories developed in Indian ethics and religion based on the concept of deep

ecology and the ecological world view.

Ecosophy alternatively known as ‘ecosophy T’ has been developed by Naess in

honor of his own spiritual home and some of his ecological inspiration as the "T"

is said to represent his mountain hut Tvergastein. Deep ecology is strongly

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 associated with ecological selfhood - an ideal of human self-realization. 33 It

asserts that reality is fundamentally relational in structure and that individual

identity is accordingly not a metaphysical datum in his system. In this regard,

Naess’ hypothesis is a notion of selfhood that is based on active identification

with wider and wider circles of being. According to Naess, such identification is

possible because, for Naess, the self is not identical with the body, or with the

mind, or with a mere conjunction of mind and body. The self is not a fixed entity,

but a cultivated one. Self-realization is a process of self-examination or self-

cultivation. Even Plato in his Republic remarked that humans’ self is a bundle of

qualities. One has to cultivate it. Human’s self thus encompass everything with

which a person identifies. It is process of human’s maturity. Through a process of

self-examination, human beings can mature. For Naess, maturity generally as

consisting in a widening of our circles of identification, and self-realization is

nothing but the final stage of maturity. It is a higher stage where we achieve the

widest circle of identification. By the term ‘widest circle of maturity’, we mean to

say after Naess that here we identify not merely with our family, our community,

our culture, or with humanity as a whole, rather with our immediate environment.

It is the place where we born, we stand offer birth or to which we belong, our

land, and our earth. In this way, Naess envisages self-realization as involving the

transition not only from ego to social self, but from social self to ecological self.

When we identify with nature at large in this way, our innate self-love expands in

proportion to our new sense of self and our self-interest becomes convergent with

the interest of the rest of life. It is a stage where one feels that to love other is self-

love, to think for other is self-thinking, to feel for other is self-feeling; to defense

33
Naess, 1987, 1989a.

65
 other is self-defense. Accordingly, it can be said that defense of nature becomes a

matter of self-defense. In this regard, Naess goes on to say that this process of

self-realization has affinities with Gandhi’s notion of enlightenment. Self-

realization is a process of becoming, a process of enlightenment where an

enlightened being would be one who sees the ‘same’ in everything and is thus not

alienated from anything. The question then is: why should one aspire to or desire a

kind of cosmic or ecological self-realization? Where this urge does comes from?

To respond to this, Naess says that it is in our own best interest to do so. Again

where does this interest come from? To reply to this, it can be said that self-

realization is nothing but a sort of actualization that lies within. To Naess, self-

realization actually represents the actualization of our greatest potential for being.

There are two different stages of the same individual self, one stage is narrow and

the other stage is richer. It is the process of becoming through which a narrow

individual self can open up and eventually be transformed into richer self. In this

regard Mathews says, “Our self is richer to the extent that it encompasses more

reality, and if we take the basic impulse of the self to be to preserve and enrich its

own being, then self-realization represents the fulfilment of the impulse at the core

of the self.”34Interestingly, Naess does not equate self-realization with happiness,

yet he still promises that the joy and meaningfulness of life are increased through

increasing self-realization. The joy and meaningfulness actually hinges on the

condition of widening the self. Such expansion is akin to ‘falling in love outward’.

Naess consciously focuses on the rewards rather than the costs of ecological self-

realization because he thinks that our environmental conscience will be sounder

and more reliable if it arises out of self-interest rather than resting on moral reason

34
Mathews, F., “Deep Ecology”, included in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, edited by
Dale Jamieson, Blackwell, Publishers, 2000, p. 221.

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or a sense of duty. In this regard, Naess appeals to the Kantian distinction between

moral acts and beautiful acts. He then says that an act qualifies as moral,

according to Kant, if it is undertaken out of a sense of duty. Thus, in a sense it

stands against the natural inclination of the agent. On the contrary, an act is said

to be merely beautiful if it is right but is performed spontaneously without

deliberation and out of the natural inclination of the agent. Kant is in favor of the

concept of the moral act. Naess is unimpressed with the record of morality in

bringing about morally right conduct. He thinks that the natural world will be

better served if the environment movement is grounded in inclination rather than

in a sense of moral duty. The process of ecological self-realization promotes the

inclination to act on behalf of nature. This process, according to Naess, involves

perceiving the interests of nature as the interests of one’s own wider self. What we

learn from Naess is that the ecological self-realization is in the trust and deepest

interests of the human self. As a result of that, it gives rise to the steadfast

foundation for the protection of the natural environment. Self-realization is thus a

path to both personal fulfillment and ecological wisdom and virtue. In this regard,

Naess makes ‘seeking one’s own good’ rather than ‘saying the world’ a central

tenet of deep ecology.

