MAJOR WESTERN VIEWS OF NATURE

Western culture has developed a number of different views of nature and of the relationship
between humans and nature. Below are very brief synopses of some of the major views.

THE BIBLE: THE AMBIGUITIES OF CREATION IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

The Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament” in Christianity) is a rich source of quite divergent views
about nature, the relationship of humans to the natural world, and the value and sacrality of the earth. We
can oversimplify by highlighting two main views concerning nature and our relationship to it.

1. Dominion. On the one hand, the Bible presents God as transcendent of the created world, with ultimate
sacred reality and value not part of this world. Humans are the only part of creation characterized by the
image of God and we are given dominion over the natural world. The natural world is for us to use, and it
can become a distraction from the higher reality of Heaven. Such views have been used as a support for
an other-worldly focus that devalues the natural world, as well as a justification for a secularized view of
nature as merely a resource for our exploitation. This perspective has helped justify environmentally
destructive practices and a sense of human alienation from the natural world.

2. Stewardship. On the other hand, God made creation and called it good (Genesis). Creation manifests
God’s glory and is alive and responsive to God (Psalms). God cares for all of creation, which is God’s,
not the possession of humans (Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Revelations). And humans are a creature of
God along with all other species. Recent “creation-centered” theologians have reinterpreted the tradition
by emphasizing the second view. In their view, humans are indeed a special part of creation, as the ones
God has entrused with the responsibility to care for and sustain creation.

THE GREEKS: TRANSCENDENTAL DUALISM

Ancient Greek philosophy, primarily Plato and Aristotle, has been the foundation for most
Western European philosophical ideas and approaches. Plato was a strong transcendental dualist. In
terms of metaphysics, this changing, phenomenal world is separate from another divine, eternal realm of
Ideas or Forms. The natural world has less reality and less value than the transcendent world. Aristotle’s
metaphysics is less dualistic, yet he believed there was a transcendent realm with an Unmoved Mover that
animates matter, directs the changes that occur, and creates order in the world. Later Neo-Platonism took
a more dualistic view, emphasizing the value and reality of the transcendent and devaluing the natural
world.

The Greeks also established a dualistic view of human nature, dividing our psychology into
reason, emotion, and will, with reason that which should control the others. Similarly there was a strong
tendency to separate mind and body, with mind ideally in charge. In fact, reason is what allows us to
comprehend true reality and the transcendent realm. Thus, transcendental dualism is found here too:
reason is “above” the emotions and body, which are “earthly,” and reason transcends our particular
contexts in the search for eternal truths. In this way, classical Greek epistemology is dualistic,
distinguishing a “lower” knowledge about particular, concrete, and shifting context and “higher”
knowledge of abstract, universal, and eternal truths.

The transcendental dualism also related to conceptions of the relation between humans and nature
and between male and female. Aristotle summarizes several aspects in the following statement: “It is
clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is
natural and expedient; whereas equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful. The same
holds good of animals in relation to men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame
animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by
nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of

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necessity, extends to all mankind. (Politics, bk. 1, chap. 5)

EARLY PROTESTANTISM: A FALLEN WORLD: NATURE AS DISORDER

Probably the most negative view of the natural world is associated with Calvinism (a branch of
Protestantism) and the early period of Puritanism. It combines the transcendental dualism of Platonism
with a biblical sense of the Fall from Garden of Eden. The expulsion of Adam and Eve was not simply
their individual fall from grace; all of Creation fell with them. In this view, nature is a dangerous and even
demonic wasteland. At best it is a place of trial like the biblical wilderness, where spiritual commitment
is tested and, hopefully, strengthened. But primarily, nature is seen as forbidding in the extreme and
antithetical to what is properly human and spiritual. The American Pilgrim William Bradford saw nothing
“but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men” and the Puritan John Cotton
spoke of nature as “a wild field where all manner of unclean and wild beasts live and feed.”

