Abstract

Seeking to elucidate the ethical implications of scientific ecology while also avoiding the naturalistic fallacy, environmental philosophers have argued that the ethical ends we already pursue can be transmuted by ecological insights. This article suggests understanding this process as one of “ecological subjectivation” whereby the self is constituted ethically in relation to scientific discourses of ecology. I argue that a specific mode of ecological subjectivation exemplified by Aldo Leopold’s conversion narrative in “Thinking Like a Mountain” was predominant in twentieth century environmentalism, while contemporary ecology requires us to look beyond conversion for different ways of cultivating an ecological ethic.