The diagnostic work accomplished though various attempts to reject ethical anthropocen- trism has been valuable, but the moral problems thus uncovered turn out to be more precisely expressed in other terms, including an arbitrary favoritism for one’s own species (specie- sism) and an objectionable disposition to identify only those properties characteristic of one’s own species as worthy of moral respect and consideration (human chauvinism). In this light, key problems will revolve around distinguishing the corrigible disposition of human chauvinism from an incorrigible reliance on features of our human moral perspective. If this
86 Allen Thompson
is right, then work exploring questions about conceptual anthropocentrism would remain vital and important to the field.
There appear to be at least two distinct dimensions of conceptual anthropocentrism.
One highlights subjective or communal acts of evaluative judgment, in which objects are identified and assigned value. For example, Callicott maintains that individual per- sons can judge ecosystems— or anything else, for that matter— as intrinsically valuable, whereas Hargrove ties the valuing of nature intrinsically to developed cultural perspec- tives, on analogy with aesthetic judgments. Focusing on the subject, not the object of evaluative judgments, we ask, “How do good people value non- human nature?” or “What features of human morality affect what we ought to value and how we ought to exhibit our appreciation of value?”
A second dimension pertains to questions about the very conceptual tools or architecture with which we conduct moral inquiry. Surely Williams is right with the metaethical point that questions about the environment must invoke values that humans can “understand themselves as pursuing and respecting,” but what sort of consequences could this insight have? Will it limit what or how we value parts of the non- human world? It seems it must.
How flexible can our human moral perspective be regarding the non- human world without breaching into an objectionable anthropomorphism? How should we understand ourselves as good in relation to the non- human world? What is more fitting, our concepts of value, duty, or virtue?
These two dimensions together illustrate how a focus on human beings as moral agents remains a promising avenue for environmental ethics (see also Hale, this volume). As I argue elsewhere, perhaps it is time to reframe ethical questions about the environment, deemphasizing conceptions of value in nature and focusing instead on the specification and development of excellence in human moral character, that is, on specifically human envi- ronmental virtues (Thompson, 2008, 2010, see also Sandler, this volume). For one, framing environmental ethics primarily in terms of obligations regarding the intrinsic value of non- human nature offers nothing to combat some of the dualistic conceptions of Modernism (e.g., human/ nature, spirit/ matter, morally considerable/ morally irrelevant) seen by many as a driver of contemporary environmental problems (Norton and Thompson, 2014). The alternative approach of a naturalistic environmental virtue ethics enables us to conceive of human moral goodness as one instance of the wide variety of natural goodness (Thompson, 2009). Acting well could be specified in naturalistic terms concerning our specifically human form of life, not dependent on values conceived to be external of ourselves, belonging to non- human nature (Thompson, 2012). Such an approach, I believe, holds more promise for overcoming problematic dichotomies than standard fare, occasionally dogmatic rejec- tions of anthropocentrism and subsequent attributions of intrinsic value or rights to parts of non- human nature.
Not all advocates of ethical nonanthropocentrism are dogmatic, of course. Attfield (2011) carefully examines and critically replies to various attempts at reviving anthropocentrism, including Norton’s convergence hypothesis, a perspectival/ conceptual anthropocentrism, and O’Neill’s Aristotelian approach, discussed earlier. Attfield worries that a focus on human values will “unintentionally narrow the range of human sympathies” (Attfield, 2011: 29).
Likewise, McShane worries that any form of anthropocentrism “undermines some of the common attitudes— love, respect, awe— that people think it appropriate to take toward the natural world” (McShane, 2007: 169).
Anthropocentrism: Humanity as Peril and Promise 87 Rolston is famously critical of environmental virtue ethics as overly anthropocentric, as it gives normative priority to the concept of human flourishing (Rolston, 2005). But the virtuous human being is not disposed to be overly self- concerned, nor selfish. So, Rolston, along with Attfield and McShane, seem to confuse the orientation of a theory’s construc- tion (e.g., focus on the human virtues) with the subjective perspective of the virtuous per- son. O’Neill illustrates this with the virtue of friendship, a human virtue that disposes one to be concerned with the well- being of others for their own sake. Justice, of course, is another important other- regarding virtue. The environmentally virtuous person, likewise, need not maintain the outlook of ethical anthropocentrism. Instead she would possess, among other virtues, a disposition toward environmental or ecological justice, which may well be accom- panied by feelings of love, awe, and respect. In a virtue- theoretic approach, however, this moral judgment must be based on human- centered criteria, whether on human conceptions of responding well to “intrinsic value” in nature or simply living well as human being.
