Case 3

Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Naess and the Progress of Ecophilosophy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), eds. Nina Witoszek and Andrew Brennan.

In his chapter, "Deep ecology: A New Philosophy for our Times," Warwick Fox draws on Arne Naess's 1972 distinction between "shallow" and "deep" ecology." Shallow ecology views humans as separate from their environment and as the source for all value, ascribing only instrumental value to the non-human world. On the other hand, deep ecology favors a relational, total field image, in which organisms are viewed "as knots in the biospherical net of field of intrinsic relations." Deep ecology strives to be non-anthropocentric by seeing humans as one particular strand in the web of life. The central intuition of deep ecology is the idea that there is no firm ontological divide between the human and non-human realms. Deep ecology begins with unity, not dualism. (Pp. 153-157)