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Environmental Ethics, Callicott and the

New Triangular Affair

Amy Claire Pearce

A thesis submitted to the School of Geography Planning and

Environmental Management of the University of Queensland for the

Degree of Bachelor of Environmental Management (Sustainable

Development)

July 2011

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I hereby declare that the work presented here in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge, original and my

own work, except as acknowledged in the text, and that the material has not been submitted, either in whole

or in part, at this or any other university.

Amy Pearce 

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank William Grey, for his philosophical counsel, David Neil, for his invaluable mentoring and

Bradd Witt, for his pragmatic guidance, for their efforts, support and understanding in supervising this thesis.

I also extend my thanks to Richie Coster, Ann Pearce and Chris McAuliffe for their support.

Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my father, Bob Pearce, whose input and emotional support

made completing this project possible.

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Abstract

The discipline of environmental ethics has a primary goal of achieving a unified ethic that provides moral

agents with a guide for interaction within the environment. Several normative theories were developed as

alternative approaches to the traditional anthropocentric view of nature, which was held to be unjust and

inadequate. In 1980, J. Baird Callicott released a paper called ‘Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair’ in whichhe conceptualised a triangular debate between the ethical theories of anthropocentrism,

nonanthropocentrism concerned with individuals (animal welfare and biocentrism) and

nonanthropocentrism concerned with nature as a whole and the biotic community, based on the principles

of ethical-holism (ecocentrism).

Recently, however, Norton’s convergence hypothesis (that while theories may differ at base value level, they

nevertheless support the same environmental policy outcomes), as well as the meta-ethical issues

surrounding our valuing being inevitably anthropocentric, have gained considerable attention. This has led

some environmental ethicists and pragmatists to call for environmental ethics to abandon the concept of a

nonanthropocentric environmental ethic. The discourse trend has therefore been described as a shift fromstrong anthropocentrism, to animal welfarism, to biocentrism, to ecocentrism, returning to an enlightened

(weak) anthropocentrism. It seems that Callicott’s triangle has become somewhat of a ‘Bermuda’ variety – 

environmental ethics is lost within it and unable to escape it.

The aim of this inquiry is to discover whether environmental ethics is progressing towards its goal of

grounding a unified environmental ethic and, if not, to recommend a framework that will refocus the

discipline onto the right track. I examine the calls for a return to anthropocentrism as a basis for

environmental ethics and find them to be unwarranted. Anthropocentrism as a normative theory is (still)

speciesist and should again be abandoned, whilst the question of inevitable anthropocentrism, along with

other ultimate value questions, should be left to the meta-ethical domain of philosophy.

I then examine the previous stage in the trend, ecocentrism. Moving back in the trend, I categorise six

versions and identify flaws in each, ranging from eco-fascism, combined-speciesism, relativism and

redundancy and go on to discover that the foundation of ethical-holism that all ecocentric theories are built

upon, is not plausible in itself. Furthermore, I find that Callicott’s push for an ethically-holistic environmental

ethic stemmed from a misconception about the inability of individualistic environmental ethics to cater for

the protection of species, ecosystems and nature as a whole. These findings lead me to suggest that the

shortcomings of ecocentrism, combined with this misconception, have stalled the search for a unified

environmental ethic.

I propose a ‘New Triangular Affair’ framework, made up of three areas upon which, in my view,

environmental ethics as a discipline should be focussed. One is concerned with issues of moral standing,

another with matters of relative moral significance and the last relates to the topic of choosing the morally

relevant timescale of concern. Adopting longer timescales of concern will result in employing more holistic

approaches when making environmental policy decisions. The concepts raised in each area are not new in

themselves; rather, it is the conceptual framework that is new and represents a shift fro m Callicott’s

‘Triangular Affair’, to one that offers better prospects for progress towards a unified environmental ethic. 

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Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1.1 The Relationship between Intrinsic Value and Moral Standing 3

Chapter 2: The Merits of Returning to Anthropocentrism 6

2.1 Inevitable Anthropocentrism: Separating Meta-Ethics from Environmental Ethics 7

2.2 Valuational Anthropocentrism: Reviewing the Need for an Environmental Ethic 10

2.2.1 The Speciesism Distinction: Human-Centrism (A1) and Person-Centrism (A2) 14

2.3 Against the Pragmatic Case for Returning to Anthropocentrism 17

Chapter 3: The Merits of Ecocentrism and Ethical-holism 19

3.1 Six Versions of Ecocentrism: An Analysis 21

3.1.1 Ecocentrism Version 1 (E1) and Version 2 (E2) 22

3.1.2 Ecocentrism Version 3 (E3) and Version 4 (E4) 26

3.1.3 Ecocentrism Version 5 (E5) 28

3.1.4 Ecocentrism Version 6 (E6) 30

3.2 The Plausibility of Ethical-Holism: Implications for Ecocentrism 32

3.2.1 Burdens of Conceptual Proof 32

3.2.2 Perspectives and Interests of Wholes - or Humans? 37

3.2.3 Philosophical Underpinnings Unpinned 39

3.3 Holism in Environmental Ethics: Practical Means or Ethical End? 41

Chapter 4: The ‘New Triangular Affair’: A Framework for Progress 46

4.1 Degree of Moral Extension (Size of Intrinsic Value Net) 47

4.2 Degree of Moral Significance (Magnitude of Differential Value) 48

4.3 Degree of Practical-holism (Timescale of Concern) 52

Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion 57

References 60

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List of Figures

Figure 1: The Trend of Environmental Ethics Discourse: 2

Figure 2: Forms of Anthropocentrism 6

Figure 3: Valuational Anthropocentrism 10

Figure 4: Total Economic Value According to Weak Anthropocentrism 11

Figure 5: Forms of Ecocentrism (Defined by Commitment to Ethical-holism): 22

Figure 6: Ecocentrism Version 1 (E1) 23

Figure 7: Biocentrism  31

Figure 8: Callicott’s ‘Triangular Affair’ and the ‘New Triangular Affair’ Framework 46

Figure 9: Scales of Moral Extensionism and Timescale of Concern Displaying Maximum Positions 54

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Environmental ethics is a discipline primarily concerned with questions of value and moral considerability in

the natural environment.1  An ethic that moves beyond the realms of anthropocentrism

2  – an environmental

ethic – was called for3 and various nonanthropocentric theories have subsequently been generated.

4  In 1980,

J. Baird Callicott published a paper called ‘Animal Liberation: A ‘Triangular Affair’’ in which he expressed his

concern over the individualistic, reductionist and atomistic form that these extensionist approaches were

taking.5 

Animal welfarism, or sentientism,6  took on the task of expanding the moral circle to include animals. The

potential moral standing of trees7  became the next inquiry and the merits of a host of biocentric

8  ethical

frameworks were being debated. However, all followed the traditionalist method of locating intrinsic value9 in

individuals and Callicott, influenced by Aldo Leopold’s ‘Land Ethic’,10

 was convinced that nothing less than a

holistic environmental ethic was needed, a ‘sweeping philosophical overhaul’ that attributed moral

considerability directly to holistic natural entities such as ecosystems and the biotic community.11

  Callicott

conceived a triangular debate, between ‘moral humanists’ (anthropocentrists), ‘humane moralists’

(sentientists and biocentrists) and those true  environmental ethicists, such as himself, that subscribed to

ethical-holism (ecocentrists).12

 

A dichotomous debate ensued between environmental individualism and environmental holism, focusing on

whether intrinsic value or moral standing could possibly be located in natural wholes and not just organisms.13

 

At the same time, the continued broadening and weakening of anthropocentrism through the growing

sustainable development paradigm, combined with the seemingly impossible task of finding a genuinely

nonanthropocentric ethic based in value completely removed from human interest, drove some

environmental pragmatists to question the overall need to look for intrinsic value outside of the human

world.14

  This ‘debate about the debate’ is leading back to a new anthropocentrism that acknowledges a much

broader range of human (and future human) interests, or even an adoption of ‘poly-centric’ or ‘multi-centric’ 

approaches.15

 

1 According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, environmental ethics is ‘...the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of

human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents’. Andrew Brennan, and Yeuk-Sze Lo,

"Environmental Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

2 The concept of anthropocentrism will be examined in detail throughout this inquiry but can be briefly defined here as ‘The view that…moral standing

can be restricted to humanity alone’ or alternatively the ‘related value-theory that none but human interests or concerns matter, in the sense of having

independent value’ Robin Attfield “Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-first Century ” (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), 9 3 Richard Routley (now Sylvan) is widely credited as being one of the first to make this call in his widely-referenced paper: Richard Routley, “Is There a

Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?” Proceedings of the X11 World Congress of Philosophy , No. 1. Varna, Bulgaria, 1973, pp. 205-210.4

These theories will be examined as they arise throughout this inquiry. A comprehensive overview can be found in A lasdair Cochrane’s article in theInternet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/envi-eth/)5 J. Baird Callicott , “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair”, Environmental Ethics, 2: no. 4, (1980), 311-338

6 Sentience refers to the capacity to feel suffering or enjoyment: “anything that is not sentient cannot suffer or enjoy” (Onora O’Neill, “Environmental

Values, Anthropocentrism and Speciesism”, Environmental Values, 6 (1997), 130). Also  Attfield, “Environmental Ethics”, 6 7 Stone, Christopher D. Should Trees Have Standing? :  and other essays on law, morals, and the environment   Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. : Oceana Publications,

c19968 Robin Attfield gave a talk on biocentrism at Cardiff University (www.smokewriting.co.uk/philosophycafe/attfield_200410.pdf)

9 Stenmark refers to these collectively as ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ but always with the emphasis on the individual. Mikael Stenmark , “The Relevance of

Environmental Ethical Theories for Policy Making”, Environmental Ethics, 24: no. 2 (2002), 13810

 Callicott makes it clear that a true environmental ethic should resemble the holism found in Leopold’s Land Ethic: ‘Environmental ethics then can be

defined ostensively by using Leopold's land ethic as the exemplary type. I do not mean to suggest that all environmental ethics should necessarily

conform to Leopold's paradigm, but the extent to which an ethical system resembles Leopold's land ethic might be used, for want of anything better, as

a criterion to measure the extent to which it is or is not of the environmental sort.’ (Callicott, “Triangular Affair”, 311) 11

 Callicott J. Baird, In Defence Of The Land Ethic: Essays In Environmental Philosophy , (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989)”, 3-4.12

 Callicott, “Triangular Affair” 13J. Baird Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism”  Environmental Ethics, 12: no.2, (1990), 106

14 Most of Norton’s work makes this claim but see, Bryan G. Norton, ‘Convergence, Noninstrumental Value and the Semantics of ʻ Loveʻ : Comment on

McShane’, Environmental Values, 17 (2008): 5 –14, in particular, the section: ‘Against the Intrinsic Instrumental Distinction” 15

 Douglas J. Rabb, “From Triangles to Tripods: Polycentrism in Environmental Ethics”, Environmental Ethics, 14: no. 2, (1992) 177 – 183

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The trend of environmental ethics discourse has therefore been broadly categorised by Callicott (and others),16

 

as a shift from strong anthropocentrism, to animal welfarism, to biocentrism, to ecocentrism, returning to an

enlightened (weak) anthropocentrism (Figure 1.)

Figure 1: The Trend of Environmental Ethics Discourse: Anthropocentrism

1

, or strong anthropocentrism, grants moral standing to humans only andrecognises a narrow and short-term set of human interests. Animal welfarism, or sentientism, grants moral standing to all creatures that feel pleasure

and pain (sentient beings). Biocentrism grants moral standing to all living individuals. Ecocentrism grants moral standing to natural holistic entities such

as ecosystems, either solely, or in conjunction with the moral standing of individuals. Anthropocentrism2 grants moral standing to humans only (or

holds that moral standing of nonhumans and nature is inevitably dependant on human interests) and recognises a broader and longer-term set of

human interests.

The discipline of environmental ethics has a primary goal of achieving a unified ethic that provides moral

agents17

  (humans18

) with a guide for interaction within the environment.19

  The aim of this inquiry is to

discover whether environmental ethics is progressing towards its goal of grounding a unified environmental

ethic and, if not, to recommend a framework that will refocus the discipline onto the right track.

There is certainly evidence of frustration within the discipline regarding the lack of progress and the apparent

insurmountable differences between the seemingly mutually inconsistent schools of thought.20

  It seems that

Callicott’s triangle has become somewhat of a ‘Bermuda’ variety – environmental ethics is lost within it and

unable to escape it. While some environmental ethicists attempt to step around this problem by simply

ignoring the differences between competing claims and settling on a pluralistic approach,21

 I instead take the

principal purpose of environmental ethics to be the process of ‘... searching for the Holy Grail of environmental

ethics  – the coherent, inclusive super-theory’.22

  This statement was made by none other than Callicott and,

while he has since seemed to shy away from the bold claim,23

  I uphold it and use it in this inquiry as the

measure to assess whether the discipline is on the right track.

Clearly there is indeed a multitude of values and a diverse range of stakeholders to consider when it comes to

environmental decision-making. At the social and political levels, pluralism is to be expected. In my view, one

of the purposes of a unified environmental ethic should be to bring clarity to this process of sifting through

complex environmental issues. This super-theory would in fact have many purposes of its own - influencing

policy decisions and environmental education among the most important in terms of reshaping our attitudes

and behaviour towards nature and the Earth we rely upon.

Anthony Weston, “Multicentrism: A Manifesto”, Environmental Ethics, 26: no. 1, (2004), 25 - 40 16 J. Baird Callicott, “The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental Ethics: Forging a New Discourse”, Environmental Values, 11: (2002):

3-25 – trend described and set out from pages 4 to 12. Robin Attfield, “The Ethics of Environmental Concern”, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983) – trend set

out in Part 1: pages 1-8717

 A moral agent can be defined as an entity that possesses ‘self -consciousness, a free will, a capability for understanding moral principles, and both the

intention and the physical capability to act according to given principles of duty’ Anthony J. Povilitis, “On Assigning Rights to Animals and Nature”,

Environmental Ethics, 2; no. 1 (1980): 6718

 Moral agents are generally seen as rational beings with the capacity to act autonomously. Dieterle makes the point that as long as they have that

capacity , humans are always moral agents, whereas, if nonhuman animals lack that capacity they are not ever moral agents. J.M. Dieterle,

Environmental Ethics, Spring 2010: Review of Marc Beckoff and Jessica Pierce, “Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals.” Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press (2009). xv., 9719

 ‘… an ethics dealing with man’s relations to land and to the animals and plant that grow upon i t’. (Richard Routley, “Is there a need for a new, an

environmental ethic?“ Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy , (September 17-22, Varna, Bulgaria), Sofia Press, 1975); ‘An environmental

ethic is supposed to govern human relations with nonhuman natural entities’, (Callicott, “Elements of an Environmental Ethic: Moral Considerability and

the Biotic Community”, Chapter 4 in Land Ethic, 63)  Note: I have used ‘within the environment’ instead of ‘with the environment’ in order to avoid an

interpretation that humans are somehow artificial or not part of nature.20 Christopher D. Stone, "Moral Pluralism and the Course of Environmental Ethics," Environmental Ethics, 1O: (1988): 139.

21 Ibid.

22 Callicott, “Moral Pluralism” 

23 Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”: Callicott complains about Minteer thinking that he (Callicott) is still on a ‘quest for a universal master principle’, 21 

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In order to assess whether progress is being made I firstly give consideration to the most recent shift in the

discourse trend described by Callicott; that of a return to anthropocentrism, driven by the claims that our

valuing is ‘inevitably anthropocentric’, because humans are the only conceivers of value, as well as

reconsidering the need for a non-anthropocentric ethic, now that a broader notion of human interests is

acknowledged (Chapter 2). The findings suggest that the shift away from anthropocentrism in the first place

was on the right track and the move back towards it is unwarranted. A metaphorical step backwards is

therefore taken in the discourse trend described by Callicott, to the second-most recent theory and Callicott’s own school of thought - ecocentrism.

I categorise six versions of ecocentrism, all of which subscribe to the notion of ethical-holism, advocating the

intrinsic value or moral standing of ecological systems directly, rather than restricting moral considerability to

individuals (Chapter 3). Since Callicott himself acknowledges that he has been the ‘most vocal’ of the

ecocentrists, analysis of his theory is given substantial treatment, showing his shift from the position of radical

holism in ‘Triangular Affair’, through to his more modern theory of layered social and ecological

communitarianism. Before examining the possibility of ecological wholes having direct moral standing, I

identify flaws in all six versions, varying from issues of eco-fascism, speciesism, relativism and redundancy.24

 

Sufficient grounds are found to justify an overall examination of the plausibility of ethical-holism (Chapter 4),however the findings suggest that foundation of ethical-holism, that all ecocentric theories are built upon,

lacks merit. Therefore ecocentrism, Callicott’s ‘Triangular Affair’  and the continued debate between those

who subscribe to ethical individualism and ethical-holism in environmental ethics is holding back the discipline

from progressing towards a unified environmental ethic.

