The Nature We Desire: A Lacanian Analysis of the Fantasy and Discourse of Nature and the Possibility of an Entangled Ecological Ethics

This thesis develops a Lacanian psychoanalytic approach to contemporary ecological thought in order to explain why ecological knowledge so often fails to translate into meaningful action. It argues that the ecological crisis is mediated through fantasies of “Nature” that structure subjectivity, desire, and enjoyment. Drawing on Lacan’s theory of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, the thesis shows how “Nature” functions as a fantasmatic image of harmony that conceals both subjective lack and the instability of ecological entanglement, while ecological discourse stabilises this fantasy through moralised norms of responsibility and sustainable enjoyment. At the same time, the disruptive reality of the climate crisis repeatedly exposes the limits of these frameworks, producing anxiety, trauma, and forms of disavowal that allow belief and enjoyment to persist despite awareness of collapse. The thesis argues that reducing ecology to symbolic or ideological formations alone...Show moreThis thesis develops a Lacanian psychoanalytic approach to contemporary ecological thought in order to explain why ecological knowledge so often fails to translate into meaningful action. It argues that the ecological crisis is mediated through fantasies of “Nature” that structure subjectivity, desire, and enjoyment. Drawing on Lacan’s theory of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, the thesis shows how “Nature” functions as a fantasmatic image of harmony that conceals both subjective lack and the instability of ecological entanglement, while ecological discourse stabilises this fantasy through moralised norms of responsibility and sustainable enjoyment. At the same time, the disruptive reality of the climate crisis repeatedly exposes the limits of these frameworks, producing anxiety, trauma, and forms of disavowal that allow belief and enjoyment to persist despite awareness of collapse. The thesis argues that reducing ecology to symbolic or ideological formations alone obscures the material specificity of ecological entanglement: the unstable, interdependent, and co-constitutive conditions of human and nonhuman life. In response, the thesis develops an alternative ethical orientation inspired by Lacan’s account of the end of analysis. It proposes an ethics grounded in sustained engagement with ecological entanglement as irreducibly unstable. By reorienting desire and enjoyment away from fantasies of harmony and toward practices that acknowledge vulnerability and uncertainty, the thesis outlines the possibility of an entangled ecological ethics capable of meaningful action without guarantees.Show less

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The Nature We Desire: A Lacanian Analysis of the Fantasy and Discourse of Nature and the Possibility of an Entangled Ecological Ethics