Environmental Dimensions of Sustainability Ethics

Anthropocentrism - what is it?

Anthropo comes from this Greek word anthropos. And that is the Greek for something like human.

And then this ism is a system uh of belief a system of belief or a belief system.

And this centr in the middle is literally just telling you that it's a human centered. So just breaking down this word anthropocentrism is a system of belief that is centered on human beings.

Anthropocentricism is an answer, just one answer out of many answers, to this question: "Who or what has moral status?"

Moral status—what is that? Okay, if you have moral status then you matter. And when people are trying to figure out what they should do, they need to consider how their actions will affect you. If you don't have any moral status, then that means that when we're trying to figure out what we should or should not do, we don't need to incorporate how our actions will or will not affect you.

Anthropocentrism is the system of belief that thinks humans are the center of having moral status. When you're trying to figure out who or what has moral status, your number one answer is human beings. Human beings, in anthropocentrism, have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value means that if human beings have intrinsic value, it means that human beings aren't only important because of what they can do or what they can provide.

An anthropocentrist is someone who has a human-centered belief system. They believe that human beings have intrinsic value—humans are important just because they're human—and that non-human beings only have instrumental value.

It's not the case that an anthropocentrist would never care about the Amazon or trees or a dying fish population or some kind of extinct species or species going extinct. An anthropocentrist might care about all of those things: the environment, other species, ecosystems. It's just that if they care about anything that's not human, they care about it because they believe that thing is instrumental to some other goal that humans would have.

An anthropocentrist would care about the environment and wouldn't want a lot of pollution because pollution is bad for humans, and they have a system of belief that says whatever is bad for humans is bad. An anthropocentrist would take up arms to go for conservation efforts, preservation efforts, restoration efforts. An anthropocentrist really wants us to take care of the Earth because the Earth is an instrument to humans flourishing.

So we asked this question: who or what has moral status? It is true that an anthropocentrist cares about human beings first and foremost. It's just that other things that matter, they matter because they're good for human beings. But let's look at some other answers to this question. Let's look at this chart: who or what has moral status?

Someone who is an "eco"—meaning "eco" meaning ecosystem—and ecocentrism is a system of belief that says the ecosystem matters. When you, your human being self, is trying to figure out whether you should mine for Cobalt so that you can make batteries so that you can have cell phones that can have people talk to each other, you should think about how your actions are going to affect the mountains and the rocks and the system of ecology. And so the ecosystem—the ecocentrism story's not just that only the ecosystem matters, it's that it all matters, including the ecosystem.

Whereas if you're looking at a biocentrism, that's a system of belief that says that the ecosystem itself doesn't necessarily matter, but all biological things matter.

If you're looking at a zoocentrism, then it's saying that, okay, maybe the ecology matters, maybe biology matters, but it's animal life that matters most. Animal life is to be valued more than some kind of mountain range or forest.

And getting more specific, the anthropocentrist says it's not just any animal, it's human beings specifically. So as we are learning about anthropocentrism, we are learning about a very specific, narrow answer to the question: who or what has moral status? When we're asking this question—what has moral status? What matters? What do you need to make sure you're not harming?—this is one answer, this is a different, totally different answer, this is a totally different answer, and anthropocentrism is also a very unique answer.

It's sometimes called speciesism because if you're an anthropocentrist, you're arguing that human beings, which you are, is important and more important than all other animals and anything biological and alive and anything on Earth. And the question is, why do you think that what you are is more important just because that's what you are? And so it's been called speciesist, and sometimes that's viewed in a negative light.

So human beings are more important than mountains, birds, oceans, trees, cows, air, fish, bacteria, and you can ask this anthropocentrist who believes all that: why do humans matter most? And anthropocentrists give very different answers from each other. So there's lots of different kinds of anthropocentrist views.

One answer is that human beings have rationality that is very important, different than the rationality or sentience of a cow. Like, yes, cows and whales and horses are super smart. We know that they can think to some extent, but what a human being can do with their rationality is very unique, and that's why human beings and no other things have instrumental—sorry, have intrinsic value. Now, that's one answer.

Another answer that some people give is that human beings, but no other beings, have a soul or a spirit, and that's what makes human beings more important than all other things. And to give this answer some backup, people will sometimes refer to religion, especially if you're looking at the Jews, the Christians, or the Muslims, because in Genesis of their books—in the Talmud and in the Bible and in the Quran—it explains that God gave Adam and Eve, human beings, dominion over all things on the planet. And so obviously some people think that makes human beings more important than all other things.

A third answer that some people try to give is sentience. Sentience—but that, like rationality, we know that other beings, not just human beings, are sentient. So you still have to make the case why is the sentience or the rationality or the spirit that human beings have more important or more valuable or to somehow a higher extent to all other things.