This wilderness is dangerous to humans, a place where death is imminent. It is wild, in the sense
of lacking order, stability, or control. It thus is also unintelligible: we cannot understand any structure or
pattern or design. It is contaminated by the biblical Fall and by sin, the antithesis of the Garden of Eden.
As such it is not only devoid of value, it is spiritually dangerous as well.

Given this view of nature as wilderness, the ideal became a garden. Wilderness needed to be
conquered and transformed into a human constructed and ordered realm of nature, a new Eden. The
garden has both rational and spiritual order, and thus is understandable, controllable, and has religious
value. Those who live in the garden live in the light of reason, order, and spiritual truth. Outside is
danger, chaos, and waste. Some contemporary radical ecological thinkers reverse this picture, seeing
wilderness as inherently orderly and human society as disorderly; we have fallen from an Edenic
wilderness to the evil of modern civilization which is destroying the last vestiges of the nature’s garden.

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION: MECHANISM: NATURE AS MACHINE

Mechanism is a view of nature that developed in the seventeenth century with the scientific
revolution and associated with Bacon and Descartes as well as the major scientists of this period as well
as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Nature was seen as inert, energyless matter moved by an
externally created framework, like a clock. The astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) said, "My aim is
to show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but to a clockwork." Originally
this clock was wound up by God, who has allowed his clockwork creation to run on its own (this view is
called “deism”). Eventually the notions of a divine creation and higher purpose were dropped, and the
natural world was seen as simply a machine for our use. Carolyn Merchant has called this the “death of
nature” and considers it “the most far-reaching effect of the scientific revolution.”

The purpose of science was to establish and extend human dominion over the universe. Rene
Descartes (1596-1650) argued that "(my discoveries) have satisfied me that it is possible to reach knowledge
that will be of much utility in this life; and that instead of the speculative philosophy now taught in the
schools we can find a practical one, by which, knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the
heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us, as well as we now understand the different skills of our
workers, we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves
masters and possessors of nature."

Nature thus is a functioning system, but has no real vitality in itself: it is given “life” by the system
imposed on it. In contrast to the “nature as wilderness” view, nature is seen as orderly. This order comes,
however, not from the inherent movements of nature but because an external agent has created a system that
makes it work that way. Its parts are not intrinsically linked to each other but are separate and independent
objects that have been placed artificially into the machine’s system; relationships are secondary and
accidental to the identity of the parts. The individual parts have no intrinsic value, only their efficient

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functioning does; each part is thus replaceable as long it keeps the machine working. Nature as a whole
also lack intrinsic value; its value is being an environment for humans. And humans (their self, soul, and
mind at least) are separate from this machine.

Today few explicitly think in terms of the nature as a clock or animals as machines. Yet some of
the key notions of mechanism remain strong today, including in the common sense view of the world and in
political discussions: the goal of science as mastery of the natural world; nature as essentially inert and
consisting of interchangeable parts whose value is found only in its role in the system (thus developers are
allowed to “replace” a natural wetland by an artificially created one); the human self identified with the
mind or soul; animals as mere objects for scientific or technological experiment; order as something
imposed on nature. Be attentive to these views in day-to-day discussions and political decision-making.
Needless to say, contemporary environmental writers tend to reject this mechanical view as inaccurate,
arrogant, and destructive. However, the emphasis on the order of nature is something that has traditionally
characterized ecological thought.

ROMANTICISM: NATURE AS DIVINE BEAUTY

Romanticism is an intellectual movement that was prominent in Europe and the United States
from 1750 to 1870, and it remains an important part of modern views of nature and especially
contemporary ecological thought (as well as interest in Asian religions).

Romanticism gives great attention to the natural world and places high value on nature. The
beauty of nature is emphasized, and unspoiled nature is especially prized. There is a strong sense of the
spirituality of the earth. Nature is infused with the divine. It is not merely a book of divine symbols but
has a spiritual presence. In this it is related to the organicist view. This spiritualization of nature often had
a transcendental dimension, with nature pointing to the Creator and a transcendental divine – in a sense a
combination of the organicism and nature-as-book views. But in some romantic writings, one can
recognize a view of nature itself as the divine, linking it to the heretical tradition of pantheism, where
God is located in nature, rather than in some transcendent reality.

