Mechanism stripped away the organic view’s ethical restraints on nature exploitation

Evidence

The process of mechanizing the world picture removed the controls over environmental exploitation that were an inherent part of the organic view that nature was alive, sensitive, and responsive to human action. Mechanism took over from the magical tradition the concept of the manipulation of matter but divested it of life and vital action. The passivity of matter, externality of motion, and elimination of the female world soul altered the character of cosmology and its associated normative constraints. In the mechanical philosophy, the manipulation of nature ceased to be a matter of individual efforts and became associated with general collaborative social interests that sanctioned the expansion of commercial capitalism. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 480

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The single densest paragraph of the chapter—roots ecofeminist critique in mechanism’s divesting nature of life while simultaneously divorcing manipulation from individual ethics and fusing it to commercial capitalism. Near the thesis core of the whole book.
• XREF: connects to: Enslaving and impoverishing nature is no more tolerable than enslaving humans — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 72; Mechanism removed the moral barrier that had made controlling nature seem impious — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 419; Anthropocentrism frames nature as dead and manipulable, outside ethical responsibility — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 591 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• The machine world view removed ethical scruples against destroying nature #corroborates (0.90) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 852
• Stripping nature of value licensed its exploitation without moral restraint #corroborates (0.85)
• The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation #corroborates (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 761
• The philosophical-scientific worldview blocks environmental ethics from valuing insentient nature #corroborates (0.80)
• Viewing humans as separate from nature enables resource exploitation without conscience. #corroborates (0.80) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1009
• Vitalism’s monistic worldview inherently restrains the exploitation of nature #complicates (0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 933