After finding cause to reject anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, I propose an ethically-individualistic, but

practically-holistic, framework made up of three areas within environmental ethics that I believe are relevant

to the task of finding a unified environmental ethic  –  a ‘New Triangular Affair’ for environmental ethicists 

(Chapter 5). I suggest that, if progress is being made in these three areas, the discipline of environmental

ethics can be said to be back on the right track.

1.1 The Relationship between Intrinsic Value and Moral Standing

The terms ‘intrinsic value’ and ‘moral standing’ are very closely related within environmental et hics and are

quite often used interchangeably.25

  As I will be using these terms throughout this inquiry it is important that

they are defined and the link between them established at the outset.

By describing things as having intrinsic value, I mean that they have a ‘good of their own, and have moral

standing as such, and further that their flourishing and attaining their good is intrinsically valuable, valuable,

that is, because of its very nature’26

  and are independent of the interests of others.27

  Intrinsic value is

therefore limited to entities whose ‘good’ can be harmed or benefitted.28

  What constitutes being a valid

candidate for being harmed and benefitted will be treated in more depth in Chapter 4.

Like most environmental ethics literature, I use this meaning of intrinsic value as one that can be contrasted

with ‘instrumental value’, which relates to the utility an entity provides as a means to other (intrinsically

valuable) ends.29

  Whereas an entity’s intrinsic value could be said to be a ‘stand-alone’ property, its

instrumental value is: ‘dependent on the existence of other entities and the functional relationships between

24 An understanding of these terms is not necessary until later in this inquiry, where they will be defined.

25

 Rick O’Neil, “Intrinsic Value, Moral Standing, and Species”, Environmental Ethics, 19, no. 1, (1997), 4726 Ibid., 10

27 Attfield,”Overview”,10

28 Kenneth Goodpaster, “On Being Morally Considerable”, The Journal of Philosophy , 75: No. 6, (Jun., 1978), pp. 308-325

29 Attfield, “Overview ”, 12 

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it and these entities.’30

  An entity can have both intrinsic and instrumental value (or be valued in both of these

ways), or only one or the other. As Callicott explains, it is perhaps easiest to understand intrinsic value

negatively, in that is constitutes what value remains when all instrumental value an entity provides as a means

to other ends is taken away.31

 

It is therefore clear why the concept of intrinsic value has become important in environmental ethics because,

if an entity cannot be said to have intrinsic value and it also provides no instrumental use to entities that do,

then there would be no reason to protect or conserve that entity and no ‘wrong’ that could be done to it.32

 

Consequently, whether or not an entity has intrinsic value is often used as the basis for assigning it moral

standing.33

 

Having moral standing implies that an entity merits respect and consideration when action is to be taken that

may benefit or harm it.34

  Goodpaster uses the term ‘moral significance’ to denote an entitiy that has been

considered and essentially passed the test of meeting requirements for moral standing, thereby giving it the

status of moral significance rather than mere ‘moral considerability’.35

  For Goodpaster, standing and

significance are both relative terms, whereas considerability is concerned with whether or not something

deserves any consideration at all – not the degree of consideration.

However, there are a few levels of subtlety in this area, and my use of terminology differs slightly (but

importantly) from Goodpaster. In this inquiry, moral considerability is the award granted to entities that have

met the criteria for moral standing and therefore the two can be read virtually interchangeably  –  moral

standing is not a relative term. Moral significance, on the other hand, is used in a relative sense to describe

the value weightings given to entities that have moral standing but have competing interest claims.

Therefore, the concepts of intrinsic value and moral standing are, I hold, strongly linked. The former are the

basis for grounding the latter, although, not everyone agrees that all things that have intrinsic value are

candidates for moral standing. For example, works of art are frequently explained as having intrinsic value,

more than the aesthetic value they provide to those viewing it, without making the case that they have moral

standing.36

  It may be fairly asked, if there are questions regarding the restriction of intrinsic value to entities

that have moral standing, then why not avoid the problem by simply using the term moral standing and not

intrinsic value? I continue to use both, speaking of ‘intrinsic value or moral standing’, because it is useful to

contrast instrumental with intrinsic value - to consider treating entities as a means or an end.

While I disagree that works of art should be valued more than instrumentally, this difference does not affect

the inquiry. If nature is argued to have intrinsic value without moral standing then, while I disagree that this is

correct and argue that it must hold either both or none, this is not troublesome in the context of what an

environmental ethic is designed to achieve.

An environmental ethic, like all normative ethics,37

 should tell us about which entities are deserving of direct

obligation on behalf of moral agents, in other words, which entities ought to have moral standing. This moral

standing must be warranted and is grounded by showing that a given entity has intrinsic value, hence the

constant use of intrinsic value claims.38

  An entity that has intrinsic value, but no moral standing, cannot be a

30 Eric Katz, “Organism, Community and the Substitution Problem”, Environmental Ethics, 7: no. 3, (1985), 249

31 Callicott. “Pragmatic Power”, 16 

32 Aaron Simmons, “ Two Arguments against Biological Interests” , Environmental Ethics  32, no. 3, (2010) , 231, 243

33Darren Domsky, “The Inadequacy of Callicott’s Ecological Communitarianism”, Environmental Ethics, 28, no. 4, (2006), 395

34 Goodpaster, “Morally Considerable”, 316 

35

Ibid., 31136 O’Neil, “Intrinsic Value”, 46 

37 Normative ethics, briefly, are ‘…theories of what ought to be done by agents of one kind or another, and of the related principles and criteria’ Attfield,

“Overview ”, 13.38

 ‘…any general theory of normative ethics… will need an account of which things have moral standing and which things have intrinsic value’. Ibid. 

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recipient of direct moral obligation, so what is the point (within environmental ethics) of claiming that it has

intrinsic value at all? Moral standing is the issue of significance, intrinsic value the justification of moral

standing.

Now that these terms have been defined and links established, the inquiry into whether environmental ethics

is making progress towards a unified environmental ethic, can begin, starting with the most recent stage in the

discourse trend: the call for a return to anthropocentrism as a basis for an environmental ethic.

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Chapter 2: The Merits of Returning to Anthropocentrism

An examination of the environmental ethics literature reveals two main forms of anthropocentrism within

environmental ethical theory: one that is focused on the intrinsic value of humans (or rather, the lack of

intrinsic value in nonhumans and nature), and one that is concerned with the wider philosophical issues

surrounding whether a truly nonanthropocentric ethic is possible. For the purpose of this inquiry, I have

adopted the labels ‘valuational anthropocentrism’ and ‘inevitable anthropocentrism’, respectively.39 

Philosophically, valuational anthropocentrism and its sub-groups, belong to the domain of normative ethics,

whereas issues relating to inevitable anthropocentrism belong to the wider realm of meta-ethics40

(Figure 2).

Figure 2: Forms of Anthropocentrism: The meta-ethical philosophical domain is shown at the broader level, with the normative domain existing within

it. Meta-ethics is concerned with questions such as how and why we value, and what sorts of values exist.41

  Normative or applied ethics are ‘...the

study of relevant principles of value and of obligation and their bearing on action and policy’.42

  The question of whether our valuing is inevitablyanthropocentric is therefore a meta-ethical one, whereas the view that only humans are intrinsically valuable and morally considerable is a normative

claim. Two types of normative valuational anthropocentrism have been categorised for this inquiry, with brief descriptions given the diagram key.

