Nathan Kowalsky is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He also teaches philosophy courses for the University of Alberta's Department of Philosophy as an affiliated faculty member. Furthermore, he is Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and, through a secondment agreement, Associate Professor of Science, Technology & Society, both through the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta.
Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countl... more Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countless cultures throughout history -- in fact, it is older than civilization itself. Yet few pursuits continue to be as controversial, for the hunting of prey strikes at the very core of such fundamental questions as death, embodiment, nonhuman life, and morality.
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting The experiences and perspectives of the hunter The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere... more The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given these, how could it be plausible to suggest that hunting today is actually subversive of mainstream social realities, rather than the complete inverse? It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents. The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant. I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the re... more The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between Civilization and the Wild more effectively than Tolkien was able to achieve with the competing Baggins and Took instincts in Bilbo. As such, the Mirkwood Elves present an opportunity for reconciliation between indigenous peoples and Westerners who might otherwise perpetuate the narrative of heroic conquest in their own fairy stories.
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Nov 24, 2017
Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for whi... more Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure evil” that numerous religious traditions have sought to define themselves against and condemn. If the heart of the religious experience is (broadly speaking) the affirmation of all life, then hunting’s deliberate taking of another life might speak of a dark and malevolent delight in killing completely antithetical to the religious impulse. Perhaps this is why the topic of hunting and religion has attracted far less scholarly attention than its provocative subject matter would merit. This tacit foreclosure of the debate is unfortunate, since hunting, like few other subjects, is a challenge to examine and possibly rethink a number of issues that lie at the center of religious thought, such as the relationship between life and death, love and hate, spirit and flesh, dominance and respect, and human and non-human. It is in the effort to correct this scholarly lacuna that the following papers are offered. This collection begins with Nathan Kowalsky’s paper “Predation, Pain and Evil: Anti-Hunting as Theodicy.” In this paper Kowalsky situates the hunting debate within the Christian theological discourse of theodicy and the problem of natural evil. He argues that much of the condemnation of hunting found in the anti-hunting literature functions as a secular theodicy and implicitly rests on an understanding of natural processes, particularly predation, as evil. He therefore asks us to consider whether the
Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunti... more Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone (Nathan Kowalsky). Part I: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter. 1 Taking a Shot: Hunting in the Crosshairs (Jesus Ilundain-Agurruza). 2 But They Can't Shoot Back: What Makes Fair Chase Fair? (Theodore Vitali). 3 A Shot in the Dark: The Dubious Prospects of Environmental Hunting (Lisa Kretz). 4 Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors (Tovar Cerulli). 5 What You Can't Learn from Cartoons: Or, How to go Hunting After Watching Bambi (Gregory A. Clark). Part II: The Hunter's View of the World. 6 Hunting for Meaning: A Glimpse of the Game (Brian Seitz). 7 Getting By with a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to Hounds in English Foxhound Packs (Alison Acton). 8 Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Anishinabe Bush Hunter (Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne). 9 Living with Dead Animals? Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt (Garry Marvin). Part III: Eating Nature Naturally. 10 The Carnivorous Herbivore: Hunting and Culture in Human Evolution (Valerius Geist). 11 The Fear of the Lord: Hunting as if the Boss is Watching (Janina Duerr). 12 Hunting: A Return to Nature? (Roger J. H. King). 13 The Camera or the Gun: Hunting through Different Lenses (Jonathan Parker). 14 Flesh, Death and Tofu: Hunters, Vegetarians and Carnal Knowledge (T.R. Kover). Part IV: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition. 15 The Sacred Pursuit: Reflections on the Literature of Hunting (Roger Scruton). 16 Big Game and Little Sticks: Bow Making and Bow Hunting (Kay Koppedrayer). 17 Going to the Dogs: Savage Longings in Hunting Art (Paula Young Lee). 18 The New Artemis? Women Who Hunt (Debra Merskin). 19 Off the Grid: Rights, Religion and the Rise of the Eco-Gentry (James Carmine). Notes on Contributors.
The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resour... more The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006). Its proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but both Venezuela and Alberta consist mostly of the “unconventional oil” source known as oil sands or tar sands.
Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily a... more Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting with nature. Yet he understands culture to ...
Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countl... more Hunting has been a cornerstone in the artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of countless cultures throughout history -- in fact, it is older than civilization itself. Yet few pursuits continue to be as controversial, for the hunting of prey strikes at the very core of such fundamental questions as death, embodiment, nonhuman life, and morality.