If indeed we are moving into the Anthropocene, the age of human domination (see Rolston, this volume), then perhaps environmental ethics ought to focus closely on human beings, on the species- specific environmental character traits, the environmental virtues and vices, of this particular moral animal. The well- being of all life on Earth may hang in the balance.
Notes
1. Thanks to Ken Shockley and Stephen Gardiner for helpful comments on the text.
2. Treating intrinsic and instrumental value as an exhaustive dichotomy has since been chal- lenged by those attracted to pluralistic conceptions of value in nature (Wenz, 1993; Stone, 1988; Callicott, 1990; Light, 1996).
3. One notable exception is Man’s Responsibility for Nature (Passmore, 1974). Hargrove pres- ents a slightly alternative history, according to which the first efforts were to attribute rights to nature. Failing that, retreat was made to attributing intrinsic value to nature, with the strongest advocates, such as Holmes Rolston, aspiring to give an objective or mind- independent account of nature’s intrinsic value (Hargrove, 1992).
4. Brennan and Lo define the terms as I do here (Brennan and Lo, 2010: 11). As Norton (1984) uses the term, however, “weak” anthropocentrism denies intrinsic value to the non- human world, which counts as a strong anthropocentrism as I use the terms. Hargrove (1992) uses “weak” anthropocentrism differently, only to mean that the value in non- human nature need not be only instrumental, yet Hargrove’s use does not necessarily reserve a trumping role for human intrinsic value.
5. Or as Leopold put it, Homo sapiens are just a “plain member and citizen” of the biotic community.
6. If strong ethical anthropocentrism is the view that only human beings bear an intrin- sic moral value or are morally considerable, then ethical nonanthropocentrism implies that some part or parts of the nonhuman world are intrinsically valuable. If weak ethical anthropocentrism is the view that the intrinsic moral worth of human beings always over- rides the moral significance of nonhumans, then ethical nonanthropocentrism implies that the moral value of human beings does not always trump all other values.
7. The quote is available online at http:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Reverence_ for_ Life accessed January12, 2015.
88 Allen Thompson
8. Bryan Norton, famous for his “weak” or broad anthropocentrism, argues persuasively that nonindividualism is what makes environmental ethics distinctive, not the rejection of anthropocentrism (Norton, 1984).
9. The Land Ethic “simply enlarges the boundaries of the [moral] community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land … [A] land ethics changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land- community to plain member and citi- zen of it. It implies respect for his fellow- members, and also respect for the community as such.” (Leopold, 1949).
10. Thus, Hargrove and Norton agree in finding Callicott committed to the idea that all values are the product of human valuing. Consequently, along with Hargrove, Norton believes that Callicott’s position is not genuinely a form of nonanthropocentrism. Norton writes,
“it can be difficult to see how such a position, asserted to be nonanthropocentric, can maintain any sense of human- independent value because nonhuman value can only exist as a result of human affect” (Norton 2013).
11. Hargrove draws the distinction in terms as defined by Taylor: “inherent worth” picks out the objective value something has in virtue of having a good of its own, while “intrinsically valued” is associated with a thing’s being valued noninstrumentally by a evaluating subject (Hargrove, 1992).
12. Some have argued for the moral relevance of species membership, for example Williams (2008) and Diamond (1991). Compelling criticisms of such approaches can be found in McMahan (2005).
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Chapter 8
Conscious Animals and the Value of
Experience
Lori Gruen
The field of environment ethics has contributed greatly to value theory in that it urges us to reconsider what is morally considerable and why. Once we move beyond the view that humans are the only valuable entities on the planet, we must then ask who or what else matters from a moral point of view, and that question allows us to reconsider the content, sources, and implications of different ways of valuing. A growing number of theorists have argued that what is valuable is positive experience, and thus all conscious animals, human and nonhuman, matter. Once that is acknowledged, our responsibility for preventing or contributing to positive experience then becomes a serious topic for reflection. Here I will discuss variations on the view that can broadly be called “experientialism.”1 Experientialism suggests that all beings who have conscious experiences deserve our moral attention.
Conscious beings experience positive or negative impacts on their interests— they can be benefitted and harmed by having their interests promoted or set back. What interests matter and why they matter is a subject of disagreement that has affected what we judge to be per- missible or impermissible treatment of other animals.