Environmental determinism
Environmental determinism is a theory positing that human culture, character, and societal development are primarily shaped by environmental factors, particularly the natural physical characteristics of a location, such as climate and geography. Prominent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the theory suggests that these environmental features exert a dominant influence over human behavior and cultural evolution, as articulated by geographer Ellen Churchill Semple. For instance, Semple claimed that the climate of northern Europe fosters industrious and thoughtful characteristics in its people, whereas tropical climates may lead to a perceived lethargy due to the ease of survival.
While environmental determinism seeks to explain variations in human development through environmental conditions, it has faced significant criticism for its overly simplistic perspective and lack of supporting evidence. Critics argue that it inadequately accounts for the complexities of human agency, suggesting that the theory may diminish the role of individual choice and free will in shaping character and culture. However, proponents maintain that human rationality and decision-making still play a critical role within this framework, asserting that environmental factors primarily guide the context in which individuals make choices. Overall, environmental determinism continues to spark debate regarding the interplay between environment and human agency, raising important considerations about cultural differences and societal development.
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Environmental determinism
DEFINITION: The theory that features of the environment ultimately determine human culture, character, and societal development
Environmental determinists hold that human activity, culture, and character are ultimately determined by environmental factors. From this point of view, the environment, rather than human activity, is the dominant party in the relationship between humans and environment.
The notion of environmental determinism achieved considerable prominence during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially through the work of geographer Ellen Churchill Semple. The “environment” in this context is understood to be the natural physical features of a setting—the geographical features, such as climate and landform, as opposed to factors directly or indirectly the result of human activity (such as social and economic factors). According to environmental determinists, these environmental factors determine the course of human character, action, and cultural development. Semple, for example, wrote that the climate of northern Europe causes the development of an “energetic, provident, serious, thoughtful rather than emotional, cautious rather than impulsive” character in the peoples resident there; in contrast, tropical climates lead to the development of laziness because the warm weather and ready availability of food make survival easy and do not encourage the development of a keen work ethic.
Because of this tendency toward categorization of peoples according to environmental ancestry, environmental determinism became associated with racist and imperialist attitudes. It is important to note, however, that environmental determinism is not a normative moral theory (that is, it is not a theory about how human beings “ought” to behave). It simply attempts to explain differences in human development through differences in environmental ancestry. It passes no judgment on the moral merits or otherwise of any particular character trait or culture and does not in itself justify discrimination or imperialism.
Environmental determinism has been criticized for being overly simplistic and not providing sufficient support for its central claim. It seems implausible that one set of factors should have an ultimate determinative influence on human development, and environmental determinists have been criticized for providing very little supporting evidence for such a strong claim. Such criticism has led some environmental determinists to concede that other factors play some role, but they still believe that environmental factors are dominant.
Environmental determinism is often thought to deny human free will. The natural into which a person is born is not a matter of that person’s choosing, and so if environment determines individuals’ outlooks, values, and thereby their decisions, then humans are not free agents and not morally responsible for their behavior—they are just victims of their circumstances.
Some of these concerns are misplaced, however. Environmental determinism does not deny that human beings are rational deliberators who weigh and assess options and then make decisions based on those deliberations. Further, environmental determinism need not deny that an individual’s decisions play a crucial role in determining the course of that person’s character development. The most that an environmental determinist is committed to is that the course of an individual’s deliberations and thus the role of those deliberations in the development of the individual’s character will have been ultimately determined by environmental factors. That is quite different from the claim that human beings’ deliberations are pointless and inert. They are one part of the mechanism by which the environment determines the course of human development. Whether this still challenges the status of humans as fully free, morally responsible agents turns on the finer details of what free will is taken to involve.
Bibliography
Brooks, Sue. "Exploring Environmental and Cultural Determinism." Geography, vol. 108, no. 1, 26 Jan. 2023, pp. 2-3, https://doi.org/10.1080/00167487.2023.2167334. Accessed 17 July 2024. Sauer, Carl. Carl Sauer on Culture and Landscape: Readings and Commentaries. Edited by William M. Denevan and Kent Mathewson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
Semple, Ellen Churchill. Influences of Geographic Environment, on the Basis of Ratzel’s System of Anthropo-Geography. 1911. Reprint. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1993.
Sutton, Mark Q., and E. N. Anderson. Introduction to Cultural Ecology. 2d ed. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2010.
Toke, Naia. "Environmental Determinism vs. Environmental Possibilism." Diversity for Social Impact, 5 June 2022, diversity.social/environmental-determinism-vs-environmental-possibilism/. Accessed 17 July 2024.