the critique of natural rights and the search for a non-anthropocentric basis for moral behavior

Z Iralue Inquiry 19:43-53 {1985). �9 Martinus Nijho f f Publishers, Dordrecht. Printed in the Netherlands.

THE CRITIQUE OF NATURAL RIGHTS AND THE SEARCH FOR A NON-ANTHROPOCENTRIC BASIS FOR MORAL BEHAVIOR

MICHAEL E. ZIMMERMAN Tulane University

Recently, modem ethical theory has come under attack from a number of sources. Alisdair Maclntyre, for example, argues that current ethical debate is incoherent and interminable because it uses terms that only make sense in a system with an agreed upon concept of human telos.~ Today, however, we lack such a concept. Beginning with the Renaissance, Westem thinkers undermined and eventually re- jected the Aristotelean and Christian conceptions of human telos. Since then, no general agreement has been reached about what will form the basis for moral judgments, although many people talk as if this problem has somehow been solved. One alleged solution has been the theory of the "natural rights of man." Maclntyre argues that this doctrine is only one of several fictitious ideas used since the En- lightenment to provide an "objective" moral foundation for acts that are really motivated by the personal desire for power and wealth. Other critics argue that while natural fights theory can be used to justify human domination of other humans, natural rights theory has been the basis for heedless exploitation of the non-human world. 2 These critics maintain that the doctrine of human rights is only one expression of anthropocentric humanism. Assumptions springing from such humanism are largely responsible for the contemporary environmental crisis. If human beings regard themselves as source and sole possessors of rights, they can, of course, justify their domination of the non-human world much easier than they can justify their domination of other people. Environmentally-concerned critics argue that modem ethical theory, by overestimating the importance of human beings, fails to show the appropriate limits of human behavior toward non-human beings. It is becoming apparent today that insight into our place in the natural order is a necessary condition for limiting our behavior in appropriate ways. Lack- ing such a sense of limits, we are destroying the biosphere needed to sustain both human and non-human life.

The perception that modem values are responsible for our environmental problems is not limited to a few professional philosophers, but is widespread. In a recently conducted survey involving over 1300 Americans, 72% agreed with the statement that "American beliefs and values have been a basic cause of our present environmental problems." Another 84% agreed that "the balance of nature is very

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delicate and easily upset by human activities. ' 'a While such surveys do not consti- tute philosophical argumentation, they do reflect a growing awareness on the part of many people that the natural world cannot long endure the unrestrained abuse allegedly necessary for the free exercise of "rights" to use the earth however we choose.

In this essay, I want to show how critics of anthropocentric humanism can ex- pand on Maclntyre's critique of natural rights theory and on his re-introduction of the concept of human telos as the basis for moral behavior. Our first step will be to show that natural rights theory has problems not only because of its anthropocentrism, but also because of difficulties associated with determining whether infants, imbeciles, or the senile have "rights." Next, we shall consider some of the problems encountered by those who want to "extend" rights to non-human beings in order to protect them from human abuse. Having discussed some shortcomings of natural rights theory, we will turn to Maclntyre's claim that "rights" are a mere fiction. He argues that morality consists not of rights to pursue whatever ends one chooses. Instead, morality must be grounded in virtuous practices designed and executed communally to promote human telos. Environmentally-concerned critics of Maclntyre would argue that Aristotle's thought is too anthropocentric to provide a basis for morality that would prevent our destructive behavior toward the natural world. S.L.R. Clark, however, claims that Aristotle can be interpreted in a way congenial to the need for a benevolent attitude toward the non-human world. But another critic of anthropocentrism, Martin Heidegger, suggests that we need to go all the way back to someone like Heraclitus to discover a truly non-anthropocentric Western thinker who can offer a new basis for understanding our proper place in the cosmos. Heidegger would agree with Maclntyre that moral behavior must be rooted in a profound understanding of what it means to be human: ontology precedes ethics. For Heidegger, the telos of humankind involves learning to treat beings other than merely as objects for our purposes, or letting beings reveal themselves in ways appropriate to their own possibilities. In conclusion, I acknowl edge that the doctrine of the rights of man cannot simply be abandoned at present, but I also believe that we must look for a new moral basis that respects human life as well as all other beings on the Earth with which we are so closely related.