39 I have chosen the word ‘inevitable’ for ease of recognition within the inquiry. Other terms used in the field with equivalent meaning are ‘perspectival’

(Christian Diehm, ”Minding Nature: Val Plumwood's Critique of Moral Extensionism”, Environmental Ethics, 32: no.1, (2010): 15) which is perhaps a

more appropriate term but offers less clarity; and Grey’s ‘covert’ anthropocentrism: "a covert reference to the human point of view, to our interests

and concerns" (p. 158) (William Grey, “Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy  71, no. 4 (1993): 466) who also says

that ‘anthropocentrism is natural and inevitable’. (Ibid., 469) 

I have adopted Gary Varner’s term “valuational” for the normative domain of anthropocentrism - a term that he not only contrasts with meta-ethical

issues but also against axiological anthropocentrism: “Although my view is strongly nonanthropocentric insofar as I recognise the moral standing of all

living organisms, I argue that *it+ supports what I call “axiological anthropocentrism”: the view that a certain class of human interests are more

important than the interests of any (or at least almost every) nonhuman organism. I label my view ‘axiological anthropocentrism’ to distinguish it from

views that deny nonhuman organisms all direct moral standing. Such views I label ’valuationally anthropocentric’. (Gary E. Varner, In Nature’s

Interests? (New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8)40

‘ Environmental ethics includes ... both normative value theories (the study of relevant principles of value and of obligation, and their bearing on

action and policy) and meta-ethics, the study of the basis and status of all such discourse.’(Attfield, “Overview ”, 15) 41

 Attfield, Overview, 19742

 Ibid., 15 

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2.1 Inevitable Anthropocentrism: Separating Meta-Ethics from Environmental Ethics

The calls for a ‘return’ to anthropocentrism within the discourse trend are typically driven by the claim that all

valuing is inevitably anthropocentric, or that there is no need for a nonanthropocentric ethic once a broad

enough range of human interests are taken into account. This section deals with the former claim.

The core points of contention in the debate surrounding inevitable anthropocentrism are not limited to the

discipline of environmental ethics, but are representative of wider philosophical problems.43  ‘Inevitable 

anthropocentrists’ would argue that not only are all notions of value anthropogenic, (in that the concepts are

created by humans), but that ultimately (and because of their anthropogenic origins), they can all be tied back

to human interests – that we cannot escape anthropocentrism in our valuing.44

  In the meta-ethical domain of

philosophy this question of ‘ultimate value’ is represented with terms such as the ‘valuee vs valuer’ or

‘subjective vs objective valuing’ problems, whether value is ‘universal or local’, and others.45

  A detailed

treatment of these concepts cannot be addressed in this inquiry, but it is important to acknowledge what

impacts they may have on normative environmental ethics.

The normative theories that will be examined in this inquiry locate intrinsic value in nonhumans, natural

wholes or even non-living things, in order to justify the moral standing that is, or ought to be, granted to those

entities. If the ‘inevitable anthropocentrist’ (or more broadly, any philosopher specialising in value theory) can

show that any intrinsic value placed in nonhumans is actually (covertly) a subjective, relative or extrinsic value

that we had not previously recognised, then I acknowledge that this may have implications for all non-

anthropocentric ethical theories. For example, if inevitable anthropocentrism (at the meta-ethical level),

shows convincingly that being sentient isn’t objectively intrinsically valuable (and is dependent on human

valuers, for example), then this may bring new issues to light for someone who adheres to an animal welfarist

ethic.

One might argue that their dog is intrinsically valuable, aside from any instrumental value they derive from his

existence. They might try to ‘ground’ this value on the intrinsic-conferring-property of sentience - the dog can

feel pleasure and pain and this is their basis for establishing intrinsic value. They insist that, even if all use-

value the dog provides to them is taken away, that it has a claim to moral standing based on its sentience. If

an inevitable anthropocentrist proves that this is just an evolutionary trick – that the owner is genetically pre-

disposed to have compassion for sentient creatures, because throughout evolution it has benefited humans to

be compassionate, then this may cause some problems for the claim that the dog has truly objective intrinsic

value (and therefore a claim to moral standing). Even if they were to show that the owner’s valuing is

inevitably subjective, via theoretical philosophical reasoning, without the more evidential or empirical claim

about previously unknown evolutionary ties, the problem remains that, on the surface, it would seem that the

owner is in fact shown to be an anthropocentrist, rather than a nonanthropocentrist.

However, someone who (correctly or incorrectly) intuitively believes their dog has intrinsic value is, in my

view, different to someone who rejects the notion of the dog having intrinsic value in the first place. One

holds that the sentient creature has moral standing because of its intrinsic value and then may be shown that

this intrinsic value does not really exist in a universal sense; whereas the other never holds that the sentient

43 For example, Callicott states, ‘The question of ultimate value is a very sticky one for environmental as well as for all ethics…‘, (Callicott, “Triangular

Affair”, 325) 44

 Attfield, “Overview” , 15. Attfield uses ‘anthropogenic’ to describe how values are ‘generated by humanity’ or ‘generated by human judgements’ in

contrast with using ‘anthropocentric’ as meaning ‘deriving from human interests’. In this context, he is using anthropogenic to represent the concept of

‘inevitable anthropocentrism’, thereby hoping to distinguish it from anthropocentrism ‘in the normal *normative+ sense’. I agree (and will argue) that

the two concepts of inevitable anthropocentrism and valuational anthropocentrism are distinct, but I also see why William Grey suggests that inevitableanthropocentrism is more than the ‘trivial claim that our perspectives, values and judgements are necessarily human perspectives, values and

 judgements’ (Grey, “Deep Ecology”, 463). His claim, that by being (anthropogenically) generated by humans, a set of values will inevitably be in some

way related to human interests, is what, in my view, should be debated about at the meta-ethical level.45

 Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”, 11 

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creature has intrinsic value or moral standing in the first place. A person holding the first viewpoint might look

for other ways of explaining that individual’s claim to moral standing, without having to rely on intrinsic value;

whereas the second would not ever grant moral standing to nonhuman individuals. In my view, the difference

between anthro-animal-welfarism and valuational anthropocentrism is an important one.

So, even if valuing is inevitably anthropocentric, related somehow not just to our perspectives (including those

conditioned by our culture) but in some way shape or form, to our human interests, a covertly anthropocentric

ethic with a nonanthropocentric outlook is still an important and distinct step away from conventional

valuational anthropocentrism (anthropocentrism with an anthropocentric outlook) . As Attfield puts it, ‘…even

those who endorse the anthropogenic argument need not be anthropocentrists (in the normal sense).46

  At

best, I would label it ‘anthro-animal-welfarism’ rather than just pool it in with anthropocentrism. Some

‘inevitable anthropocentrists’, such as William Grey, do not develop and disclose this important distinction.47

 

While it may be true that, as Grey says, ‘...a genuinely non-anthropocentric view delivers only confusion’,48

 so

too does philosophy itself offer confusion when environmental philosophers fail to take extra care to avoid

ambiguity in terminology with respect to distinguishing between different domains of philosophical inquiry.49

 

It would be clearer to say that all value-theory, including environmental ethical theories, are inevitably

subjective, or valuer-dependent, without using the term anthropocentric. The point that should be being

made is that any value system created by humans will be influenced by the human perspective - by our

epistemic location in the universe. If humans are removed from Earth, so too is the value that we conceive (if  

you adhere to this side of the meta-ethical debate50

). However, it would be an equally valid expression of this

point to say, hypothetically, that what value a seal finds in the world is dependent on the perspective of the

seal, and if all seals were removed, all values determined by seals disappear. The reason this sounds

problematic is because humans are held to be the only ‘valuers’ – and the only moral agents.51

  But even so, if

a hypothetical example can be made about other valuers (such as seals, or rational beings we might not yet

know about - intelligent aliens, for example), facing the same challenge of inevitable or subjective value, then

it would be safer to use more neutral terms like ‘inevitable valuer-centrism’ or ‘inevitable value-subjectivism’,for example, leaving out the ‘anthro’ part.

46 Attfield uses ‘anthropogenic’ to describe how values are ‘generated by humanity’ or ‘generated by human judgements’ in contrast with using

‘anthropocentric’ as meaning ‘deriving from human interests’. In this context, he is using anthropogenic to represent the concept of ‘inevitable

anthropocentrism’, thereby hoping to distinguish it from anthropocentrism ‘in the normal *normative+ sense’. (Attfield, “Overview” , 14-15) I agree (and

will argue) that the two concepts of inevitable anthropocentrism and valuational anthropocentrism are distinct, but I also see why William Grey suggests

that inevitable anthropocentrism is more than the ‘trivial claim that our perspectives, values and judgements are necessarily human perspectives, values

and judgements’. (Grey, “Deep Ecology”, 463) His claim, that by being (anthropogenically) generated by humans, a set of values will inevitably be in

some way related to human interests, is what, in my view, should be debated about at the meta-ethical level.47

 For example, Grey’s failure to clearly separate discussion of normative and meta-ethical value theories led to Val Plumwood mistaking Grey to be an

anthropocentrist even at the normative level. Plumwood presented Grey’s argument as follows, ‘1. To avoid *abandon+ anthrocentrism one must

eschew human locations or bearings (i.e., refrain from interpreting the world in terms of human experience and values). 2. However, this is impossible

(stepping outside the scale of human scale judgement provides no basis for organising preferences). 3. Therefore anthropocentrism is unavoidable, and;