As a result of the emphasis on the beauty and spirituality of nature, nature tended to be seen as an
object of aesthetic and religious contemplation. (Some Native American writers have criticized
romanticism for making nature an object of perception rather than living medium for all of human life.)
The individualism characteristic of romanticism led to an emphasis on the solitary individual’s
encounter with nature and spirit. In this encounter, Romanticism tends to value emotion more than logic,
intuition and mystical communion more than reason, poetic imagination more than science, direct
experience more than intellectual apprehension. There is also a tendency to prefer spontaneity more than
rational will.

CONSERVATIONISM: NATURE AS RESOURCE

“Conservationism” is often used as a general term for any approach that seeks to conserve the
earth’s resources. The basic perspective here involves a long-term view of preserving natural resources
rather than mere short-term exploitation. In this sense of the term, virtually any environmental thinker or
activist is a conservationist. But another, narrower meaning of the term refers to one approach to
conserving resources, based on a particular philosophical and political view.

Conservationism as a movement began in Europe in the eighteenth century and is indebted to the
rational search for order, progress, and material well-being in the Enlightenment. It was championed in
the United States by Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), the “father of American forestry” and the nation’s first
Chief Forester under Theodore Roosevelt. For Pinchot and “progressive conservationism” in general,
nature was primarily a set of resources for human use. Pinchot argued that there are three main options
open to us: nature could be left unused and thus wasted; it could be ruthlessly exploited and used up,

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leaving nothing for future generations; or it could be managed for greater efficiency and long-term
productivity. Conservationism saw the third option as necessary for economic prosperity and as the only
moral stance. Associated with this agricultural approach to conserving resources was a negative attitude
toward animal predators such as the wolf or grizzly bear. Just as there were “predatory capitalists” that
should be curtailed in the national economy (a major concern of Roosevelt’s economic policies), large
animal predators needed to be exterminated from nature’s economy. Nature could and should be remade
into an orderly and efficient system.

Conservationism has some similarities with the nature-as-wilderness view because it tends to see
nature as lacking value unless humans control it, which is our duty. However, in tone it is in line with the
rationalistic views associated with the Enlightenment. In contemporary ecological philosophy,
conservationism is often criticized for being anthropocentric in its conception of nature, granting only
instrumental value to the natural world. Nature is not a locus of spiritual reality or part of our community
but merely resources for our use. It is seen as arrogant in its claim that humans can and should make
nature more efficient than it is by itself. The drive to control nature is considered an outgrowth of the
colonial mindset. And it represents and reinforces the dominant cultural worldview that separates us from
the natural world.

PRESERVATIONISM: WILD NATURE LEFT ALONE

At the same time Pinchot was espousing conservationism, John Muir (nature writer born in
Wisconsin and founder of the Sierra Club) was presenting an alternative: preservationism. In this view,
nature is seen as having intrinsic value (value in itself, separate from any use it may have for humans).
Nature was not a mere resource for our use, but a living system that deserves to fulfill its natural
development. For Muir and others like him, nature is sacred: “God’s wilderness.” Clear-cutting a forest is
like bulldozing a great Cathedral.

The ideal here is to leave nature alone. We may want to enter it (by foot), but we should not
disturb it. In the 20th century, this view evolved into the “wilderness ideal,” with the term wilderness
having a positive connotation of beauty and vitality. Eventually this ideal was put into law with the
Wilderness Act of 1964, which set aside areas where people could not log, mine, build resorts, drive cars,
or live.

This view tends to assume that humans inevitably degrade and disrupt nature, without we need to
keep humans out of nature except in a temporary and minimalist way: “Take only pictures; leave only
footprints.” “Nature knows best, so leave it alone.” While this view involves a high valuation of nature, it
has the problem of emphasizing the dichotomy between nature and culture, between the natural world and
humans.