1. Limitations of Natural Rights Theory

Many natural rights theorists, of course, recognize that there is an environmental crisis, but claim that to solve it we need only reform current practices. No radical shift in our moral or metaphysical self-conception is needed. For example, we need to pay more heed to the rights of people than to clean air and water. In- dustries that infringe on such rights must be encouraged and if necessary, forced to clean up their wastes. According to this humanistic viewpoint, it is morally accept- able to kill off millions of species, drastically alter the biosphere, and treat animals and plants like machines, so long as these activities do not interfere with human

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"rights." To those who regard such treatment of non-humans as callous and even immoral, the natural rights theorists reply that we can do moral evil only to beings who have rights against us as moral agents. And non-humans allegedly have no such rights. At one time, John Passmore maintained that non-humans lack rights because they are not members of a moral community, and only such membership confers rights. 4 Richard Watson argues that possessing rights presupposes that one has duties as well. Since non-humans cannot perform duties, non-humans lack rights, s H.J. McCloskey claims that animals lack rights because they do not possess what he calls genuine "interests." Animals may be said to have rights only by analogy. For example, we may be said to have certain "duties" toward them, such as the duty to minimize the pain we inflict on them, and in this sense they may be said to have "rights. ''6 Natural rights theorists have always had difficulty in explaining how imbeciles, infants, or the senile can possess rights since they - like non- humans - perform no duties and seem to have no interests that cannot also be attributed to animals. In what way, for instance, is a severely retarded human being morally more significant, or more deserving of having rights, than a highly-intel- ligent German Shepherd, or a great ape?

Noting this difficulty in natural rights theory, some environmentally concerned thinkers have sought to protect non-human beings b y arguing that they, too, have rights and should be accorded moral standing. Unfortunately, as we shall see, this attempt runs into even more problems than the effort to account for the rights of incompetent humans. Joel Feinberg says that animals have rights because they suffer and because they have an interest in their own well-being. 7 Kenneth E. Goodpaster counters Feinberg by arguing that plants and even biosystems have genuine interests, too, and thus should be accorded rights, a But once we start granting rights to trees, rivers, and even mountains, so runs the objection of the anthropocentric natural rights theorists, we step onto the proverbial slippery slope. Indeed, W. Murray Hunt takes this step by asking: why not say that anything which is has rights? 9 Of course, if one defines morality in terms of human rights, duties, and interests, the idea of the moral standing of a mountain does seem absurd. Yet it is a fact that many people have regarded entities such as the sun, mountains, trees, and animals as sacred and of even greater worth than human beings. Pre- sumably, they could think in this way only if the exclusivistic notion of the "natural rights of man" were neither intuitively obvious nor innate. What feature of non- human beings could have led American Indians, for example, to regard non-human entities with what we call "moral respect"? 10

Christopher D. Stone proposes that such respect for the non-human comes only from a panpsychist metaphysics that views all beings as sentient. 11 If we make sentience the criterion for moral considerability and even of legal rights, we would then have the basis for protecting non-human beings from exploitation by humans. While at first glance this approach seems radical and persuasive, John Rodman has pointed out that it remains anthropocentric. Stone grants moral standing to non- human beings only insofar as they share traits that we humans consider important: sentience and/or consciousness. Rodman asks tellingly: "Is this, then, the new

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enlightenment - to see non-humans as imbeciles, wilderness as a human vege- table? ''12

Many animal rights theorists have criticized human rights theorists for being "speciesistic," i.e., for elevating the importance of the human species over all others. By extending moral standing only to beings capable of feeling pain and pleasure (presumably most higher animals), however, utilitarians make the same mistake as those of whom they are so critical. As R.G. Frey points out,

It is ironic that this result of the application of a sentiency criterion, in part in order to combat speciesism, is itself blatantly speciesist in character. For...it condemns the whole of non-sentient creation, including the lower animals, at best to a much inferior moral status or...at worst possibly to a status completely beyond the moral pale. In essence, non-sentient creation is 'simply there' for sentient creation to do with as it sees fit. Animal right- ists have objected to the Christian view of man as having dominion over the rest of creation; but the only revolution they effect by mans of a sentiency criterion is to give man and the higher animals dominion over the rest of creation. 13