It thus seems to us that Naess ecosophy or eco-philosophy of ecological self-

realization had informed his original version of the principles of deep ecology

based on the notion of relational identity and the metaphysical egalitarianism.

However, later on, Naess along with George Sessions and Devall published a

book entitled Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (1984) in which they

set up new set of principles and described them as the platform of the deep

ecology movement. In this book all reference to the metaphysics of

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interconnectedness and to an ethos of biocentric egalitarianism was dropped and

these original philosophical premises of deep ecology were replaced with a

statement of the ‘intrinsic value’ of the non-human world. Here deep ecology is

understood with regard to intrinsic value. The eight principles of the new platform

of deep ecology are as follows:

(i) The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth

have intrinsic value, inherent value in themselves. These values are

independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purpose.

In this regard, Naess and Sessions make the distinction between

instrumental value and intrinsic value. Instrumental or use value is

acceptable to anthropocentrism; whereas intrinsic or inherent value is

acceptable to non-anthropocentrism. Since the deep ecology movement is

non-anthropocentric in nature, the principle of intrinsic value of nature

became the philosophical premise of deep ecology. The remaining

principles are in some sense or other linked with the first principle of deep

ecology movement.

(ii) Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these

values, i.e., the well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life

on Earth and are also values in themselves.

(iii) Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to

satisfy vital needs.

(iv) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial

decrease of the human population. The flourishing of non-human life

requires such a decrease.

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(v) Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and

the situation is rapidly worsening.

(vi) Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic,

technological and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will

be deeply different from the present.

(vii) The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling

in situation of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasing higher

standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference

between big and great.

(viii) Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or

indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

The main objective of deep ecological platform is to minimize human interference

with the natural world and to restore intrinsic value to all biotic as well as abiotic

communities. It states that all non-human life has equal intrinsic value not as a

means to an end, but as an end in itself. Deep ecology movement completely

abolishes human dominance over and interference in nature. Humans are entitled

to take from the biosphere whatever they truly need for a culturally rich,

materially simple life, but no more that. It further states that we, as humans, are

not entitled to multiply beyond the numbers needed for us to sustain meaningful

cultures. The message is that humanity should, as far as possible, leave nature

alone. Both Naess and Sessions are of the opinion that instead of human

interference in the non-human world, the fight to preserve and extend areas of

wilderness or near wilderness should continue and should focus on the general

ecological functions of these areas. To them, “Most designated wilderness areas

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 and game preserves are not large enough to allow for such speciation.” 35It thus

seems that the idea of non-interference in nature thus gives expression to the

affirmation of wilderness. The idea of deep ecology as formulating an ecological

world-view or alternative metaphysical paradigm, has thus given way to the more

general idea of it as non-anthropocentric. We think deep ecological movement is a

non-anthropocentric environmental proposal where human interference in nature

has been nullified and importance has been given to the intrinsic value of all non-

human natural communities. Thus, the proposal of deep ecology in one sense

restores ecological and environmental justice to all natural communities. Thus, in

order to identify someone as a deep ecologist, one has to commit to the deep

ecological platform and more importantly to the principle of intrinsic value which

makes deep ecology as a non-anthropocentric movement. In this regard, one might

claim that Buddhist, Hindu, indigenous, pantheistic, Heideggerian and Christian

metaphysics all have a sense of deep ecology. All of these schools of thought view

in favor of intrinsic value and all developed non-anthropocentric approaches.

However, within some religious domains, we find a different approach in

Christian religion, where men are represented as the sons of God and it has

equally been asserted that what men are doing in the universe are doing with the

will of God. Thus, in a sense Christian religion is anthropocentric in nature

because of its man centric approach.

