Domination of Nature

The concept of the domination of nature can be traced to the 17th-century Scientific Revolution and the subsequent period of the Enlightenment, which was the 18th-century philosophical and social movement that transformed visions of society, science, and nature. Previously, nature and the material world were commonly believed to be a living organism comprised of earth, air, fire, water, and “ether” that formed the stars and planets. Spiritual and religious frameworks that regarded nature as a living being independent of human will provided cultural and moral constraints to the overexploitation of nature.

Seventeenth-century thinkers developed a philosophical commitment to rational science, logical thinking, and mathematical reasoning that allowed nature to be known, managed, mastered, and dominated. According to Francis Bacon (1571–1626), the key conceptual author of the mastery of nature thesis, “nature must be ‘bound into service' and made a ‘slave', put ‘in constraint' and ‘molded’ by the mechanical arts.” Bacon rationalized this mastery using a religious frame of reference, arguing “only let the human race recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest, and let power be given it; the exercise thereof will be governed by sound reason and true religion.” Enlightenment thinkers subsequently developed a mechanical view of nature, viewing reality as a machine comprised of discreet and individual parts whose actions could be known, possessed, and mastered for the benefit of humans. No longer part of nature, humans came to depend on the continued development of science and technology to meet human needs and advance social progress.

The domination of nature thesis has been taken up by various social theorists since the period of the Enlightenment. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, German philosophers and founding members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, critiqued the real results of the Enlightenment as leading to the disenchantment and alienation of humans from nature, arguing, “on the road to modern science, men renounce any claim to meaning.” This alienation is extended to the relationships between humans and even to the self, leading to the objectification and destruction of all human–human and human–nature relationships.

In 1972, philosopher, political scientist, and sociologist William Leiss published the influential work The Domination of Nature. His ideas caught the public interest at a time of increased awareness of [Page 481]environmental degradation. In addition, the effects of environmental pollution on human health—during an era of rapid technological changes—began a response to environmental problems. Leiss suggested that theoretical treatments of the domination or mastery of nature can be divided into two categories: those concerning how the “attitude or concept of mastery over nature arose and developed, and those that deal with the practical outcomes of this ‘attitude’ (what damage has been done in its name, and what we must do to repair it).”