Given the complications arising from attempts to square natural rights doctrines with increasing concern for the welfare of the non-human world, it is not surprising that more and more people are beginning to question the validity of the modern conception of rights. John Rodman, for example, worte a brilliant essay showing that the modem idea of human rights is an anthropocentric re-interpreta- tion of the ancient doctrine of ius naturae. 14 Roman jurists defined ius naturae

(natural law/right) as "that which nature had taught all animals." Human beings are as subject to this law as any other animal. For the Romans, insurrection against this law invited nemesis. Centuries later, however, Hugo Grotius redef'med ius natu-

rae so as to exclude all non-humans from the realm of cosmic justice. Hobbes and Locke then connected this diminished concept of natural law with contract theory, i.e., with the sort of self-interested, volitional economic behavior that is foreign to non-human beings. With this shift, the focus of ius naturae moved from human duties to rights and prerogatives. No longer was humanity expected to submit to the cosmic order. Instead, humanity endowed itself with the right to own and use the cosmos solely to satisfy human desires.

Recently, Alastair Maclntyre joined the fray by arguing that the doctrine of rights was posited by Enlightenment humanists who, after rejecting all authority including the Aristotelean doctrine of human telos, sought an objectix;e basis for morality. While influential, the doctrine of natural rights has never commanded universal acceptance as the foundation for moral judgments. This doctrine has had considerable influence in the Anglo-American world, however. But currently there is no agreed-upon basis for moral judgments, even though many moral thee- fists talk as ff there were one. Maclntyre points out that the emperor is wearing no clothes: "there are no [natural] rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and unicorns .... Natural or human rights are fictions.... ' 'is Indeed, talk of such rights is "a rhetoric which serves to conceal behind the masks of morality what

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are in fact the preferences of arbitrary will and desire.... ''16 The age of human rights is also the age of human self-assertion and self-worship, the paradoxical age that spawns totalitarianism and the domination of Nature, but also gives rise to liberal democracy.

According to Maclntyre, our moral confusion can only be cured by forming new communities which develop virtuous practices to promote a communally agreed- upon human telos. MacIntyre's Aristotelean concept of human telos, however, does not offer us a new way of understanding humanity's relation to the non- human world. Presumably, a community of post-modern Aristoteleans could regard non-humans much as Aristotle sometimes did - as beings whose purpose is to serve human needs. Still, as S.L.R. Clark explains, certain aspects of Aristotle's thought are, in fact, consistent with a non-anthropocentric idea of human telos.

2. Clark's Defense of Aristotle's Thought as a Possible Basis for a Non-Anthro- pocentric Morality.

In his insightful book, The Moral Status o f Animals, Clark claims that since anthropocentrism lies at the heart of the current moral and environmental crises, our most pressing need is to acknowledge our human arrogance. 17 Paradoxically, this sense of self-importance grew even while science was denying humanity's super- natural status and depicting them as animals descended from apes. While such naturalism may have helped to kill the Biblical God, it deafly did not destroy the notion of human divinity. Human beings quickly stepped into the vacancy created by death of the other-worldly gods. We made ourselves the center of reality, and the source of all value and meaning. Today, everything is an object for our purposes. We act as the lords of all beings, while at the same time maintaining that we are really simply a clever kind of animal. Clark has remarked, ironically, " I f we are as the fly [and other living beings] let us cease to talk of our rights and consider how we may best inhabit this strange land we share. ' 'la Later, he maintains that "the real problem is not the desacralization of the world, but the in- completeness of that dread event. ''19 ha the face of our current confusion, a "sound ontology" is needed to help us understand our proper place in the cosmic order. 2~ Clark believes that Aristotle can help. For Aristotle, morally sound people do what is necessary and appropriate to fulfill their individual telos, which is consistent with the telos of the community. Aristotle does not speak of the ought, utility, or rights. For him, appropriate or moral behavior involves acting in accordance with the way things really are. For human beings, this means acting so as to fulfill our own telos. We are human precisely to the extent that we practice the virtues that promote our telos. Today, lacking insight into our telos, or failing to understand who we really are, we think of ourselves in terms of anthropocentric fantasies.

Clark acknowledges that genuine science has always been motivated to expose fantasy and delusion, so that the troth can be known. But degenerate science is motivated by self-aggrandizement and egoism, despite all its talk of "objectivity."