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting The experiences and perspectives of the hunter The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere... more The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given these, how could it be plausible to suggest that hunting today is actually subversive of mainstream social realities, rather than the complete inverse? It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents. The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant. I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the re... more The Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit subvert the broadly agrarian landscape hermeneutics which the rest of Tolkien’s classic book (along with the fantasy genre more generally) reinforces. These Elves represent a healing of the breach between Civilization and the Wild more effectively than Tolkien was able to achieve with the competing Baggins and Took instincts in Bilbo. As such, the Mirkwood Elves present an opportunity for reconciliation between indigenous peoples and Westerners who might otherwise perpetuate the narrative of heroic conquest in their own fairy stories.
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Nov 24, 2017
Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for whi... more Hunting, as one scholar observed, is often seen to be “the perfect type of that pure evil for which metaphysicians have sometimes sought” (Joseph Wood Krutch, quoted in Cartmill, 1993: 228), and one might add “the perfect type of pure evil” that numerous religious traditions have sought to define themselves against and condemn. If the heart of the religious experience is (broadly speaking) the affirmation of all life, then hunting’s deliberate taking of another life might speak of a dark and malevolent delight in killing completely antithetical to the religious impulse. Perhaps this is why the topic of hunting and religion has attracted far less scholarly attention than its provocative subject matter would merit. This tacit foreclosure of the debate is unfortunate, since hunting, like few other subjects, is a challenge to examine and possibly rethink a number of issues that lie at the center of religious thought, such as the relationship between life and death, love and hate, spirit and flesh, dominance and respect, and human and non-human. It is in the effort to correct this scholarly lacuna that the following papers are offered. This collection begins with Nathan Kowalsky’s paper “Predation, Pain and Evil: Anti-Hunting as Theodicy.” In this paper Kowalsky situates the hunting debate within the Christian theological discourse of theodicy and the problem of natural evil. He argues that much of the condemnation of hunting found in the anti-hunting literature functions as a secular theodicy and implicitly rests on an understanding of natural processes, particularly predation, as evil. He therefore asks us to consider whether the
Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunti... more Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone (Nathan Kowalsky). Part I: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter. 1 Taking a Shot: Hunting in the Crosshairs (Jesus Ilundain-Agurruza). 2 But They Can't Shoot Back: What Makes Fair Chase Fair? (Theodore Vitali). 3 A Shot in the Dark: The Dubious Prospects of Environmental Hunting (Lisa Kretz). 4 Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors (Tovar Cerulli). 5 What You Can't Learn from Cartoons: Or, How to go Hunting After Watching Bambi (Gregory A. Clark). Part II: The Hunter's View of the World. 6 Hunting for Meaning: A Glimpse of the Game (Brian Seitz). 7 Getting By with a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to Hounds in English Foxhound Packs (Alison Acton). 8 Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Anishinabe Bush Hunter (Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne). 9 Living with Dead Animals? Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt (Garry Marvin). Part III: Eating Nature Naturally. 10 The Carnivorous Herbivore: Hunting and Culture in Human Evolution (Valerius Geist). 11 The Fear of the Lord: Hunting as if the Boss is Watching (Janina Duerr). 12 Hunting: A Return to Nature? (Roger J. H. King). 13 The Camera or the Gun: Hunting through Different Lenses (Jonathan Parker). 14 Flesh, Death and Tofu: Hunters, Vegetarians and Carnal Knowledge (T.R. Kover). Part IV: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition. 15 The Sacred Pursuit: Reflections on the Literature of Hunting (Roger Scruton). 16 Big Game and Little Sticks: Bow Making and Bow Hunting (Kay Koppedrayer). 17 Going to the Dogs: Savage Longings in Hunting Art (Paula Young Lee). 18 The New Artemis? Women Who Hunt (Debra Merskin). 19 Off the Grid: Rights, Religion and the Rise of the Eco-Gentry (James Carmine). Notes on Contributors.
The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resour... more The Prime Minister of Canada has described the development of Alberta’s unconventional oil resources as “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s great wall, only bigger” (Financial Post 2006). Its proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels are surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, but both Venezuela and Alberta consist mostly of the “unconventional oil” source known as oil sands or tar sands.
Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily a... more Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting with nature. Yet he understands culture to ...
In this chapter, Nathan Kowalsky reconnects the wolf as a symbol for the wild, with some of the t... more In this chapter, Nathan Kowalsky reconnects the wolf as a symbol for the wild, with some of the themes that were developed earlier in this volume. Kowalsky criticizes the idea that cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are hybrids that step outside the binary thinking of humanity vs. nature, and thus offer grounds for a more cosmopolitan and cross-culturally relevant environmental ethic. To the contrary, he argues, the equation of cultural with agricultural landscapes reinforces the very dichotomy it proposes to dissolve. Kowalsky uses Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” to show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates. Kowalsky argues that domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and that recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others.
The Belgian radical environmental group Aardewerk invited me to give a presentation on my researc... more The Belgian radical environmental group Aardewerk invited me to give a presentation on my research, so I quickly invented this title (it's a bit too Star Warsy, perhaps) and combined material from two of my papers on hunting. Not sure how it turned out, but it was fun nonetheless.
Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progres... more Extending ethical considerability to animals consistently takes the form of imperialism: progressing outward from the core of human morality, it incorporates only those animals deemed relevantly similar to humans while rejecting or reforming those lifeforms which are not. I develop an ethic of animal treatment premised on the species difference of undomesticated animals, which has the potential to reunite not only animal and environmental ethics, but environmental and interhuman ethics: each species has evolutionarily specified patterns of behaviour for the proper treatment of members of its own species and members of other species, and vice versa.
“Traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK) is an important aspect of Canadian conservation manageme... more “Traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK) is an important aspect of Canadian conservation management, but the very notion of TEK is controversial. It can be seen as conflicting with empirically-validated conservation science; its incorporation into environmental assessment can be seen as colonialist; some argue that TEK perpetuates the myth of the ecological Indian; others argue that identifying “authenticity” with “tradition” denies indigenous peoples access to modernity. The philosophical issues here are myriad. Does TEK necessarily essentialize indigenous peoples by requiring their identities to be static and rooted in the past? Does viewing indigenous peoples as a counterpart to Western civilization paradoxically denigrate and venerate them as “the Other” and assume a dichotomous framework ignorant of how they actually live? Critics continue to analyze indigeneity in terms of purity and degradation, as if the logic of virginity was not itself an historical and contingent construction of colonialism.
I argue that this fashionable skepticism is as mistaken as the “myths” it seeks to desecrate. Debate rages as to how TEK should or should not be critiqued, but how TEK might critique mainstream Canadian culture is conveniently neglected. Indigenous perspectives are thus in a bind: scholars criticize them or defend them from criticism, and yet neutralize their ability to criticize the status quo. The uncritical result is tacitly affirmative “hybridity,” social acquiescence to modernity as a fait accompli. Skeptics thus presuppose that there can be no norms to which cultures are beholden, meanwhile contradicting their own relativism when interpreting tradition through the lens of Enlightenment progressivism.
By contrast, a model for understanding how appropriating indigenous knowledge can be appropriate is needed. Though it is usually summarily dismissed, I suggest the radical environmental philosophy known as “primitivism” to this end: the use of contemporary, historic and pre-historic hunting-gathering as grounds for criticism of contemporary Canadian life. The paradoxes of TEK are manufactured by the agrarian logics which primitivism calls into question. Understanding TEK as social critique may illumine not only the failings of so-called civilization, but also many of the struggles faced by aboriginals in Canada.
Extending moral considerability to animals seems like a natural development of the expanding circ... more Extending moral considerability to animals seems like a natural development of the expanding circle of human sympathy, moral concern and even the attainment of a higher consciousness. Indeed, it is very hard to justify the ill-treatment of animals, although much systematic cruelty continues on behind closed doors in even those nations that pride themselves on the supposed superiority of their civilization. When animal welfare and animal rights have come under criticism for distracting us from pressing issues of human injustice, the response has often been that the humane treatment of animals goes hand in hand with the respect for human rights. There are no exclusive distinctions to be made within the larger family of moral progress. I accept that animals are indeed morally considerable, but not in the way assumed by progressives. Moral extensionism is expansionistic: extending out from the core of human morality, it incorporates whatever it can under its protection in the name of development and justice while rejecting or reforming what it cannot. Not only is this disturbingly reminiscent of paternalism and colonialism, it also replicates the very anthropocentrism it seeks to avoid. Starting with the 30-year-old split between environmental ethics and humane ethics, I will sketch out an ethic of animal treatment which is premised on the independence and difference of undomesticated animals, rather than on their similarity to urbanized human beings. Indeed, we would do well to consider ourselves in like manner.
Cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are often seen as hybrids that step ou... more Cultural landscapes such as the rural landscapes of Europe are often seen as hybrids that step outside the binary thinking of humanity vs. nature at the heart of the received notion of wilderness, and capable of providing grounds for a more cosmopolitan and cross-culturally relevant environmental ethic. To the contrary, I will argue that the concept of cultured landscape as it is currently used reinforces the very dichotomy it proposes to dissolve. Using Prokofiev’s musical symphony for children “Peter and the Wolf” as a point of departure, I will show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. This is seen in the threat of the wolf who invades the hybrid zone of the meadow, and in the heroic cleverness of Peter who subdues the wolf without succumbing to wild savagery as do the foolish and fearful hunters. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates. Prokofiev’s archetypes are all too familiar: the forest is as uncultured as the hunters who roam there. But if the social construction of wilderness tells us anything, it is that wilderness always was a cultured landscape. If so, then domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and the figure of the hunter transgresses the new boundaries between “hybrids” and the “purities” they reject. Recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others. Hybridity may no longer be permitted to reinforce the societal status quo, any more than cultural landscape hermeneutics may pass over the obliteration of wildness as an ethically unremarkable fait accompli.
The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere... more The stereotypes of the North American sport hunter seem as true in Alberta as they might anywhere else: boorish male, sexist, insensitive, poor communicator, infatuated with guns, trucks and beer, politically conservative, etc. Given these, how could it be plausible to suggest that hunting today is actually subversive of mainstream social realities, rather than the complete inverse?
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
As long as the status of intrinsic natural values and cultural critique is pragmatically sidestep... more As long as the status of intrinsic natural values and cultural critique is pragmatically sidestepped, environmental ethics will not provide an alternative to the dominant approaches towards anthropogenic climate change. Climate change is approached predominantly in terms of how to technologically ameliorate effects, as this is perceived to be non-ideological. Providing these “solutions” without causing economic harm is perceived as a technical rather than an “ethical” question. When economics trump mitigation,“the environmentalists” are castigated for trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Rather than being value-free, symptomatic “policy analysis” is biased in favor of social trajectories that stand to benefit from “solutions” to whatever the status quo perceives as “problems.” Environmental ethics should return to evaluating cultures environmentally, envisioning new ways of thought and action that fail to cause deleterious effects. In this way, climate change would be tackled co-operatively at both ends: at one, by philosophers; at the other, by technicians.
J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston, III have prominently disagreed about the objectivity of na... more J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston, III have prominently disagreed about the objectivity of nature’s intrinsic value. Callicott claims, however, that the two’s disagreement over the relationship between nature and culture is more fundamentally divisive. Rolston accuses Callicott of a monism which would naturalise the pollution of Lake Michigan while Callicott accuses Rolston of a dualism which would naturalise a schism between human beings and the natural world. This debate spills out into other concerns such as the treatment of domesticated animals, sport hunting, wilderness preservation, and the ethics of the built environment. Would that we were able to find a middle way, like Val Plumwood’s ‘distinction without the dichotomy.’
The problem here is metaphysical: environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of culture, be they monists, dualists, or something in-between. The relationship between “culture per se” and “nature” is not understood to be subject to shifts. I argue that this way of modelling leads to anti-ecological social acquiescence, as much as environmental philosophers may want to generate ethical prescriptions for action. We should therefore attempt to understand nature/culture relations as dynamic, allowing for the possibility of rupture, the entrance of crisis into the relation. This conceptual tool permits nature/culture monism, dualism and intermediary/supernumerary positions to be understood in temporal and contingent terms, thus moving the nature/culture debate beyond “just so” stories. A metaphysic of crisis allows us to consider whether some forms of culture have “ruptured” or gone bad while others may not have, without naturalising or normalising their respective badness or goodness. Ultimately this leads to a kind of discomfort, however, for it undermines certain penchants for environmental pragmatism and exposes a radicality at the root of otherwise mainstream naturalistic environmental ethics.
