Care for particular places and creatures sustains rather than blocks global concern

Evidence

Part of overcoming the influence of dualism in ethics is the dissolution of the false opposition rationalist ethics assumes between particularistic relations of concern and more general moral concern. There can be opposition between particularity and generality of concern, as when concern for particular kin is accompanied by exclusion of others from care or chauvinistic attitudes towards them (Blum 1980:79, 80). But this does not happen automatically. Emphasis on oppositional cases obscures the frequent and important instances in which care for particular others is essential to a more generalised morality. … Special relationships with, care for or empathy with particular aspects of nature as experienced, rather than with nature as abstraction, are essential to provide a depth of concern. Under appropriate conditions, experience of and care and responsibility for particular animals, trees, rivers, places and ecosystems which are known well, are loved and are appropriately connected to the self, enhance rather than hinder a wider, more generalised concern for the global environment. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 709

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off the empirical-grounded/‘healing connection’ theme of the whole reading and the bioregional relatedness notion; bridges directly to Merchant’s and to listening-to-place-as-method. — connects to: Place-based kinship duties anchor indigenous refusal to relocate — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 689; Expanding the self is needless once sacrifice gives way to relationship — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 786; Allowing surroundings to subsist is what turns environment into a lived world (+8 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: particular love of one river/forest grounds, not competes with, broad ecological solidarity — an argument against the ‘univeralism beats parochial care’ assumption in environmental ethics pedagogy.

Broader Connections

• Caring for place and caring for people are mutually dependent #corroborates (0.85) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 607
• Allowing surroundings to subsist is what turns environment into a lived world #expands (0.82)
• Protection by exclusion reflects a worldview that sets humans apart from nature #complicates (0.78) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 572
• Genuine rationality would treat the earth as a sustaining other rather than a resource #expands (0.75) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 741
• Environmentalism needs a worldview shift to relationality, not just policy fixes. #corroborates (0.75) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1036
• Spatial-temporal disconnect makes environmental conservation an abstraction not a necessity #contradicts (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2529
• Protecting endangered places is also a form of protecting one’s own self #complicates (0.72)
• People seek certainty and belonging in natural and historic sites #expands (0.72) — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 156