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"By pretending to submit to the one Law, we make our whims the law. By pretending to be purged of all personal emotions, we act as perfect egoists. ''21 Those who push natural beings beyond their limits - by tormenting them in laboratories, or by changing their genetic structures to further the destructive monoculture of agribusiness - do not see things as they really are, but instead perceive those beings only as machines or objects for human use. "A science of the unsacred merely totters on from habit and professional esteem - its sources are burnt out. What is not worth respecting is not worth understanding either. Except, of course, as a means to power. Science is the handmaiden of plutocracy. ''22 What is becoming increasingly clear is that in attempting to master Nature, we ourselves are becoming the objects of that very attempt. 23 Evidently, the naturalistic-scientific ethos that has up to now complemented natural rights doctrines does not and cannot lead to a healthy relation between human and non-human beings.

Clark turns to Aristotle's belief that sharing is one basis for forming a moral community. 24 The morally sound person learns both to give and to receive with gratitude. Today, however, such sharing has largely disappeared from the human community, and certainly does not inform our relations with the non-human world. For us, the non-human world is primarily an enemy to be conquered and exploited. If we learned to see the non-human world differently, however, could we behave more appropriately toward the human as well as the non-human? Clark states that "it is more likely that the earth will be healed by our released tenderness than by any more technology of the modern kind. ''2s In the anthropocentric ethos

concerned with maximizing human rights and interests, tenderness toward the non- human is usually limited to pets.

3. Heidegger's Appeal to Heraclitus

Many of Clark's suggestions are consistent with those of Heidegger, who also points the way to a new ethos, i.e., a new way of understanding what things are and how human beings are to behave in light of that understanding. Such a new ethos

would bring forth a concept of human telos that would define the parameters for a more appropriate relation between the human and the non-human. Heidegger maintains that human existence is constituted by a temporal-historical clearing that opens up a world in which we can be aware both of beings and of the fact that they are. While in his early work he spoke at times as if human existence were the source of meaning and value, he later renouned humanism and anthropocentrism, claiming that human existence fulFtlls itself by serving the Being of beings .~ For Heidegger, "to be" means to be present or manifest. Being or presencing does not refer to an entity, but instead to the event in which entities reveal or manifest themselves. While all beings manifest themselves to each other - animals call to their mates, the sun shines on flowers, for example - human beings are also aware of the presencing or Being as such. We notice that beings are. This ability to discern the difference between Being and beings is, according to Heidegger, not

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a human product or possession, but a gift. Giving thanks for such a precious gift, whose chief expression is language, means letting beings be manifest in ways appropriate to them, and not merely in ways useful to us. In Western history, there has been a strong tendency to regard ourselves less as this openness for the Being of beings, and more as the cleverest kind of being whose aims - survival, security, power - can be accomplished by outwitting and dominating all the other beings. The history of metaphysics, which in itself reveals this decline in human self- understanding, culminates with the view that humanity is the self-certain subject whose "right" it is to exploit all beings.

Heidegger's alternative to this subjectivistic ethos draws on the Heraclitean notion that to live authentically means to be appropriate by and for cosmic Lo- gos. 27 From this point of view, the true aim of human life is not self-aggrandizement, but service. Our responsibility is to bear witness to how beings manifest themselves or "are." The ordering and gathering involved in this manifesting con- stitute the essence of language - Heraclitus' Logos. Humans are the "clearing" in which Logos manifests itself. Heraclitus' insight into the essence of humanity was obscured in the rise of the thought of Plato and Aristotle, who helped initiate the metaphysical tradition culminating in the age of the Will to Power. According to Heidegger, however, the roots of our tradition in Heraclitus continue to set up our future possibilities in ways we cannot fully understand at present. We need to re-appropriate our roots in a manner that reveals the proper limits of human behavior toward the non-human. Maclntyre agrees that we need to re-appropriate our tradition: "an adequate sense of tradition manifests itself in a grasp of those future possibilities, which the past has made available to the present. Living traditions... confront a future whose determinate and determinable Character...derives from the past. ''2s While Maclntyre wants us to renew Aristotle's insight, Heidegger wants us to be back even further.