While answering to the query about depth, Naess pointed out that he had intended

the word ‘deep’ in deep ecology to signify depth of questioning. The essence of

deep ecology (as compared to the science of ecology, and with what we call

shallow ecological movement), is to ask deeper questions. Here the adjective

35
Naess and Sessions, 1995, p.52.

70
‘deep’ stresses that we should ask why and how, where others do not. Here, the

questioning goes deep and deeper. Unlike deep ecology, ecology, as a science

does not ask what kind of a society would be the best for maintaining particular

ecosystems. Deep ecology is not about ecology of science. Unlike the ecology of

science, deep ecology banks on humans’ conscience. The depth in deep ecology is

preserved as a depth of questioning. In this sense, deep ecology is a kind of meta-

principle of deep ecology. Deep ecology thus would remain as deep within

ecology and it is more nature-inclusive rather than an ecocentric. Of course, the

perception of deep ecology has gradually changed over the period. It was largely

due to the efforts of Devall and Sessions that deep ecology started to gain

currency in the English-speaking world in the mid 1980s. Interestingly, their book

Deep Ecology, included the new platform, encompasses the views of nature

writers of nineteenth-century America to Zen Buddhism and Spinoza. Within this

perceptual change, deep ecology still carries some of its earlier metaphysical

conclusions in addition to its clear challenge to anthropocentrism. Now, it has

been recognized and understood as a deeply ecological view of the world-a

position which construes our human identity and purpose essentially in terms of

our relationships with the natural world, and eventually, with the cosmos, rather

than with regard to gender and class. Thus, deep ecology is the classic example of

eco-philosophy. It has been treated as a classic case mainly for the reason that it

has come closer and closer to nature not by giving arguments from the science of

ecology, rather by raising some in depth questions about nature or environment.

Deep ecology thus appears as a holistic approach of nature where humans’ do not

find themselves as the superior biotic agents. This theory does not work on the

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basis of ecological science, but on the basis of self-realization or self-examination

by humans.

Having said this, we still find some problems in deep ecology. It has been stated

that deep ecology is a clear shift away from western anthropocentrism to non-

anthropocentrism. It reads Western anthropocentrism based on a conceptual

division between humankind and nature, where humanity was seen as set apart

from and above. It states men are the measures of everything because men alone

can have the faculty of rational thought on the basis of which they can judge

everything. Thus, men are the higher order or superior beings and men can

dominate and exploit nature according to their desires. We think that deep

ecologists sought to heal this conceptual divide between humankind and nature by

revising the latter as having meaning and value of its own. It acknowledges equal

intrinsic value to all natural communities. Intrinsic value or inherent value is not

something that has been given; rather it is possessed as an end in itself. This

standpoint of deep ecology actually nullifies the division between men and nature,

raising serious questions about humans’ interference in nature. This position of

deep ecology has been challenged by eco-feminists. For them, deep ecologists fail

to understand the political roots of the human/nature divide in the real sense of the

term. This divide, according to the Eco-feminists, is part of a wider framework of

the dualistic thinking that serves to naturalize and legitimate political oppression

generally. Eco-feminism states that the domination of nature is ideologically

inextricable from the domination of human by human, particularly of women by

men. Thus, feminists find a dualistic thinking as the core dichotomy, namely,

reason/nature dichotomy. It is an interrelated core and expanding system of

dichotomies based on mind/body dualism, Spirit/matter dualism, subject/object

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dualism, human/nature dualism, culture/nature dualism, reason/emotion dualism,

science/superstition dualism, civilized/primitive dualism, colonizer/colonized,

mental/manual and production/reproduction dualism. These pairs of terms are

dualistic insofar as they are construed as logically disjunctive and one is

systematically ranked over the other. All these relations reflected through pairs are

instrumental in nature. According to the Eco-feminists, they are instrumental in

the society and it would really be hard to overlook them. All these are interlinked

and it would be very difficult to ignore. The upshot of this kind of analysis is that

since the ideology which justifies the domination of nature by humankind is only

a subset of a much more comprehensive ideology of domination, the latter

ideology must be dominated before anthropocentric thinking can be eliminated.

Eco-feminists then assert that the task of changing the thinking that underlies the

environment crisis turns out to be far greater and more complex than deep

ecologists envisaged. It entails overturning the entire ideology of domination that

pervades the political life of contemporary Western civilization. Thus, eco-

feminists in some sense or other are of the opinion that the domination and

subjugation of one species by another is an inevitable practice within the realm of

environment.

However, deep ecologists such as Warwick Fox and others have attempted to

represent the domination of nature by humankind as the prototypical form of

domination on which further political forms of domination rest. In patriarchies the

domination of women will be justified by their association with nature. Fox calls it

colonial regimes where indigenous peoples will be assimilated with nature while

the colonizers will be taken to exemplify humanness. In such a case the liberation

of nature can be accomplished in isolation from them. Deep ecologists thus

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suggest that arguments attempting to prioritize the domination of nature are

ultimately no more persuasive than earlier eco-feminist arguments prioritizing the

domination of women. We think there is no way of deciding, either historically or