Just a short two-page reflection (in the "narratives and stories" section of the journal) on a vi... more Just a short two-page reflection (in the "narratives and stories" section of the journal) on a visit I paid to a zoo in what passes for rural Belgium.
The editorial introduction to the 30th Anniversary Special Issue of The Trumpeter: Journal of Eco... more The editorial introduction to the 30th Anniversary Special Issue of The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy.
The Trumpeter was founded as an ecophilosophy newsletter in 1983 by Alan Drengson of the Universi... more The Trumpeter was founded as an ecophilosophy newsletter in 1983 by Alan Drengson of the University of Victoria, Canada. Shortly thereafter it evolved into a scholarly research publication, facilitating the exploration of a diversity of “ecosophies,” defined, in the words of the journal’s founder, as personal life philosophies that try to live by an ecological wisdom in harmony with the natural world. It’s been more than thirty years since the founding of the journal, so this 30 Anniversary Special Issue comes a bit late. In our defence, this is the thirtieth volume of the journal; the first volume spanned two years, which throws the counting off a little. Regardless, because The Trumpeter has always had a clear orientation towards the deep ecology movement, this milestone presented an opportunity for both expanded and focussed reflection on the past, present, and future of deep ecology.
"Fair Chase Hunting," the Blog of Orion, the Hunter's Institute, Sep 15, 2013
A semi-phenomenological reflection of my first experience hunting from a tree-stand blind, includ... more A semi-phenomenological reflection of my first experience hunting from a tree-stand blind, including meditations on the hiddenness of the animal, the appropriateness of certain technologies, and the cry of the will when control is relinquished.
A short and hasty op-ed I wrote for my local city newspaper on the topic of major budget cuts to ... more A short and hasty op-ed I wrote for my local city newspaper on the topic of major budget cuts to post-secondary education in my province which threatened the liberal arts, humanities and social sciences. (The newspaper website no longer lists it, I assume there's a time limit for keeping that content on the web which has expired.)
A short commentary on Dimitrios Dentsoras' conference paper on the defintions and differences bet... more A short commentary on Dimitrios Dentsoras' conference paper on the defintions and differences between the concepts of hopelessness and despair.
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Books by Nathan Kowalsky
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting
The experiences and perspectives of the hunter
The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature
Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
Link to Publisher's Website: http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1444335693.html
Google Books link: http://books.google.ca/books?id=6iPRfC1jIZcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hunting+philosophy+for+everyone&hl=en&ei=YUFgTLPwCInmsQOAz8SqCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Papers by Nathan Kowalsky
Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a thought-provoking collection of new essays from across the academic and non-academic spectrum that move far beyond familiar arguments and debates about hunting. This philosophically stimulating book provides fresh perspectives on a variety of topics, including:
Issues relating to the ethics of hunting
The experiences and perspectives of the hunter
The relationship of hunting to nature and human nature
Hunting in culture, politics, and tradition
Chosen from an overwhelmingly large pool of abstracts, nineteen contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life have each written a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the academy. Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters and one confirmed ex-vegan!
Hot on the trail of one of the most controversial issues of contemporary society, Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone is a stereotype-shattering volume that invites us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
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I argue that this fashionable skepticism is as mistaken as the “myths” it seeks to desecrate. Debate rages as to how TEK should or should not be critiqued, but how TEK might critique mainstream Canadian culture is conveniently neglected. Indigenous perspectives are thus in a bind: scholars criticize them or defend them from criticism, and yet neutralize their ability to criticize the status quo. The uncritical result is tacitly affirmative “hybridity,” social acquiescence to modernity as a fait accompli. Skeptics thus presuppose that there can be no norms to which cultures are beholden, meanwhile contradicting their own relativism when interpreting tradition through the lens of Enlightenment progressivism.
By contrast, a model for understanding how appropriating indigenous knowledge can be appropriate is needed. Though it is usually summarily dismissed, I suggest the radical environmental philosophy known as “primitivism” to this end: the use of contemporary, historic and pre-historic hunting-gathering as grounds for criticism of contemporary Canadian life. The paradoxes of TEK are manufactured by the agrarian logics which primitivism calls into question. Understanding TEK as social critique may illumine not only the failings of so-called civilization, but also many of the struggles faced by aboriginals in Canada.
