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March 20, 2001 Marty Kheels: "Women Animals and Nature: Eco-feminist Reflections" Marty Kheel has been in animal advocacy for over 20 years. In 1982, she co-founded "Feminists for Animal Rights" (http://www.farinc.org). (Just FYI, this organization is looking for a national director if you know of anyone). Martys focus has been on redressing the treatment of animals within Environmental Theory and the Environmental Movement. She has worked to uncover the emotional basis and presuppositions of the decisions that we make viz. a viz. animals. In order to discuss Eco-feminist ethics we must first explore the tenets of a wholistic ethic. The underlying basis of wholistic ethics is that the underlying roots of problems must be addressed, and not just the symptoms. The four components of a wholistic ethic are: 1. Animals have a central place (animals qua individual beings). 2. The dualisms between reason and emotion, etc. are dissolved. 3. The notion of appropriate care. 4. Things can only be understood in a contextual framework. 5. There must be a practice associated with the ethic. We then went on to discuss these components in more detail. 1. The central role of animals as individual beings There is a tendency in the environmental movement to focus on the species and not individual animals. The interest is often in "life-forms" and not individual expressions of life or individual animal rights. A wholistic ethic focuses on individual animals. This tiger is important, not just "tigers are important." 2. The dualisms between reason and emotion Many systems of ethics are viewed as ethical because there is a conquest of emotion by reason. This is a basic fallacy that is present in many ethical systems. Reason is thought to be that which makes us "better than" animals. The conservation movement is based upon this fallacy. Much of the conservation movement has been led by hunters and thus has a "sporting model" of ethics. The process of hunting seems orderly and reasonable because there is conservation attached to it. Sport hunting is (perhaps) thought of as a way to channel primal passions into a sophisticated outlet. Sport hunting is also seen as a way of linking (men) with past generations. It is a way to get in touch with our "primal roots," much like sacrifice. A wholistic ethic would argue that there is no dualism between reason and emotion. In fact, our "reasonable" decisions are often made out of emotional responses. The desire to separate humans from animals arises (in part) from our fear to admit that we are animals too; that we are just as "emotional" as other animals. A wholistic ethic would move away from the tendency to create a "reasonable" space for human beings, set apart from the rest of nature and the world. 3. Appropriate Care Part of a wholistic approach to ethics is deciphering when "care" is appropriate. For instance, battered women dont need to care for the beater but for themselves. The point is to assess the situation, the conditions, and determine those actions that nourish care. This means that you cant just treat the symptoms of any given event; rather, you must understand the overall context and then try to act in a way that will be caring for those agents that are involved. 4. Contextual Framework Again, the point is to look at the whole situation and not just specific effects/events. The question is not whether or not rape is Right or Wrong, but to construct a world where rape is inconceivable. Patriarchy is (perhaps) the contextual framework that fuels much of our lives these days. This is the context, the underlying assumption/world-view that must be changed and addressed so that we can create a context in which things like environmental degradation and gross economic inequity do not exist, a context in which care is more forthcoming. 5. Practice This component simply refers to the fact that it is very important that we embody the ideals of our framework. If I am one human being among many other human beings, many other animals, and many other individual beings on the planet, then I must find a practice that resonates with these beliefs. Vegetarianism, Veganism, etc., might be examples of this.This is only a brief summary of our discussion. I am sure that I have left out some seg-ways and comments, but hopefully you will get the basic gist of the discussion.

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