logically, which was the prototypical form of domination. Even Plumwood’s

analysis of dualism as a comprehensive and holistic ideology of domination

sidesteps the reductionist issue. However, like eco-feminists, social ecologists

equally favor humans’ domination over nature as they think that human

domination of the natural world is an extension of habits of domination within

society. For them, if the psychology of domination prevailing in the society in the

form or name of anthropocentrism is to be rooted out, all forms of social hierarchy

will have to be eliminated. Society under the womb of anthropocentrism, has

portrayed various forms of hierarchy. This includes not only economic

hierarchies, but hierarchies based on other social variables, such as, gender, age,

race, birth, and expertise. In the regime of anthropocentrism, domination and

subjugation is an all-round practice. Thus,, while envisaging a society is which

domination is eliminated at every level of life, private as well as public, social

ecologists appeal to anarchist principles of social organization, emphasizing

human scale, communities, consensual and participatory decision-making

procedures, all of which foster the autonomy and self-directedness of individuals.

Eventually, it enables cycles of domination and subjugation to be broken. Thus,

the relevance of domination comes only when societies are predicated to the

dualistic ideologies of higher and lower. Otherwise, the concept of domination

simply does not arise. Murray Bookchin, the originator of social ecology, explains

at length why a non-hierarchical society will necessarily be an ecological one.

Deep ecology banks on self-realization and interestingly, political hierarchies

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obstruct the self-realization of the individual. It states that we cannot realize our

true human potential when we are in thrall to the will of others, i.e., when we are

in conflict with the will of others. Our true human potential is, according to

Bookchin, a function of our place in nature. In this model, it does not make sense

to say that we are an integral part of nature. The problem of deep ecology

movement perhaps is that it attempts to synthesis everything theoretically and

conceptually which is not the reality in practice. Social ecology thinks the other

way round. It affirms that humans are deeply related with others and there is

nothing wrong to assume it. But what is absolutely implausible to think that there

is no difference between humans and non-humans at the level of self-realization.

Bookchin thus denies deep ecology movement based on the principle that human

beings are simply part and parcel of nature. Humans cannot be regarded as

ordinary members of the biotic community. Nor it can be right to assume that

humans in anthropocentric terms as essentially apart from and above nature.

According to Bookchin both are wrong. For him humanity has evolved out of, and

remains inextricably continuous with the non-human world, but is no longer part

of it in just the same way that other species is. Of course humans may think by

their own that they are integral part of nature, but that does not make sense to

develop a theory based in line of this assumption. In this regard Bookchin

distinguishes between first nature, i.e., the non-human component and the second

nature, i.e., the human component.

Thus, social ecologists unlike deep ecologists adhere to the view that an

ecological way of life involves not turning away from society but rather a deeper

participation in society. Deep ecology does not refer to one specific and

systematic philosophy; it refers to an assortment of philosophical and activist

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approaches to ecological issues that share some fundamental ecocentric and non-

anthropocentric assumptions. Many would say that deep ecology as a theory is

extremely abstract and vague on issues life self-realization and intrinsic or

inherent worth and it might be rejected by deep ecologists who are more inclined

towards political activism. The ambiguity can itself be ground for criticism. Many

criticize the deep ecology movement as an empty vessel that makes too much

noise. For them in a real sense deep ecology movement based on self-realization is

an idle theory and it does not work in environmental ethics. It is abstruse and

metaphysical and as a result of that it does not match with environmental ethics.

Environmental ethics, being a wing of applied ethics, cannot address anything that

has a metaphysical foundation. The deep ecology perception witnessing in

Heraclitus, Spinoza, Whitehead, Gandhi, Buddhism, Native American cultures

become unintelligible. The Deep ecological perception that humans are no better

than other living things is guilty of great environmental malevolence. Deep

ecology denies the moral priority of humans and it has been criticized by many

classical and traditional ethicists. The real problem with deep ecology is that it has

over-generalized in its critique of human centeredness, anthropocentrism, and the

dominant world views. It would be wrong to assume and generalize that humans

in general are responsible for environmental degradation. Many humans are not

part of the dominance. Thus, deep ecologists are too broad in their critique and

thus overly broad in their program. Having said this, we can still say that the deep

ecology movement brings a dimensional change to the approach of environmental

ethics. It addresses how non-anthropocentrism is possible in environmental ethics.

We assert that deep ecology represents a systematic account of environmental

ethics that is both eco-centric and non-anthropocentric in nature. It requires us to

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understand that the environmental issues are not simply ethical issues.

Environmental issues are fundamental questions of philosophy including

questions of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and political philosophy.

***

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