Working paper: Religious Environmental Humanism as Means to Promote Environmental Sustainability: Buddhist and Confucian Approaches (2)

 

Understanding Anthropocentrism 

‘Anthropocentrism’ is not a new term, having been coined over a century and a half ago in England to refer to the prevailing worldview that human beings occupied the center of the universe (Campbell, 1983). Nonetheless, the term admits multiple definitions and valences depending on how it is used and interpreted. Undoubtedly, the most prevalent understanding of the term is to describe the human outlook that the existence of human beings is the most important and central fact in the universe. This privileged position at the apex of all creatures allows them to occupy ontological and moral priority over all other entities. An extreme interpretation of this privilege, however, can easily lead to the assumption that humans can do whatever they want with creation, if such actions are perceived to contribute to the advancement of human society.  

While the ontological and ethical connotations of the term anthropocentrism are apparent, there is another dimension to the term that can be considered – an epistemological understanding. From the standpoint of epistemology, anthropocentrism simply refers to the reality that human beings perceive and interpret the world according to human values and experiences. This understanding highlights the objective fact of human locatedness in any act of human perceiving. Thus, what we have is a sort of “perspectival anthropocentrism,” to use the term of Frederic Ferré, since humans can only really think in one way – as humans (Ferré, 1994, p.72). This is so “even while we try to transcend egoism by cultivating sympathy and concern for other centres of intrinsic value.” Indeed, humans do have some ability to step outside of themselves, to put ourselves in the other’s shoes, even attempt to feel the pain of non-human species facing destruction and extinction, but ultimately, we must approach reality from our own locatedness and address the various issues using the critical function to which we have been endowed to do (Hayward, 1997, p.51).  

The brief discussion above demonstrates that the term ‘anthropocentrism’ admits both objectionable and unobjectionable connotations. Anthropocentrism is objectionable when it promotes and reinforces an egotistical perception of the place and value of humans that justifies even the most wanton destruction of non-human nature. On the other hand, it is unobjectionable when it simply refers to an unavoidable reality about human cognition. From this fact, any attempt to build a genuinely non-anthropocentric environmental ethic is unachievable because such a paradigm would effectively marginalize the human role, values, concerns and experience (Grey, 1998, p.99). According to Hayward, “If the ultimate point of an ethic is to yield a determinate guide to human action, then, the human reference is ineliminable even when extending moral concern to nonhumans” (p.56). The agent can respond to the ethical obligation to make others’ ends his/her ends, but ultimately, asserts Hayward, “Values are always the values of the valuer” (p.57).   

The necessity of a human reference point ultimately leads to decisions that reflects human values and perceptions about what constitutes well-being and flourishing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the fiercest advocate of environmental ecocentrism would not argue that humans should not do anything to interfere with the natural balance since coronaviruses have as much right to exist as elephants, bees and humans. Conversely, they would not agree that humans in their own human nature, could do whatever they want, even if it meant the extinction of other species and perhaps even the eventual extinction of humans themselves due to self-inflicted consequences. The reality is advocates of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics must ultimately yield to the anthropocentric perspective in judging what is the most acceptable form of balance that considers the interests of humans as well as non-human entities—both biotic and abiotic. The fact that devising vaccines to eliminate a virus dangerous to human life is acceptable while hunting elephants for ivory is unacceptable reflects an idea of natural equilibrium that is fundamentally based on human perception of what constitutes natural balance. As Mary Anne Warren commented:  

We are not gods but human beings, reasoning about how we ought to think and act. Our moral theories can only be based upon what we know and what we care about, or ought to care about. If this makes our theories anthropocentric, then this much anthropocentrism is inevitable in any moral theory that is relevant to human actions. (Warren, 1997, p.43)