I accept that animals are indeed morally considerable, but not in the way assumed by progressives. Moral extensionism is expansionistic: extending out from the core of human morality, it incorporates whatever it can under its protection in the name of development and justice while rejecting or reforming what it cannot. Not only is this disturbingly reminiscent of paternalism and colonialism, it also replicates the very anthropocentrism it seeks to avoid. Starting with the 30-year-old split between environmental ethics and humane ethics, I will sketch out an ethic of animal treatment which is premised on the independence and difference of undomesticated animals, rather than on their similarity to urbanized human beings. Indeed, we would do well to consider ourselves in like manner.
Using Prokofiev’s musical symphony for children “Peter and the Wolf” as a point of departure, I will show that putatively cultural landscapes are defined by domestication of animals and opposition to undomesticated landscapes as inappropriate for human involvement. This is seen in the threat of the wolf who invades the hybrid zone of the meadow, and in the heroic cleverness of Peter who subdues the wolf without succumbing to wild savagery as do the foolish and fearful hunters. The bucolic peace of rural Europe where “humanity” and “nature” appear to co-operate in mutually beneficial harmony is, in fact, a result of the successful domination of the wild other in both extirpating the wolf and relegating wildlands to largely aristocratic estates.
Prokofiev’s archetypes are all too familiar: the forest is as uncultured as the hunters who roam there. But if the social construction of wilderness tells us anything, it is that wilderness always was a cultured landscape. If so, then domesticated rural or urban landscapes do not exhaust the meaning of human culture, and the figure of the hunter transgresses the new boundaries between “hybrids” and the “purities” they reject. Recognizing hunting as a landscape culture forces post-dichotomous thinking to be more critical: some landscape cultures may be less dominating and/or more natural than others. Hybridity may no longer be permitted to reinforce the societal status quo, any more than cultural landscape hermeneutics may pass over the obliteration of wildness as an ethically unremarkable fait accompli.
It’s no secret that in Alberta as elsewhere, sport hunters comprise a small minority of the population, and that moreover, their numbers are in decline. On top of it all, the cultural and moral significance of hunting is poorly understood, by hunters themselves no less than their opponents.
The fact that hunters and environmentalists view the other as threats to their own interests only highlights the irony of the situation: hunting lies at the heart of the North American conservation movement, and embodies an engagement with nature that is most unsettling to the civilized urban mind. This is where modern hunting shows itself to be resistant to the dominant trends of mainstream society: rather than cutting edge and highly technical, hunting conscientiously limits technological power and depends on tradition for the transmission of expertise; rather than romanticizing nature from the insulated perspective of an observer, hunting plunges the human being into an immanent relationship with nature as a participant in somewhat unsavoury environmental realities. In a word, hunting symbolizes a return to the so-called “State of Nature,” only to find that this estate is neither non-cultural nor barbaric, but rather eminently human and poignant.
I will not argue that hunters themselves are cognizant of these points, or that consumerism and ignorance have not detrimentally affected their practice. Hunters do, however, have a felt sense of these meanings; they are a threat to the urban ideal of cultural propriety, much like pre-colonial societies who, not long ago, felt the wrath of civil righteousness and suffered accordingly.
Rather than being value-free, symptomatic “policy analysis” is biased in favor of social trajectories that stand to benefit from “solutions” to whatever the status quo perceives as “problems.” Environmental ethics should return to evaluating cultures environmentally, envisioning new ways of thought and action that fail to cause deleterious effects. In this way, climate change would be tackled co-operatively at both ends: at one, by philosophers; at the other, by technicians.
The problem here is metaphysical: environmental philosophers appear to have static understandings of culture, be they monists, dualists, or something in-between. The relationship between “culture per se” and “nature” is not understood to be subject to shifts. I argue that this way of modelling leads to anti-ecological social acquiescence, as much as environmental philosophers may want to generate ethical prescriptions for action. We should therefore attempt to understand nature/culture relations as dynamic, allowing for the possibility of rupture, the entrance of crisis into the relation. This conceptual tool permits nature/culture monism, dualism and intermediary/supernumerary positions to be understood in temporal and contingent terms, thus moving the nature/culture debate beyond “just so” stories. A metaphysic of crisis allows us to consider whether some forms of culture have “ruptured” or gone bad while others may not have, without naturalising or normalising their respective badness or goodness. Ultimately this leads to a kind of discomfort, however, for it undermines certain penchants for environmental pragmatism and exposes a radicality at the root of otherwise mainstream naturalistic environmental ethics.