"What’s Wrong with Anthropocentrism?" by Christopher Belshaw (Keywords: Value; Nature; Moral Status; Sentience; Agency)

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Anthropocentrism, some elevation of the human above the natural, seems to many to be a thoroughly bad thing – on a par with sexism, racism, speciesism, and imperialism in illicitly favouring one group, in this case human beings en masse, over all others. Against this, it is said that we are not superior, more important, more valuable than other living things, and should see ourselves as just one part of, and not lords over, the natural world. Maybe we should be biocentrists, thinking that all life matters, or ecocentrists, insisting that the whole of nature has value or worth. Views like this, anti-hierarchical and egalitarian, appear preferable to many.

Yet there is an immediate problem here. Who should I save from a burning house, a baby or a kitten? Or rescue from a flooded valley, a man or monkey? Almost everyone thinks that in situations like these, people come first. And we think this even when the people are strangers to us, and friendless, and not much use to society. People, it seems, just count for more – and maybe much more. One of us, or a hundred antelopes, and still many will save, and think they should save, the person. Think differently, and airlift cats and dogs, rather than women and children from the warzone and you will be seen, at best, as hopelessly sentimental. What, then, is going on?

When anthropocentrism takes extreme forms, then, it should certainly be rejected. Of course, we’re not literally at the centre of the universe, we’re not the only things that matter, and the rest of nature isn’t put here just for our purposes, to be used, or used up, as and when we choose. And someone might be an anthropocentrist without being a materialist, a capitalist, a short-termist, or far out on the political right.

Rival views might also be extreme. Some ecocentrists appear to think that the non-human world is valuable just any old how. Nature knows best, and whatever is, is right. But then there’s no reason to prefer this planet to a lump of barren rock, no reason to prefer rock to empty space, and no reason to care if rocks and spaces alike disappear into a black hole. A more promising view, surely, is that there are better and worse ways for nature to be. And it’s still true, in spite of our mess, that the world teems with life, variety, beauty, all of which is valuable, important, worth preserving, independently of whether it’s something we want, or care about.

Ecocentrism goes wrong in underestimating our contribution to the values of nature, our tendency to think that what we like is, quite independently, worth having.

Well, certainly there is a lot of life and variety out there. But so what? We might think there’s no point in the forest, for example, unless it offers something – food, shelter, medicine, a place to play – either to people or to other animals. And beauty? We shouldn’t deny that this is real, and important, but is it real and important independently of people? Perhaps there is in the universe both Earthling-beauty and Martian-beauty, but nothing that is simply, objectively beautiful, beyond the eye of the beholder. Ecocentrism goes wrong, it can be argued, in underestimating our contribution to the values of nature, our tendency to think that what we like is, quite independently, worth having.

Biocentrism is on firmer ground. The difference between living things and the rest of nature is that the former have, or so it is said, a good of their own. There is a better and worse way for a rabbit, an ash tree, even a slime mould to be that has nothing to do with us, our interests or concerns. It’s different with rivers, ponds, clouds, mountains. These can be changed, become more or less useful – to us, to other animals, and also to plants – but can’t in themselves be benefited or harmed. So, then the claim is that living things, all of them, and they alone, are things that matter. But this can be resisted. Certainly, it’s bad for the tree if it’s affected by drought, but does that give us a reason to water it? We might think that if drought actually hurt it, caused it pain, then there would be reason, but otherwise not. So, then our direct concerns are limited to the animal kingdom. Sentience, awareness, feeling pleasures and pains, is what counts.

Certainly, it’s bad for the tree if it’s affected by drought, but does that give us a reason to water it.

But now why think that people count for more? Why suppose we’re superior, more important, more special? Comparisons within a group are one thing, comparisons across groups another. So, one man, monkey, mouse may be better than, superior to, another, but what does it even mean to say a man is superior to a mouse? Perhaps we are overall more intelligent, but what of it? It helps us get out of some holes but gets us into others. And wings, hard shells, or being able to squeeze through tiny cracks are also aids to survival. Nor on this front are we especially impressive. Mice have been around for far longer, and may well outlast us.

Certainly we’re not the strongest, fastest, most fecund creatures around. Maybe we’re the smartest, but that doesn’t make us best. What, though, about morality? We are not morally superior to tigers or rabbits, or for that matter to oaks or waterfalls.  None of these even enter the moral frame, acting morally or immorally. None of them have a hope of being good or evil. So then might we be superior in having morality as an option? Not exactly, but it’s here that we are special, and importantly different from other animals. And this, as I’ll explain, in two ways.

Start with the distinction between moral agents and moral patients. Almost all of us, at least when adults, are both. First, we can think about morality, about right and wrong, about what is good or bad, better and worse. We can make moral decisions, and then act upon those decisions. Second, what happens to us matters, is something that we care about. And it matters for our sake, or matters morally.

If there’s anything that counts as setting this world to rights, we alone are able to do it.  If it all goes wrong, in ways that could have been prevented, then we alone can be blamed.

Are we special? If there are angels or gods, if whales and elephants are more highly developed than some of us think, or if in the future there will be super-intelligent machines, then perhaps there are or will be other moral agents, others who can decide what’s best, not only for themselves, and in the short-term, but more broadly, and for longer.  But it seems likely that we are quite alone in this. So consider the whole of the natural world, its inhabitants, its condition, its future. If there’s anything that counts as setting this world to rights, we alone are able to do it.  If it all goes wrong, in ways that could have been prevented, then we alone can be blamed.  We are the custodians of nature, whether we like it or not.

But we’re not alone as moral patients. What happens to us matters, but so too what happens to other animals. Yet might it still be, as many of us think, that people matter more? There’s often heard talk of moral status, or the degree to which things count. And it appears we rank ourselves higher. Don’t kick the cat. But rescue the people before the animals. It’s here, in wanting always to put our own interests first, that anthropocentrism might be getting things wrong.

Not only does the death of a person matter more than the death of an animal but that animal death doesn’t matter at all. It’s because animals, unlike us, don’t want to continue their lives, don’t think about and make plans for the future.

There’s a way out of this. Controversially, I think that not only does animal pain matter, it matters just as much as human pain. So, if we can ease the suffering of the child or the lamb, and if their distress is really equal, we might well just toss a coin. But, again controversially, I think that not only does the death of a person matter more than the death of an animal but that animal death doesn’t matter at all. It’s bad for people, but not for animals, that they die a painless death. Of course, the death of a cat will matter to the retired schoolteacher who loves it to bits, but it’s not bad for the cat that it dies. Why is this? In brief, it’s because animals, unlike us, don’t want to continue their lives, don’t think about and make plans for the future. Excepting the very short term, they don’t live in hope. So, then my earlier questions about who or what to save cannot be properly answered until we know the answer to the question: save from what? For pain is one thing, death quite another.

Here, then, lies the truth in anthropocentrism. Rather than having a right to do what we like with the natural world, we are landed with the responsibility to care for it, both for our own sakes, and for the sakes of other sentient creatures. And rather than being superior to other animals, and counting for more, we should think instead that we count in more ways. There are more ways in which things can go wrong for us, more of concern that we are able to lose. Simply put, we are more vulnerable. 

Christopher Belshaw has taught philosophy at the University of California Santa Barbara, Lancaster University, the University of York and the Open University. He is currently an honorary associate at both the last two institutions. His most recent book is The Value and Meaning of Life (2020).

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