Abstract
Ecofeminist philosophy is a development of feminist philosophy that addresses the intersection of sexism and environmental issues. Technology features frequently in ecofeminist writings, and yet despite being a recurrent theme, technology itself as a phenomenon is rarely directly considered. In this chapter I shall focus upon two ecofeminist philosophers whose consideration of technology moves from the analysis of the individual instance towards a more general account of the nature of technology. The first, Karen Warren, gives technology a central place in her philosophical analysis. However, I shall suggest, her commitment to an instrumental understanding of technology renders her approach problematic. I will then consider the work of Vandana Shiva. Though best known as an environmental activist and radical scientist, I argue that Shiva puts forward a sophisticated technological determinist philosophy of technology that emphasises the role of political and patriarchal interests in technological development and subsequent social and environmental interventions.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The term transformative ecofeminism was coined by Ynestra King to demarcate her position from those of feminists seeking to either affirm or reject the connection between women and nature (1989).
- 3.
Daly’s Gyn/Ecology (1978) is the classic example of such an essentialist position.
- 4.
- 5.
This situation rather belies the accusation occasionally levelled against ecofeminism of being anti-technological. To accuse ecofeminism of being ‘technophobic’, as Carol Stabile (1994) does, is to suggest that ecofeminists in general attribute some universal rebarbative character to technology. However, it is precisely the tendency to analyse features of individual technologies, rather than technology in general, that is the norm.
- 6.
This focus on Warren and Shiva is not meant to suggest that they represent the totality of ecofeminist engagement with the philosophy of technology. Attempts to fuse Heideggerian philosophy with ecofeminist thought represent another potential source for ecofeminist philosophy of technology (Bigwood 1993, Glazebrook 2001, Swer 2008). As does Dinnerstein’s engagement with Mumford’s philosophy of technology (Dinnerstein 1989), or Ariel Salleh’s appropriation of Critical Theory (Salleh 1997).
- 7.
Chris Cuomo suggests that Warren may have drawn this notion of a logic of domination from Adorno and Horkheimer (Cuomo 1998: 126).
- 8.
The term “technological” here is intended to include both technology and science. The deliberate conflation of the two areas is quite common in ecofeminist theory.
- 9.
It should be noted that Mumford and Shiva characterise the consequences of a failure to arrest the growth of capitalist technics and its accompanying mechanistic scientific ideology in somewhat different ways. For Mumford, the main danger lies in the impact that a truly global megatechnics would have on the quality of human life. He argues that humanity faces deprivation by material surfeit, and that if technology is allowed to develop unchecked we face the possible scenario of a life in which all human needs are satisfied artificially and all human development has been arrested. Shiva, by contrast, argues that the development of capitalist technics and its transformations of the natural world through the use of technology, threatens to end life itself, rather than the quality of life. The ecological ramifications of scientific exploitation threaten to directly affect those whose patterns of life are still modeled on the cycles of nature rather than those of the market.
- 10.
The term ‘technological’ is here meant to suggest the Greek techne, rather than the mechanical technological device.
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Swer, G.M. (2019). The Seeds of Violence. Ecofeminism, Technology, and Ecofeminist Philosophy of Technology. In: Loh, J., Coeckelbergh, M. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Technology. Techno:Phil – Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Technikphilosophie, vol 2. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04967-4_13
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