Global Warming Causes

Critiques

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Descartes's views have met with strong objections in recent times. Gilbert Ryle famously described Descartes's dualist position as "the Dogma of the Ghost in the Machine''

(1949, pp.15-16). In Descartes's view, the human body, like the animal, is a clockwork machine. Unlike animal machines, however, it is driven by a ghost that is ''invisible, inaudible and has no size and weight'' (p. 20). Ryle argues that it is hard to conceive of causal transactions between the clockwork machine and the ''ghost'' or mind. Other philosophers point out that Descartes's material universe is a closed system that proceeds inexorably according to its own laws. How, then, can the thinker's mental decisions causally affect the human body and, by extension, the wider processes in the universe?

Animal ethicists also disagree with Descartes's views. Descartes posits that animals are clockwork machines and hence have no moral standing. This is in clear contrast to the views held by many animal ethicists. Peter Singer, for instance, maintains that animals have the capacity to feel pain and pleasure and are entitled to moral consideration precisely because they have that capacity (Singer 1998).

Environmental ethicists such as Aldo Leopold, J Baird Callicott, and Holmes Rolston would object to Descartes's position that the physical universe can be exploited for human goals and ends. They would maintain that the physical universe, in particular its various ecosystems, have moral standing and should not be exploited or destroyed.

Ecofeminists also have also been critical of Descart-es's views. Descartes's dualism privileges the conscious thinker over the material world, which is seen as an alien object to be mastered. That perspective deprives humans of (''feminine'') sympathy and connection with nature. Carolyn Merchant (1980) also notes that historically Descartes was a major figure who helped displace earlier conceptions of the earth as a nurturing mother with the view of nature as a machine to be used and abused at will.