4. Therefore only human interests are morally considerable)’ (Val Plumwood,“Androcentrism and Anthrocentrism”, Ethics and the Environment, 1

(1996): 126). Grey complains that the last point does not follow from the rest and that he is happy to be labelled an ‘anti-anthrocentrist’, according to

Plumwood’s articulation of this position’ (Grey, “Environmental Value and Anthropocentrism”, Ethics and the Environment 3: no 1,(1998), 99). I believe

this sort of misrepresentation would not have occurred if Grey, along with other ‘inevitable anthropocentrists’, explicitly stated that their discussion is

meta-ethical and perhaps also state their stance on anthropocentrism at the normative level to avoid any doubt.48

 Grey, “Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71: no 4 , December 1993 , 46649

  In the footnotes of the introduction, I provided the following definition of ‘anthropocentrism’ drawn from Attfield: “‘The view that…moral standing

can be restricted to humanity alone’ or alternatively the ‘related value-theory that none but human interests or concerns matter, in the sense of

having independent value’” (Footnote 2, emphasis added) I suggest that in an academic branch such as philosophy that is normally extremely jargon-

rich, it seems strange that the same term is so commonly accepted as representing both the above concepts, when it is also accepted that they are

indeed (importantly) different.50 Attfield points out that ‘…this argument itself *inevitable anthropocentrism+ is high ly suspect, implying as it does that if human valuers had never

evolved there would have been nothing bad about the pain of sentient animals, because there would have been no human valuers to confer on pain its

badness or disvalue…’ (Attfield, “Overview ”, 15)51

J.M Dieterle, review of “Wild Justice”, 97 

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For example, by using the terms ‘subjective value’ and ‘valuing subjects’ , Callicott avoids the issue of whether

such subjects are necessarily human and thereby any direct link to anthropocentrism.52

  Of course, we are

talking about values conceived of by humans in environmental ethics and so those that use the term inevitable

anthropocentrism are  correct in context. Therefore these claims, if worthy, will   have an impact on

environmental ethical frameworks, as acknowledged earlier. However, I take issue with the underlying

implication that unless one is very careful to dissect the terminology, then if a normative nonanthropocentric

theory can be shown to be inevitably anthropocentric at the meta-ethical level, it can be pooled in with andassumed to have no important distinction from standard valuational anthropocentrism that grants moral

standing only to human beings.

While concepts from the environmental ethics discipline should generate new questions for meta-ethical value

theory, this does not have to go both ways. Philosophers may, of course, take interest in a variety of domains.

However, focusing on meta-ethical issues for environmental ethicists, in my view, detracts from the important

and central task of contributing to the normative level debate.

Environmental ethics should be concerned with which entities have direct moral standing that entails

obligation on behalf of moral agents. That ‘direct moral standing’ must be justified by showing that the entity

is an end in and of itself with a good of its own. Using the term intrinsic value to explain that a nonhuman

entity is an end in itself is no more problematic than using the term intrinsic value to explain that one human is

an end in his or herself, according to another human  – it is not introducing a ‘new’ problem of the possibility of

objective values.53

  Whether the entity in question objectively  possesses intrinsic value, is valued intrinsically  

by the valuer, or has inherent54

  (rather than intrinsic) value, should not be key questions specifically

answerable by environmental ethicists. The point is that all of those methods can be used to contrast against

instrumental, indirect, or derivative value. As Plumwood points out, the more pertinent question is: which are

the ‘means’ to other ends and which are the ‘ends’ deserving of direct moral standing?55

 

While my view is that the question of whether we can or cannot escape the human  perspective in our valuing

should be treated separately in the domain of meta-ethics, environmental ethicists should still have to show

how something they claim to be intrinsically valuable has a ‘good’ that is, according to our best and most

impartial judgement , independent of human benefits or interests. When we try to explain what is intrinsically

valuable to an entity, these features should be defendable against the charge that the reason for choosing

them is that those features are beneficial to the interests of humans. I return to this issue as it arises in the

next chapter.

The point relevant to this chapter is my claim that the blending of normative questions with meta-ethical

issues of ultimate value adds unnecessary complexity to the task of finding a unified environmental ethic,

which I have argued is the central purpose of the discipline. Therefore I argue that calls within environmental

ethics to return to anthropocentrism, because our valuing is inevitably anthropocentric, are unwarranted and

off-track.

52 J. Baird Callicott, “Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics”, Environmental Ethics, 7: no. 3, ( 1985): 263)

53 Val Plumwood, “Ethics and Instrumentalism: A Response to Janna Thompson”, Environmental Ethics, 13, no. 2, (1991): 142

54 Callicott draws a distinction between intrinsic and inherent value as follows, ‘Let something be said to possess intrinsic va lue, on the one hand, if its

value is objective and independent of all valuing consciousness. On the other, let something be said to possess inherent value, if (while its value is not

independent of all valuing consciousness) it is valued for itself and not only and merely because it serves as a means to satisfy the desires, further theinterests, or occasion the preferred experiences of the valuers’. (Ibid ., 262) He goes on to contrast both against instrumental value. My point is that the

difference between intrinsic and inherent value is a meta-ethical question and has implication for, but should not be treated within, environmental

ethics. Where I have used intrinsic value throughout this inquiry, inherent value can be substituted without objection from me.55

 Plumwood, “Ethics and Instrumentalism”, 142 

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2.2 Valuational Anthropocentrism: Reviewing the Need for an Environmental Ethic

In order to make a robust assessment of the merits of returning to an anthropocentric environmental ethic, we

need to re-examine it as a normative theory  –  the realm of ‘valuational anthropocentrism’ –  the view that

moral standing is restricted to humans. From here on in the inquiry, the meta-ethical issue of valuing from the

human perspective will continue to be labelled using its full title ‘inevitable anthropocentrism’ whereas

anthropocentrism used alone will refer to ‘valuational anthropocentrism’. 

According to anthropocentrism, only humans have a direct claim to moral standing.56

  Other entities, living

individuals, systems and non-living things, are only valuable if they have an instrumental use to humans. If

something that is not human is damaged, there may be a moral wrong to another human, if the damage

causes a decrease in the value of that thing’s instrumental use, but there is no moral wrong done to that

thing.57

  The nonhuman world is a resource – a means to human ends.58

  Humans lie within the ‘intrinsic value

net’ and everything else exists in the ‘net of potential instrumental value’ (Figure 3). 

Figure 3: Valuational Anthropocentrism: Nets Marking the Boundary Intrinsic Value and Moral Standing: According to Human-centrism (A1), members

of the ‘human species’ are intrinsically valuable and granted moral standing, whereas for Person-Centrism (A2), individuals who meet the criteria of

being a ‘person’ (such as displaying the properties of cognition or reason), are intrinsically valuable and granted moral standing. Everything else,

including other living individuals, natural systems and inorganic things, do not have intrinsic value or moral standing. Entities without direct moral

standing may (or may not) be instrumentally valuable to humans or persons.

Aside from inevitable anthropocentrism, the other main driver behind the trend back to anthropocentrism is

that it is simply not as bad as previously thought and just needed some ‘revising’. As Grey puts it,

‘We need to reject not anthropocentrism, but a particularly short term and narrow conception of

human interests and concerns. What’s wrong with shallow *anthropocentric+ views is not their

concern about the well-being of humans, but that they do not really consider enough in what that

56 This is the first part of Attfield’s definition (normative), not the second (meta-ethical) part (see footnote 2)

57 Cochrane, “Encyclopedia of Philosophy” Section 1b 

58 ‘Anthropocentrism, as I understand it, is the view that the nonhuman world has value only because, and insofar as, it directly or indirectly serves

human interests. ‘ Katie McShane, “Anthropocentrism vs. Nonanthropocentrism: Why Should We Care?”, Environmental Values, 16 (2007): 170

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well-being consists. We need to develop an enriched, fortified anthropocentric notion of human

interest to replace the dominant short-term, sectional and self-regarding conception’.59

 

Weak anthropocentrism, the Brundtland Report60

  and the sustainable development paradigm provides the

necessary revision, acknowledging, at least in theory, a much longer-term and broader range of human

interests. Consequently, there is a wealth of literature61

 within the environmental ethics discipline devoted to

environmental pragmatism and the lack of need for a nonanthropocentric ethic. Much of this literature

centres around Bryan Norton’s ‘Convergence Hypothesis’, which claims that, ‘environmentalists are evolving

toward a consensus in policy even though they remain divided regarding basic values’.62

 

If ‘the interests of humans’  is taken to include a whole range of use and non-use (instrumental) benefits,

ranging from consumptive through to recreational through to option, bequest or knowledge of existence

values (Figure 4), then we already have moral obligation not to degrade nature, even if this obligation is to

humans and not to nature itself. We can be environmentalists without being non-anthropocentrists – and this

is especially true if we take the interest of future human generations into our moral considerations.

