Decolonizing Environmental Philosophy in the Anthropocene: Toward A Philosophy for Planetary Healing

Colonial mindsets and structures in the Western world drive broken relationships between human beings and non-human nature. In 2019, Kyle Whyte identified a tension between the rapid societal transformation required in response to climate change and the considerably slower pace at which remediation of trust, inequity, and imbalances of power happen between people within the colonial construct. This thesis offers a diagnostic tool to begin grappling with the question of how to heal broken relationships with each other and with non-human nature. Problematic assumptions in Western natural laws and environmental ethics undermine efforts to address worsening ecological crises in the Anthropocene – the geological time period defined by increasing instability of Earth system processes from human activity. Drawing on the ideas of scholars Charles W Mills, Serene Khader, Deborah McGregor, and John Borrows, I explore a philosophy of planetary healing - an interdisciplinary, multicultural approach to justice, health and well-being.