Anthro-Bio-Eco-Centrism

Introduction

The world is a harsh place. With everything in just a chaotic mess, it truly is hard to see which way points us in the right direction. Can we ever live with ourselves after the destruction of the world is complete, that we have killed off everything else in the world? We take the stance of being a god in the world where we live, capable of doing anything as we please. But do we know the consequences of our action? What does it mean to do whatever it takes to protect what we love, even when we do not exist in the world any longer? These questions determine the difference between intrinsic and instrumental, whether things still carry value even when humans disappear off the very earth. If we knew the answer to this question, then life would then be considered “perfect,” and the environment would be saved from doom. To believe what the most conducive way is to environmental protection—there is no straightforward answer. But what we believe would be a potential solution is taking the best of all worlds. Essentially, we feel that not only one method will work. We will now list out the reasons why each view, anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and biocentrism, should be viewed as a combined perspective rather than a solitary viewpoint.

Anthropocentrism Needs to be More Refined

It is crucial to know that only prioritizing humans’ needs will only result in fulfilling Malthus’ theory: the human population will inevitably outgrow the food supply. As the human population is not only increasing over time, the individual selfishness of a person and the large disparity between the rich and the poor contribute towards the depletion of food supply. As stated in Deep Ecology, “people thriving in materially rich countries cannot be expected to reduce their excessive interference with the nonhuman world to a moderate level overnight.”¹ Hence, this definition of living is known as anthropocentrism, or, in other words, valuing human life over nonhumans. These examples show that it is impossible for life to thrive with the unfairness and harsh reality of the world. Nothing is equal or will ever be equal, and life is made that way. But though we, either by chance, luck, or coincidence—depending on various religions or viewpoints—were born as humans, this however does not mean that we should take advantage of being the most dominant species and conquer what we feel like doing. Imagine being a worker ant, and you have worked tirelessly your entire lifespan, contributing towards the good of the colony and fulfilling your duty as a worker. But all of a sudden, within the span of two seconds, your life’s work, along with your co-workers, have been demolished by six-year-old children. The children may argue that there are roughly twenty quadrillion ants in the world, and the death of a few is still moral. We disagree, as they have taken advantage of being humans to destroy a colony of living things. What would they do if they were ants and other children stepped on them?

Kant’s ethics state that “our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity.”² Animals are representative of how humans should interact with others. We practice and cultivate the morals that we center towards other humans by using the same moral and ethical framework towards animals. If we wish to minimize harm towards others, we must first practice these ideals towards animals. The same is true for what we do to other humans. If we find certain things unethical to do to animals, then we vehemently should be against these things happening against other humans.³

This thought process is consistent with our philosophy in that unnecessary harm to animals or unreasonable things should be minimized as we have a form of power and control over these beings. Thus the duties that we have towards animals, if nothing else, should be to their benefit or against their suffering due to the fact that we, as reasoning beings, have said power. Our ideas should be consistent, and if we view evil things to be evil and good things to be good, it makes sense that we would wish to do good towards animals as well as humans.

Intrinsically, humans must acknowledge that they are the strongest and most powerful species. Our dominance is evident and we have the power to both conserve and maintain the livelihood of all other species on earth. However, with this great power comes great responsibility. According to both Kantian ethics and other ethical frameworks such as deep ecology and biocentrism, we must hold a great respect for those who are weaker than us, such as animals and other weaker beings in our ecosphere.⁴ This doesn’t fully dissuade the idea behind anthropocentrism, however, as it is clearly evident that we are the strongest, and maintaining our power is for humanity’s greatest interest and for the greater interest of the world.