Figure 4: Total Economic Value According to Weak Anthropocentrism: The diagram shows an extension of instrumental values according to weak

anthropocentrism. The values are based on an enlightened and broader notion of human interests that takes the interests of current and future human

generations into account. Environmental pragmatists claim that the goals of the environmental agenda can be met by relying on a broad understanding

of instrumental values provided to humans by the natural environment, without having to meet the challenges of grounding intrinsic value in nature.63

 

Environmental pragmatists tend to be long-term vision (weak) anthropocentrists, who do not consider the

notion of intrinsic value in nature to be either valid (in the case of the inevitable anthropocentrists) or

important (in the case of those who follow Norton’s convergence hypothesis). Pragmatists complain that theirviews are not accepted in the environmental ethics discipline, as it seems that adherence to some form of

nonanthropocentrism is a prerequisite for valid theory.64

 

59 Grey, “Anthropocentrism”, 473 

60  “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future”, Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to

document A/42/427 - Development and International Co-operation: Environment , http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm61

 For pro-pragmatic views: Norton, Weston, Light et al., in Ben A. Minteer, Robert E. Manning “Pragmatism in Environmental Ethics: Democracy,

Pluralism, and the Management of Nature”, Environmental Ethics, 21, no. 2, (1999): 192.

For anti-pragmatic views see Holmes Rolston III, “Converging versus Reconstituting Environmental Ethics” in Nature in Common?:Environmental Ethics

and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy : Minter, Ben A (ed) pp. 97-117, Temple University Press 2009; Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”;

Lars Samuelsson, “Environmental Pragmatism and Environmental Philosophy: A Bad Marriage!”, Environmental Ethics,32: no 4 (2010); 62 Bryan G. Norton, Toward Unity among Environmentalists (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1991): 86

63 Dr Isaac Boateng, “Spatial Planning in Coastal Regions: Facing the Impact of Climate Change” , Fig Publication no 55, The International Federation of

Surveyors (FIG), November 2010 Copenhagen, Denmark http://www.fig.net/pub/figpub/pub55/figpub55.htm 

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I do not hold the position that anthropocentrism cannot support an environmental ethic, although it can only

support what Regan labels an ethic for the use of environment rather than an ethic of  the environment.65

  In

other words, nature is a resource for human use and an environmental ethic is needed to guide us towards

better management practices for the sake of current and future human generations.

However, unlike most environmental ethicists who automatically reject an anthropocentric-based

environmental ethic because it is a mere management ethic, I would argue that there is nothing at all wrong

with an environmental ethic that treats all of nature as a ‘means’, as long as humans are indeed the only

intrinsically valuable ‘ends’ deserving of moral standing. Of course, justifying that this is the case involves

having to give detailed consideration to whether nonhuman entities deserve moral standing. However the

pragmatist convergence position is that we ought to give up worrying about whether any nonhuman entities

are intrinsically valuable, because they will be protected anyway for the sake of our interests. My objection to

this is two-fold:

1)  I am convinced by those who demonstrate that there is a strong case against the theory of

convergence of policy outcomes stemming from different environmental-ethical foundations and cite

examples of where divergences would occur66

 and,

2)  I take a non-consequentialist stance.67

  So, like other environmental philosophers who base moral

 judgements on motives rather than outcome, it matters morally which environmental-ethical

framework foundations a policy outcome has stemmed from, at least as much or even more-so than

the outcome of the policy and any or all instances of convergences of outcome.68

 

If there are any nonhuman entities that ought to have moral standing, then, if the convergence hypothesis is

false, these entities would receive differential treatment to humans under the principles of anthropocentrism.

In fact, even if we (for now) assume that the theory of convergence is plausible – that the same environmental

outcomes will be achieved regardless of whether we value nonhuman entities for their own sake or for ours  – 

then they have still received differential treatment, because they have not been granted the same moral

consideration as humans receive under the principles of anthropocentrism. Therefore it is important to know

whether this differential treatment and more generally anthropocentrism, is morally justifiable.

In examining why humans are seen to be the only intrinsically valuable entities, two lines of reasoning emerge

(A1 and A2, in Figure 2).69

  Importantly, these two lines of reasoning are incompatible with each other and one

of these lines of reasoning, in my view, is not actually anthropocentric at all.

64 ‘In general, the field has provided a critique of instrumental human-based arguments for environmental policies, and has attempted the development

of a nonanthropocentric ethic or value theory which will account for a direct moral consideration of nature.’ Eric Katz and Lauren Oechsli, “Moving

beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon” Environmental Ethics, 15: no. 1, (1993), 4965

 Tom Regan, “The Nature and Possibility of an Environmental Ethic.”, Environmental Ethics, 3 (1992): 2066

 Holmes Rolston expresses his view that it is probably a pointless exercise to draw Norton’s attention to endless, and even more extreme, examples

showing where his convergence hypothesis may run into difficulties. As he says, ‘Given his convictions about how anthropocentrism can be enlightened,

stretched, wolves to spiders, I fear that it might become pointless to offer Norton any more examples of direct caring for nature; he is going to cut all

the evidence to fit his paradigm.’ (Rolston, “Converging”, 100-101) Rolston continues this line of reasoning by arguing (rightly) that most instances of

convergence between non-anthropocentrism and broad, long-visioned or weak anthropocentrism can be put down to the non-anthropocentrists

‘enlightening’ the anthropocentrists to the issue and then the anthropocentric theory being ‘weakened’ further to accommodate the new issue, again

implying that anthropocentrism alone would never have recognised the problem in the first place67

  Consequentialism means that ‘...whether an action or policy is r ight or wrong is determined solely by its results, its consequences.’ (John O’Neill, Alan

Holland and Andrew Light, Environmental Values, New York: Routledge (2008): 6) Outcome-focused views are limited and inadequate from where I

stand, because they rely on the assumption that we have conceived of every example and also that things will not change. For the same reason in this

inquiry, I do not accept suggestions that it is redundant or ‘unnecessary’ to reason as if an entity has its own interests if its interests will somehow be

protected by the interests of other entities. If we conceived at the time that the interests of slave owners would always outweigh the interests of the

slaves, then we would have had, on the consequentialist account, no reason to inquire as to whether there are any wrongs being committed against the

slave.68 James Hughes, “Saving Human Rights from the Human Racists”, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Posted March 27 2006, Originally

published June 10, 2003. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/551/69

 That is, at the level of ethical theory and normative ethics - the level where we are not interested in the concept of ‘whether’ intrinsic value can in

theory exist, objectively, or subjectively; but rather ‘where’ it exists and where it does not exist. For purposes of clarity - there are two forms of

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The split between the two groups is marked by their definition of what is valuable about  or in humans and is

quite succinctly described by Hughes as ‘…the clash of rights paradigms in the transhuman era’ .70

  In his

article, ‘Saving Human Rights from the Human Racists’, Hughes discusses how rights, as set down in the United

Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), can be shown to be grounded in ‘persons’ or ‘humans’,

depending on the interpretation. Grounding rights in humans instead of persons is a position he labels

“human-racism”.71

  Favouring the liberal democratic interpretation of rights72

  in which, traditionally, the

rationale for rights was that it ‘encouraged the fullest potentials of individual personalities’, Hughes points outthat,

‘Since the only minds that were ever considered [to be relevant] by democratic theorists were those of

human beings, this tradition became subsumed within human-racism, which could appeal to religious

beliefs about the soul and the divine intention for human beings.’73

 

After noting this convergence of humans and persons at the time of the creating the UDHR, he then goes on to

clarify how rights should  be interpreted according to liberal democratic theory,

‘In liberal democracy’s personhood tradition rights are for persons, not humans, and not all humans

are persons nor are all persons necessarily human. As the UDHR says, “Everyone is entitled to all the

rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour,

sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other

status…” —to which we need now add, species.’ 

