Ecological selfhood must challenge public instrumentalism, not stay a private practice

Evidence

Although a virtue ethics is usually now exemplified in relations in the private sphere, a private construction of ecological selfhood (for example, as personal ‘care’ or as the Self) does not go far enough. Rather such an ethical commitment should be thought of as a form of resistance to dominant instrumental constructions of public and social life. … Hence ecological selfhood cannot be conceived in terms of the thunderclap of personal conversion to an after-hours religion of earth worship, tacked on to a basically market-orientated conception of social and economic life. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 708

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the earlier critique that deep ecology’s notion of Self is apolitical and individualist — Plumwood rejects the private-conversion model here too. — connects to: Environmental ethics should centre identity, emotion, and particularity — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 700; Reworking human identity beyond exclusion of the feminine is now survival, not justice — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 52; Private and public autonomy must mutually enable each other in a self-stabilizing cycle — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 86 (+1 more)
• SEED: Essay angle for Eco-Justice: ecological identity as systemic resistance to market instrumentalism rather than private earth-worship — refusing the privatisation of environmental virtue.

Broader Connections

• Private and public autonomy must mutually enable each other in a self-stabilizing cycle #expands (0.78) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 86
• Resisting capitalism requires a subjective revolution toward love and unity with nature #corroborates (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 499