World and Earth: Hannah Arendt and the Human Relationship to Nature

Abstract

In place of traditional approaches in environmental ethics, I suggest an improved approach, with respect to the goal of improving the condition of the natural environment, called ‘world mediation’ through the use of Hannah Arendt's theory of the vita activa. This approach focuses on the relationship between human made worlds and nature, from which a theory of value is suggested. Intrinsic value theory and nature–culture monism are both criticized for an insufficient attention paid toward the human–nature relationship.

Notes

Notes

1 These words should not be taken as support for a view of nature as merely a resource. Rather, I am interested in the fact that nature is a resource for humans, as it is for all living creatures, and this is a fact that must be confronted if our treatment and relationship to nature is to be corrected.

2 The notions of harm and negative effects are themselves very problematic. Natural history is replete with events that we would consider harmful to the environment if done by humans, but when simply natural events, we deem them part of the process of nature. The migration of one species can kill off another, while a cataclysmic event like the one that killed off dinosaurs is another case in point. This point lends credibility to Arendt's understanding of the objectivity of nature, as harm only truly becomes harm when it is the result of beings who can see nature as an object (to be harmed) and suffer from that harm.

3 Consider the incredible rise in the cancer rate along with the explosive rise of the chemical industry.