Biocentrism Denies Human Advantage

Biocentrism argues that all living things have some form of equality, disregarding the superiority of a specific animal species, such as humans, and that not one species can be superior to any other. However moral it may be to allocate equality and consideration among all living things, is it really the best way to go about environmental protection? Sure, practicing biocentrism may grant you a more eco-friendly approach towards appreciating nature, but what cost does it come at? You now have to live at a minimum, and you will not be satisfied with it for long. You are now forced to become vegan since you are no longer allowed to deprive any other animal species. But who is to say that you are able to deprive the lives of plants? As a practitioner of biocentrism, you promote living equality and are given equal consideration, yet you contradict yourself by saying that “the entire plant kingdom including rain forests have no right to their own existence.”⁵ And let us just say that you are able to undergo this drastic transformation and be a responsible human being. But after much time, you notice that not everyone else will be following along with you. Your efforts in advocacy will be lost as others may not have as much perseverance as you and they give up after a period of time, and then you will start to lose hope. Eventually, this is a downside of practicing an approach towards environmental protection that is not widely accepted by humanity. However, it is safe to say that the aspect of allocating equal intrinsic value among living things is ethical. But it is thus inevitable for the world to succumb to human domination, and being at the top of the food chain comes with the cost of the death of ‘our prey’. We are not able to change the output of the food chain, but we should not intensify the food chain by killing animals for fun and should only kill animals for the specific reason of the sustenance of humankind.

In Taylor’s piece on biocentrism, he denies that humans have an innate superiority towards other nonhuman species, and while we agree somewhat that the value of humanity does not necessarily outweigh our duties—indirect or otherwise—to other nonhuman things, we disagree that humans are lesser than other species or can be viewed in the same light.⁶ While it can be considered speciesist to describe the importance of a species based on their merits or abilities, considering that humans will have a bias toward creatures that display human-like characteristics (such as intelligence and close familial bonds), we must assume that humans can look past these views for the betterment of the world and the environment at large.

Ecocentrism is Unrealistic

As argued in Deep Ecology, all things, regardless if they contain life, are of equal importance in creating harmony in the ecosphere. This is similar to biocentrism, but it goes one step further. The understanding of equality pushes the limits of appreciation to the nonliving world, emphasizing that everything around us, including us, is needed to sustain life.⁷ But truthfully, do humans have the same worth as non-living objects? This view implies that humans are worth just as any non-living thing there is that ceases to exist. For instance, let us take the worth of an eraser. Once it has been used up, it will be tossed away. If ecocentrism implies this similar stance, when we die, will our worth be gone? Will the memories of us be forgotten, useless for any being?

Deep Ecology has central guiding principles. The principles with which we agree the most are Principle 1: “The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on earth have value in themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.”⁸ Principle 5: “Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.”⁹ Principle 6: “Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.”¹⁰

Our connection with the first principle is evident. We see the intrinsic value in the proliferation of human life, as well as animal and other nonhuman life. For the fifth principle, we agree that modern interference has become too excessive and constraining over the animal world. Any influence humans do have is practically unavoidable for animal life, so we as humans must take into account that we have such a power over nonhumans and we cannot abuse it. Principle 6 is agreeable in the fact that in order to take non-excessively oppressive action over nonhumans, we must change our policy in order to be more accommodating to those with whom we share the planet.

Our Stance: Anthro-bio-eco-centric

As important as it is to understand every perspective there is to offer for a better world, we cannot be biased nor can we incorporate a system that suits us the best and not the environment. The solution we seek is one that balances human needs and the reality of nature. Meaning, we cannot go to the extreme of both ends. The difficult part of navigating the solution is this balance we need to find, one that all humans will be understanding and compassionate enough to accept. As humans, it is our nature to be the smartest and most dominant animal alive. This does not, though, deprive the value of any other species. Whether it was a gift or if it was a coincidence, we should carry a duty towards all other animals to protect others and the earth, as everything, including us, is part of one shared ecosystem. Though we acknowledge ourselves to be the apex predator of all animals, we are not a species who should eliminate life for the fun of it; rather, we need to care for the existence of every other species and ensure that our responsibility is critical in providing the earth the best place to live in given the circumstances of environmental protection. We propose to take responsibility for being the smartest species alive while also incorporating the need to assume equal intrinsic value to all living things as they have a right to life and thus, should not be deprived unless human needs (e.g., food) are necessary.¹¹ At the same time, it is important to note that we should reduce and limit the amount of harm humans do to the environment to be able to appreciate that we all share one ecosphere.

Concluding Statement

This paper was worked on equally between the two parties involved: Julian Tay and Guetty Moita. We both are responsible for the ideas that are shared within this paper.

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