Enlightenment reason is fundamentally a project of self-preservation through mastery of nature

Evidence

In philosophy, the Distinction, especially in its Is/Ought form, was perhaps the dominating problem in moral thought. As the philosopher Charles Taylor has asserted, “the fact/value split” has become “a dominant theme in our [twentieth] century” and has undergirded “a new understanding and valuation of freedom and dignity.” What needs to be said in addition is that it determined the entirety of our conception of reality, which Taylor appears to subsume under “freedom and dignity.” Powerfully expressed in the Kantian notion of autonomy, freedom ceases to denote God’s omnipotence and becomes instead an expression of man’s own natural powers of reasoning. Human reason becomes the sole arbiter in the project of objectifying the world, of submitting it to its own demands and will, which now have turned relentlessly instrumentalist. The pursuit of happiness, utility, and much else that is subservient to these imperatives—such as preservation of life and protection of private property—become natural rights derivable from the natural order by what is/was seen as far-sighted, calculating reason. Formerly restricted by the power of revelation as defined by the Catholic Church, reason now becomes, like a free market, free and unbound by any restricting consideration or enduring moral principle. It is reason on the loose. Yet, in the very outburst of Enlightenment reason against the absolutism of Church and monarch, precisely in its mighty reaction against such powers that had ruled over it with utterly free absolutism, Enlightenment reason’s distension and extension went the full circle of replicating the very tyranny that caused its rise in the first place, but this time it was not just people who were its subject of rule, but also nature and indeed the world in its entirety. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 182 (#expands, via linked claim)

The ratio which supplants mimesis is not simply its counterpart. It is itself mimesis: mimesis unto death. The subjective spirit which cancels the animation of nature can master a despiritualized nature only by imitating its rigidity and despiritutalizing itself in turn. Imitation enters into the service of domination inasmuch as even man is anthropomorphized for man. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63 (#expands, via linked claim)

History is the negation of Nature. What is only natural is overcome and recreated by the power of Reason. The metaphysical notion that Nature comes to itself in history points to the unconquered limits of Reason. It claims them as historical limits—as a task yet to be accomplished, or rather yet to be undertaken. If Nature is in itself a rational, legitimate object of science, then it is the legitimate object not only of Reason as power but also of Reason as freedom; not only of domination but also of liberation. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 826 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment can be redeemed from blind domination by self-critique; Reason’s apparent triumph over nature is really its obedient subjection to facts — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 45; Bourgeois Enlightenment traded freedom for self-preservation early on (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Enlightenment reason replicated the tyranny it rebelled against, now over nature #expands (0.90) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 182
• Nature is the object of reason as liberation, not only domination #qualifies (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 826
• Rational self-preservation conquers nature only by imitating nature’s own rigidity #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63
• Environmental ethics critiques Enlightenment frameworks while remaining trapped within its rationality #exemplifies (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 360
• Enlightenment’s mastery over nature exceeds anything nature itself threatened humans with. #expands (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 258
• Enlightenment disenchantment makes gratitude toward nature seem irrational #complicates (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 489
• Enlightenment is kind only by confronting reason’s link to domination. #corroborates (0.75)
• The wish to be right stems from self-preservation, which philosophy must break down #expands (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 83