Pastoral, Progressive and Postmodern Ideas in Environmental Political Thought: Restoring Agency to Nature

Abstract

The pastoral and progressive traditions have played an integral role in shaping ideas about nature. Both traditions have contributed to an antidualistic view of the relationship between nature and culture; however, the linguistic turn in political theory appears to limit our relationship to nature to that of a social construction. What has been lost in the social constructionist perspective is the idea of “agency” in nature that was an essential feature of identity, as captured in Hegel’s synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Romantic expressivism. An environmental ethic that restores agency to nature justifies efforts to rehabilitate nature by supporting its capacity for self-healing.