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Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche As an Environmental Thinker

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Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche As an Environmental Thinker University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2016 Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche as an Environmental Thinker Andrew Nolan Hatley University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Hatley, Andrew Nolan, "Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche as an Environmental Thinker. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2016. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3700 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Andrew Nolan Hatley entitled "Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche as an Environmental Thinker." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy. John Nolt, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: J. Clerk Shaw, Markus Kohl, Adrian Del Caro Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Anthropocentrism and the Long-Term: Nietzsche as an Environmental Thinker A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Andrew Nolan Hatley May 2016 ABSTRACT Nietzsche has been advanced as an authoritative support for nearly every political aim since his death in 1900. Recent work has focused on his potential to contribute to environmental ethics. I defend the view that Nietzsche can contribute to both environmental ethics and aesthetics, and moreover, that his philosophy cannot be fully understood without the conceptual resources of environmental philosophy. Nietzsche’s critique of morality and positive ethical views cannot be understood independent of conceptual distinctions of anthropocentrism and topics such as future generations and biocentric discussions of axiology. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature emerges from his rejection of both metaphysical and axiological anthropocentrism and he advances a long-term ethical outlook for the future of humanity as a species understood as integrated within his overall conception and evaluation of nature. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I AN ENVIRONMENTAL NIETZSCHE? 1 Introduction 1 The Debate on Nietzsche’s Environmental Thought 2 Conclusion and a Sketch of Chapters 2 and 3 70 II NIETZSCHE’S VIEWS ON NATURE AND REALITY 73 The Issues 73 A Brief Summary of the Major Components in the Chronological Development of Nietzsche’s Views on Nature and Reality 77 Nietzsche’s “Task” 82 Der Wille zur Macht 90 Revisiting the Issues 103 III NIETZSCHE’S VIEWS ON VALUES AND MORALITY CONCERNING THE DISTANT FUTURE AND BEYOND THE HUMAN SPECIES 107 The Issues 107 Nietzsche’s Early Environmental Ethic 110 Nietzsche’s Long-Term Environmental Thought during the Middle Period 126 Nietzsche’s Later Thought 173 Revisiting the Issues 198 iii IV CONCLUSION: AN ENVIRONMENTAL NIETZSCHE 203 Interpreting Nietzsche with the Conceptual Resources of Environmental Philosophy 203 Nietzsche’s Potential Contributions to Future Environmental Philosophy 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 214 VITA 225 iv Chapter 1: An Environmental Nietzsche?1 “One should conserve evil just as one conserves the woods. It is true that the earth became warmer through the thinning and clear cutting of the woods -- --“ -- (translated by Adrian Del Caro, and a special thanks to him for pointing out this fragment from the Nachlass) KSA 10. [5]38 -- I. Introduction Philosophical analysis of the relation of Nietzsche to environmental philosophy began in earnest in 1991 with the publication of Max Hallman’s article “Nietzsche’s Environmental Ethics.” In this article Hallman attempted to challenge Martin Heidegger’s infamous interpretation of Nietzsche concerning what Nietzsche thought about the environment. This essay called for interpretative work that would exonerate Nietzsche from the Heideggerian 1 Please note the following abbreviations for Nietzsche’s principal published works, and those explicitly intended by Nietzsche for publication, presented here in chronological order. BT= The Birth of Tragedy UM= Untimely Meditations HAH= Human, All Too Human (including the first part of volume two “Assorted Opinions and Maxims”) WS= The Wanderer and His Shadow (the distinctive second part of volume two of HAH) D= Daybreak, Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality GS= The Gay Science TSZ= Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None BGE= Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future GM= On the Genealogy of Morality TI= Twilight of the Idols AC= The Antichrist EH= Ecce Homo 1 charge that Nietzsche endorses or implies a position that might promote the human species’ technological mastery of the Earth. Hallman did not offer a completely convincing picture of Nietzsche but he did get something right that still informs the reception of Nietzsche. The pervasiveness of the Heideggerian interpretation of Nietzsche misled Nietzsche scholars concerning Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature and his critique of anthropocentrism, and so has perhaps fenced off a fruitful source of substantive reflection for environmental philosophers. In what follows I argue that this line of interpretation warrants serious attention by both Nietzsche scholars and environmental philosophers. Nietzsche qualifies as an environmental thinker even if he philosophized before the explosion of knowledge in earth science concerning the crises future living creatures now face because of the human species’ industrial revolution and he develops a philosophy of nature that merits analysis and consideration. First, I give a brief chronological survey of the existing literature on this issue. Next, I examine each of the major contributions individually in more detail. Finally, I note the significant questions that the literature raises and outline my interpretative answers to these questions in chapters 2 and 3, respectively. II. The Debate on Nietzsche's Environmental Thought First, what makes a philosopher an environmental thinker? In the broadest sense, within contemporary philosophy, the philosopher must make a substantive contribution to the content or 2 understanding of either environmental ethics or environmental aesthetics. The following definitions offer adequately precise meanings of these disciplines: Environmental Ethics: the attempt to expand moral thinking and action in two directions: beyond the human species and into the distant future.2 (Some positions in ethics only imply concern for the “near-term,” i.e. the present generation or subsequent generations extending roughly about the length of a human lifetime. Other positions extend consideration beyond merely the next few generations. These positions concern the distant future, and so constitute “long-term” positions.3) Environmental Aesthetics: the study of the aesthetic appreciation of the natural world as well as human-constructed environments, and the aesthetic experiences of everyday life.4 The literature primarily focuses on what contribution Nietzsche does or does not make to environmental ethics, as does my account. Nonetheless, I conclude at the end of the dissertation that Nietzsche can make contributions to both disciplines. A thumbnail sketch of the chronological development of this literature follows below. I then organize the respective positions roughly by the extent to which their defenders argue that Nietzsche either evinces acceptance of an anthropomorphized conception of reality attended by an anthropocentric theory of values compatible with environmental degradation, or inversely, that Nietzsche actually criticizes anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism and legislates a deep 2 Nolt (2015), 251 3 Nolt (2015), 254 4 I give this as a composite definition based on the most recent publications giving an overview of the field as found both in the multi-authored volume Environmental Aesthetics: Crossing Divides and Breaking Ground (2014) and “Environmental Aesthetics” from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 3 concern for the values in the world beyond the human species. Next, I critically evaluate their arguments in detail. Nearly every scholar so far who has written on the relationship of Nietzsche to environmental philosophy addresses to what extent Nietzsche either exemplifies or commits to either anthropocentrism or non-anthropocentrism, i.e. manifestations of human-centeredness or manifestations to the contrary. Unfortunately, none of this literature adequately distinguishes the manifold range of meanings involved in this dichotomy. In ethics, in particular, an environmental philosopher must distinguish between the presence or absence of human- centeredness both as regards to conceptions of value and who or what counts as a part of a moral reference group, i.e. who or what receives moral consideration. When all juxtaposed together, the definitions of these positions follow as such. Axiological Anthropocentrism: the idea that things have value only for
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