Hughes sees the aim of the rights movement in the ‘transhuman era’ as being to ’...free the rights regime from

the human racists and social constructionists, and make it clearly a movement for the rights of persons’.74

  This

human-racism is analogous with the concept of ‘speciesism’ ,75

  first coined by Ryder76

  and more famously

developed by Peter Singer.77

  Both Singer and Hughes hold strong objections to the notion that humans as a

species are morally more significant than others. The point for now is that there is one group of

anthropocentrists whose common tie is that they value humans in part or solely because they belong to the

human species. This means they are entitled to superior, or exclusive, moral standing and a different group

that grants moral standing to the humans based on their personhood characteristics, rather than their species.

In order to be clear about which group of anthropocentrists I am discussing, the labels ‘human-centrism’ and

‘person-centrism’ will be adopted to distinguish these theories. Anthropocentrism is better sounding than

either of these labels, and perhaps if environmental ethicists begin to truly distinguish some anthropocentric

theories from others that are not strictly anthropocentric, then the label should be re-adopted. However,

because each theory is to be separately tested against the charge of speciesism in the following section, the

terms human-centrism and person-centrism will be kept for clarity.

anthropocentrism spreading over the meta-ethical (perspectival) and normative (valuational) levels – but the point of interest here is that there are also

two forms of anthropocentrism within the normative (valuational) level.70

 “During a recent debate between Greg Stock and George Annas at Yale University, Annas insisted that the human species needed protecting from

human enhancement. This is why, he says, he is proposing an international treaty to make cloning and inheritable genetic modifications “crimes against

humanity.” Stock, in turn, says he doesn’t care about the species, in the abstract; he cares about people.” Hughes, “Saving Human Rights” 71

Ibid.72

 He examines two other interpretations. The ‘natural rights’ interpretation, based on self -evident moral truths provided by God-given or alternative

secular natural law, which he dismisses based on the naturalistic fallacy: “natural rights provides little practical guidance since everyone sees different

self-evident truths emerging from the same facts”. Secondly the ‘evolving social contract’ or ‘social constructionist’ interpretation, based on the notion

that “...rights are whatever people decide they should be, and for whomever we decide they should be... They are historically specific agreements about

what a good society would ideally guarantee...” which he also dismisses based on “the arbitrariness of human convention *which] weakens the purely

social constructionist case for rights.” Ibid.73

 Ibid.74 Ibid.75

 Also analogous with human-chauvinism, used by (include references), but one negative term (speciesism) will suffice for this project.76

 Richard Ryder, "Speciesism" New Scientist  (1971) (0262-4079), 134 (1824), p. 52.77

 Peter Singer, “Neither human nor natural: ethics and feral animals”, Reproduction, Fertility and Development , (1997) 9: 159

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2.2.1 The Speciesism Distinction: Human-Centrism (A1) and Person-Centrism (A2)

In an in-depth account of speciesism, Horta offers the following three alternate definitions,

‘(S1) Speciesism1  is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who are not

classified as belonging to one or more particular species’. 

‘(S2) Speciesism2  is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who are notclassified as belonging to one or more particular species for reasons that do not have to do with the

individual capacities they have’. 

‘(S3) Speciesism3  is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those that are not

classified as belonging to one or more particular species on the basis of species membership alone’.78

(S3) is the strictest of the definitions in the sense that a theory is not speciesist unless it specifically lists species

membership as the basis for differential treatment. Accordingly, avoiding the charge of speciesism is easiest if

definition (S3) is adopted. If a theory fails the test of (S3) it automatically fails the tests of the other definitions.

(S1) is the least strict in the sense that it triggers the charge of speciesism even if species membership is not

actually listed as the basis for differential treatment (this will be explained in further detail below).

Accordingly, avoiding the charge of speciesism is hardest if definition (S1) is adopted. The distinction between

(S2) and (S3) is subtle and based on a difference that is unrelated to this inquiry.79

  In any case, because (S1) and

(S3) (the least and most strict definitions) are all that is required to test the theories against the charge of

speciesism, (S2) is ignored from this point on.

Human-centrism certainly lists species membership as a basis for differential treatment  –  this differential

treatment (at least in terms of consideration of interests) is required by the very definition of the theory.

Importantly, though, human-centrism is only speciesist if the disadvantageous consideration or treatment of

nonhumans is ‘unjustified’. If human-centrists can justify the differential treatment, then it is not speciesism.80

 However, Horta cautions that to provide sound justification means more than ‘merely making an argument for

it’.81

 

It is therefore the obvious lack of justification provided by human-centrism that leads me to identify it as a

speciesist position and consequently reject it as a theory. Either there are no defence arguments given at

all,82

 or they tend to be based around traits that cannot be verified, such as the possession of a soul, or that

they are members of ‘the chosen species’ created in ‘God’s image’.83

  The claim that humans (and humans

alone) possess an intrinsically-valuable soul is clearly controversial and does little to settle the issue of whether

there are other forms of intrinsic value that exist in non-humans and nature generally.

A retort may also be made that by human-centrists that their differential treatment is not unjustified, because

it is natural to show preference towards one’s own species over others. If all other species are speciesist, then

what is wrong with speciesism? However, differential treatment can only be classed as unjustified if it is the

result of a conscious decision by a moral agent. Therefore other species are not speciesist, even if they do

show preference to their own kind. The fact that we are aware of our differential treatment, as moral agents,

means that we must work harder to show why that differential treatment is justifiable. If a position is shown

to be speciesist, then, it is not simply an observation, but rather grounds for its rejection.

78 Oscar Horta, “What is Speciesism?”  Journal Of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, (2010) 23: 3, 244-245

79 As Horta explains, ‘the very argument that might have led some to reject (S1) in favor of (S2) would drive them to abandon (S2) and adopt (S3).

80

 If, like Horta, speciesism is taken to infer a negative or morally unjustified position. Horta states that, ‘The term ‘‘anthropocentrism’’ should be clearlydistinguishable from ‘‘speciesism. These two words are not synonyms.’ (Ibid., 258) 81

 Ibid., 24782

 Horta calls this ‘definitional defenses of speciesism’ (Ibid., 253)83

 Ibid., 253; Hourdequin and Wong, “A Relational Approach To Environmental Ethics”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy , 32:1 (March 2005) 20 

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Human-centrism, which grants moral standing on the basis of species membership fails the test of (S 3) – the

easiest test to pass. Therefore, even if the convergence hypothesis holds and the only differential treatment

given is with respect to which entities’ interests are given consideration, human-centrism cannot support a

morally sound environmental ethics framework.

Speciesism can be detected even in pluralistic approaches that try to accommodate, for example, sentience, as

a morally significant value, in combination with the value of ‘being human’. If human interests are favoured atany point simply because they are interests of members of the human species, then this is ‘combined

speciesism’.84

 

However, if human interests happen  to be the most (or only) morally significant interests and this can be

 justified by arguments that truly do not relate to species membership, then this would not be classed as

speciesism according to (S3). It would also follow that this sort of theory would not truly be human-centrism or

anthropocentrism, but rather something else –  person-centrism.

As shown by Hughes, a distinction can be drawn between those who value humans because of the species

they belong to, and those who value humans because of properties they exhibit, possess, hold or contain85

 

which qualifies them as ‘persons’. According to person-centrists, only ‘persons’ should have rights or moral

standing, with all non-persons being valued only instrumentally depending on their use-value to intrinsically

valuable persons. The ‘intrinsic-value-conferring property’86

  is not membership of the species, but rather

other properties  –  commonly rationality or reason, sentience, cognition, consciousness and other similar

mental state functions.

Whereas there may have been convergence between these two groups at the outset of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, (in that only humans were thought to possess intrinsic-value-conferring-

properties and therefore moral standing at the time), this was never the case at the base value theory level.

The person-centric theory was always importantly more adaptable and fluid than the human-centred theory,

because regardless of what results empirical studies may find (for example in finding that some apes truly do

reason in the same way that humans do87

), the human-centrist can only consistently hold that human beings

ought to have moral standing. Hughes concentrates on these distinctions as well as the clashes that appear in

the realm of human genetic engineering and artificially intelligent beings,88

 where the human-centrists would

(if being consistent with their theory) deny moral standing, whereas the person-centrists might extend moral

standing, if these individuals met their ‘criteria’ of what constitutes a ‘person’.

