anthropocentrism
what is anthropocentrism?
After the discovery of gravity, people lost their belief of incomprehensible powers that govern the World. Even the church could not prevent the change and arrival of that new idea, anthropocentrism. incomprehensible powers was not accepted anymore. People reached the idea that everthing has an explanation. Now, everything could be understood. So humans ended up the idea that they are ruler. They were the center. All nature was serving them. Thats why the nature, animals, plants occured. Everyting was for human beings. So as a definition, anthropocentrism is a philosophical viewpoint arguing Human beings are the central or most significant entities in the world.
transformation of human-nature duailty into anthropocentrism
Christian and Jewish tradition transformed humankind’s attitude towards nature into anthropocentrism. The Christian tradition defined the ethical responsibility of mankind to nature by human interest. A typical example is the first chapter of the Book Genesis:
So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Another reason that supports the idea of human dominance over nature is the dualistic philosophies that see nature as subject to human interest, even exploitation. Both Aristotle and Kant placed the human mind at the center of their world.
“After the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all at least the greater part of them, for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments. Now if natüre makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man. ” -Aristotle, Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 8
the impact of anthropocentric approach on the environment
With the application of the notion, human become the main reason for the existence of planet and all other living beings. With the industrial age and mechanization, anthropocentrism transformed into selfish exploitation that forced many other creatures to sacrifice to serve the needs of humanity.
People got used to the nature with its instrumental value. When they pretend to not see the nature’s internal value. Right now, The World is losing its heatlhiness because of us. We are increasing the rate of CO2 in the air. We are destroying trees, so the ocean is absorbing more CO2 to itsself. It is getting more asidic. The amount of fish in the World decreased to %10. The area covered by deserts is growing . The World is getting hotter, Global Warming . Water level icreased by a rate of about one-eighth of an inch per year. We used natural so resources carelessly.
The concept of anthropocentrism has changed with increasing environmental problems. A new moderate version of it which is called weak anthropocentrism was defined to handle environmental problems in a better way. Weak anthropocentrism values nonhumans as well, provided that humanity has a higher moral status than nonhumans.
The other version of it is non-anthropocentrism. Non-anthropocentrism denies that human interests should be the center of moral concern and to maintains non-human natural assets with value which is independent of human value.
by Elif Su Yurtseven & Zuhal Özdemir
References
Aydın Bayram, S. (2016). The Use of the concept of intrinsic value in anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric approaches in environmental ethics: a metaethical investigation.
https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/est2016/2016/09/11/has-anthropocentrism-ruined-our-planet/