CLASSICAL ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGY: NATURE AS INTEGRATED ORDER

As the field of ecology developed in the 20th century, what we can call the “classical ecosystem”
view of nature became the dominant view. Perhaps most fully presented by the ecologist Eugene Odum,
the focus was on the ecosystem as an integrated system in which various plants and animals co-existed in
mutual interdependence along with the abiotic elements of soil, water, air, etc.

In this view, ecosystems are primarily characterized by symbiotic interdependence that creates
harmony and stability. Nature maintains a dynamic equilibrium. Even the predator-prey relationship was
seen as symbiotic: the fox and the hare co-exist in balance, and if we remove the predator, the system will
become unstable, with the hares undergoing a population explosion that result in environmental
degradation, which leads to massive die-off. Even the changes that a forest goes through are orderly: a
predictable succession of different types of communities that culminates in a climax forest. (For instance,
in Wisconsin after a forest fire, there will first be a grassland, then shrubs, then pines, and finally a mixed

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hardwood forest.)

POSTMODERNISM: NATURE AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

This is a complex school of thought that has developed in the last few decades. The “modern” in
postmodernism refers to the Enlightenment. It is a diverse movement that is critical of the basic
principles, theoretical implications, and social effects of the Enlightenment. For a postmodern, the
“Enlightenment Project” has many problems. A central problem is its rationalism, which treats the world
as a mere object to which we are not related. Rationalism also devalues other forms of awareness,
including those in ecological thought and activism.

Postmoderns emphasize the close relationship between Colonialism and the Enlightenment. The
Enlightenment’s claim of the superiority of reason (and the European superiority in being rational)
bolstered claims of the superiority of European culture. Its attempt to find one universal truth reinforced
the belief that it is appropriate for European nations to impose their culture on others. Its treatment of
nature as merely a resource to be efficiently used supported the devastating exploitation of nature in other
areas of the globe.

Postmodernism also tends to criticize conceptions of singularity and order. For instance, it
rejects the traditional idea that there is one “Western culture.” There are many cultural traditions in the
West; what is promoted as “Western culture” is the culture of the dominant group of elite white males.
Similarly, it has criticized the notion that there is some “original, pristine” nature we can conserve or go
back to; nature is always changing, and has been influenced by indigenous humans for millennia. This has
been taken to an extreme view that since there is no standard of pristine nature by which to judge actions,
we can do whatever we want with the world.

It also has criticized the conventional idea of succession and climax in nature. Plant communities
that are supposedly at “climax” are in fact filled with patches of different mini-communities and
ecosystems are always changing. And after a major disturbance, an area may go through a number of
different transitions and produce a different result than the previous “climax” community.

Postmodernism (in the form of “social constructionism”) also rejects the idea that our
perceptions and conceptions are transparent representations of a simple, universal, given “world out
there.” Different cultures conceive of and experience nature in various ways. This has been taken to an
extreme view that “nature” per se does not exist in any real sense, so we do not need to be concerned
about preserving it.

Many environmental thinkers have accepted some of the insights of postmodernism, including
criticisms of the Enlightenment, but reject those views that deny the reality of nature and devalue it.

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REVIEW

In reviewing these different views, note how the West has created several dichotomies:
 Dominion versus stewardship
 Transcendental dualism versus organic view
 Wilderness as disorder (early Protestantism) versus wilderness as ideal (preservationism)
 Nature as machine (mechanism) versus nature as divine beauty (romanticism)
 Conservationism versus preservationism
 Nature as disorder versus nature as integrated order (classical ecosystem theory)

Note also the two main trends: devaluing nature or highly valuing it.
Low value:
• Dominion
• Transcendental dualism
• Nature as disorder
• Nature as machine (mechanism)
• Nature as resource (conservationism)
• Nature as social construction (postmodernism)
High value
• Stewardship
• Nature as divine beauty (romanticism)
• Nature as divine wilderness (preservationism)
• Nature as integrated order (classical ecosystem theory)