According to (S3), then, person-centrism is not speciesist, as it does not actually specify species membership as

one of, or the only, criterion for moral standing. However, it might be revealed as speciesist using the less

strict definition, and therefore the harder test of, (S1):

84 Horta labels this a ‘combined speciesist position’ See ‘ Simple and Combined Speciesist Positions’, Ibid., 254

85 Hughes, “Saving Human Rights” 

86 This term is used widely within environmental ethics. For example see Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”, 5; William Fitzpatrick, “Valuing Nature Non-

Instrumentally”, The Journal of Value Inquiry , 38: 3 (2004): 31987

 See the research by Michael Tomasello and Esther Hermann “Ape and Human Cognition: What’s the Difference?”, Current Directions in Psychological

Science 2010 19: 388

 “In the transhuman era, however, the right to control our own body and mind is running smack up against human racism and natural law. People such

as George Annas, and a range of bio-Luddite forces from the Catholic Church to the deep ecology movement, are aligning to assert that people’s use of

technologies of human enhancement on their own body and mind is not a right, but a violation of human rights and “dignity.” Bans on the right to

cloning and inheritable genetic self-modification have been written into international treaties and national laws. According to the opponents of genetic

enhancement, people will violate the rights of their children and the dignity of the human race if they eliminate a genetic propensity for cancer or

increase their capacity for memory, and then have children. The human racists also believe that any nonhuman intelligences created by technology—

whether a post-human, enhanced animal or machine mind—would be rights-less abominations. Sadly this line of argument is itself the most profound

offense to human rights tradition” (Hughes, “Saving Human Rights”)

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(S1) Speciesism1  is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who are not

classified as belonging to one or more particular species.

Horta acknowledges that (S3) is ‘sound’, but that ‘there are pragmatic reasons in favour of (S1) that outweigh

it’. He goes on to show that according to (S3) if we apply the same principle to racism, a person would not be

racist if they discriminated against people who lack the property of ‘white skin’, simply because they do not (or

claim not) to care about the particular race itself. According to this principle the ‘treatment will certainly be

disadvantageous, and it may be unjustified, but it will not be an instance of speciesism… but something else’.

He then dismisses (S3) because ‘there are reasons not to try to restrict the meaning of ‘speciesism’, ‘racism’, or

‘sexism’ to denote only those discriminations based on species, ethnic, or sex group belonging alone, without

any further reason being considered’.

These reasons are mainly that racism and sexism are normally used to be mean something wider than this, and

‘hence, if we accepted (S3) we would have to change the meanings of *racism and sexism+ today’. Personally, I

am not convinced by this dismissal of (S3), but I can agree that it is not simply enough for a person-centrist to

arbitrarily choose a property that they know is only located in humans in order to automatically exempt

themselves from speciesism, simply because they no longer list membership of the species in their criteria.

There are two points here that, I argue, save person-centrism from speciesism:

1) There is no property that humans hold (other than the possibility of a soul or similar human-centrist

concepts), that exist in all humans and no  non-humans,89

  so it would be impossible for a person-

centrist to succumb to this error. This is sometimes called the argument from ‘marginal cases’, by

showing that infants, elderly or disabled humans may not meet the criteria for moral standing if too

strict, whereas if the criteria is relaxed, at least some animals will meet them and qualify for moral

standing.90

 

2) Secondly, there are good philosophical grounds to show that some of the properties that happen to

exist  predominantly   only in humans, such as reason, or having interests in ‘ground projects’91  are

genuinely more morally significant than other properties and interests,92

  independent of the species

involved, and therefore the differential moral treatment they advocate is not ‘unjustifiable’ as per the

definition of speciesism.

I draw the conclusion then, that human-centrism (A1) entails speciesism whereas person-centrism (A2) does

not. It is also not entirely appropriate to label this group (A2) as anthropocentrists, even if at any  point in

time, past present or future, humans happen to be the only beings that meet their criteria of a ‘person’. Using

the label anthropocentrism to cover the underlying concepts from both the groups I have classified, because of

a near total, or total, convergence of outcomes only serves to create more ambiguity. This is especially the

case when non-anthropocentrists make claims that anthropocentrism is analogous with speciesism,93  when

clearly this charge cannot accurately be made against person-centrists who truly94

 care not about the species

but about other properties.

Furthermore, person-centrists should be challenged to show why the properties they hold to be important

should mark the boundary of intrinsic value, instead of being extended to beings that possess the properties of

89 Singer, 2009, p.574. Horta prefers to call this the ‘argument from species overlap’, to avoid the possibility of the word ‘marginal’ being taken to mean

‘less human’ (Horta, “Speciesism”, 263) 90

  Horta, Ibid., 26291

 Varner, “In Nature’s Interests?” : 89.92

 Ibid., 893 ‘Hence there is no justifiable basis for drawing the boundary of value around our own species. To do so is to give preference to the interests of

members of one’s own species, simply because they are members of one’s own species—and this is speciesism’ (Singer, “Neither Human nor Natural:

Ethics and Feral Animals“ Reproduction, Fertility and Development , CSIRO, 9: 159 (1997))94

  I use ‘truly’ to affirm once again that a property cannot simply be listed in order to mask underlying bias towards the human species.

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sentience (without reason), life (without sentience), or even why moral standing should be limited to

individuals rather than systems. These challenges need to be set against the narrow choice of properties

adopted by person-centrists, not against the outcome that humans might be the only ones who possess those

properties. The charge of speciesism should be made against the human-centrists and based on other grounds

in terms of their listing human species membership as the criterion for moral standing.

Anthropocentrism should be reclassified so that person-centrists no longer belong to this theory. Once person-

centrism is removed from anthropocentric theory, only human-centrism (speciesism) and, at another

philosophical level altogether, inevitable anthropocentrism, remain under the umbrella of anthropocentrism.

2.3 Against the Pragmatic Case for Returning to Anthropocentrism

Given that Norton’s convergence hypothesis, which currently forms the basis of so much in environmental

pragmatism, had the aim of ‘unifying environmentalists’,95

 it is somewhat ironic that I argue that it, along with

other renewed calls for anthropocentrism, takes environmental ethics off the right track.

The ‘common denominator’ standpoint of environmental pragmatists is that environmental philosophers

should ‘give up’ on the notion of intrinsic value in nature, because this ongoing debate has had an alleged lack

of influence on environmental policy. Pragmatists would rather see tangible environmental outcomes, not

endless theoretical debate.96

  I object to their standpoint because:

1)  I agree with those that contend that environmental ethics and philosophy has indeed had an effect on

policy;97

 and those that say that even if it hasn’t had much of an effect yet, it does not follow that we

should simply give up,98

 

2)  I agree with the view that an environmental pragmatist position is not a truly philosophical position99

 

and that theoretical environmental ethics debates are necessary in their own right, regardless ofwhether they have any practical impact.

100 

However if theoretical debate about intrinsic value in nature has been (to date) ineffective in driving policy

outcomes, then what outcomes will possibly be achieved by filling environmental ethics journals with a

replacement ‘debate about the debate’?

On the one side, pragmatists are occupied with proving how environmental outcomes can be achieved without

having to resort to appeals to intrinsic value, focusing their attention on theoretical inquiry to convince

philosophers that their arguments are valid, instead of practicing what they preach and getting on with the job

of helping to influence environmental policy. On the other side, those who disagree with the convergence

hypothesis are distracted from the task of debating which entities should be morally considerable and instead

95 Brian Norton, “Biodiversity and environmental values: in search of a universal earth ethic”, Biodiversity and Conservation (2000), 9: 1030

96Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”, 12 

97 Callicott, “Pragmatic Power”, 13; ‘There is plenty of evidence to suggest that belief in intrinsic values in natire is playing an increasingly prominent

role in the formation of environmental attitudes and policies worldwide. Philosophical debate about intrinsic value clearly remains as pertinent as ever.’

(Christopher J. Preston, “Epistemology and Intrinsic Values: Norton and Callicott’s Critiques of Rolston”, Environmental Ethics, 20: 411)98

 Samuelsson replies to the pragmatists’ position about environmental ethics and philosophy thus: “ Let us for the moment, suppose, for the sake of

argument, that pragmatists are right that theoretical debates, such as those about intrinsic value in nature, are hindering the ability of the

environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. Does it follow that philosophers should not participate in such debates? It

certainly does not.” (Samuelsson, ”Bad Marriage”, 409); Katie McShane, “Why Environmental Ethics Shouldn’t Give Up on Intrinsic Value”,

Environmental Ethics, 29: no.1, (2007): 45-46; 99 Ibid., 405 and 408

100 ‘The question of whether nature has intrinsic value is philosophically interesting in its own right, and there is every reason to pursue it even if doing

so would put some hindrances in the way of policy-forming environmentalists- they will simply have to face up to the challenge of overcoming these

hindrances (and perhaps there is something useful to be gained on the way).’ (Samuelsson,“Bad Marriage!”, 412) 

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