Still, as we have noted, even though Aristotle tended to restrict moral standing to human beings, his thinking might be re-interpreted in a way that contributes to an environmentally-sound conception of human telos. For example, Heideggereans might re-interpret Aristotle's doctrine of phronesis to mean the ability to act in ways that are appropriate to the entire situation, including the biosphere, not just in ways that are fitting for the particular human situation. Maclntyre stresses the importance of the virtue of friendship for Aristotle, and Clark has emphasized Aristotle's idea of sharing. In Heidegger's later works, such friendly sharing may be seen in the loving openness that gathers together earth and sky, gods and mortals in a way that lets beings "be" what they are. Tree friendship involves a willingness to let things present themselves in accordance with their own inner possibilities. Hence, a major environmental group now calls itself "Friends of the Earth." Only in light of insight into our essential relatedness to ail beings can there arise new practices, new virtues, that will promote the true human telos: to give voice to the miraculous presencing of beings, including our own remarkable mode of being present.

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Condu~on

Maclntyre, Clark, and Heidegger would all agree that the current problem with moral theory is its lack of a satisfactory conception of human telos. This lack leads us to resort to such fictions as rights, interests, and utility, which are "disguises for the will to power. ''29 These thinkers would also agree that modern nation-states are cut off from the roots of the Western tradition. Modern political economy, with "its individualism, its acquisitiveness and its elevation of the values of the market to a central social place ''3~ is leading us into "the coming age of barbarism and darkness. ''31 Maclntyre's grim depiction of the future, which Heidegger calls "the time of the darkening of the earth" and "the flight of the gods", a2 can only be met by re-appropriating our own tradition. Although Aristotle has much to tell us, I believe Heidegger is right to turn to Heraclitus for a non-anthropocentric conception of humanity's place in Nature. Other writers, however, such as Arne Naess, George Sessions, and Stuart Hampshire, argue that the writings of Spinoza may offer the most helpful vision of humanity needed to guide our efforts to find a more appropriate basis for our behavior toward each other and toward the non- human world as well. 33 Yet Aristotle, Clark, Heidegger, Heraclitus, Maclntyre, and Spinoza all agree that in order to behave fittingly, we must understand what it means to be human.

At this time, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the following objection to what I have been arguing here: While it may be true that the concept of human rights is a fiction, it is nevertheless a very useful fiction for changing how human beings relate to each other, a4 The doctrine of the rights of man justified the American and French revolutions, which brought forth new and important human freedoms. Today, most of humanity still lacks the protection afforded by constitutionally guaranteed human rights. Moreover, even in constitutional dem- ocracies there are frequent abuses of and attempts to curtail human rights. Until far more people become committed to protecting human rights, it is unlikely that there will be a big movement to extend rights to non-human beings, much less to overcome the anthropocentrism inherent in the concept of rights. What the Bud- dhist tradition calls "skillful means" is appropriate in our current situation, as We must approach people in a way sensitive to their current self-understanding. Before we can pass on to the stage of planetary unity made possible by non-anthropocentric thinking, we need to find ways that promote mutual respect among human beings .a6 Out of such respect there can also arise respect for the non-human as well.

While largely in agreement with this point of view, I would like to note that our means must be very skillful, indeed, if we are to transform our relationships to each other and to the natural world before irreparable damage is done to the earth, through nuclear war or environmental destruction. The time grows short for the transformation needed to bring us from the stage of anthropocentrism to a deeper awareness of our internal relationship to the whole world. Some people, such as Peter Russell, argue that we are witnessing the evolution of a non-anthropocentric

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mode of planetary consciousness that will be supported by the revolution in com- munications and computers. 37 Other people, such as Jeremy Rifidn, maintain that the coming computer age promises ever greater intrusions into natural processes, such as the drive for control of genetic structures) s In my view, while it is important to extend the idea of human rights wherever possible, it is also crucial that we consider seriously t h e possibility that the idea of human rights is merely a transi- tional way of conceiving of morality. As we learn more about the interrelationship of human life with all other aspects of the earth's life, our self-understanding will no longer be in harmony with the human-centered morality we know today. We will either learn to respect all beings and act toward them in appropriate ways, or else we will continue down the road we are now headed - a road which seems to have a very disturbing destination. Learning to dwell appropriately on earth is the most pressing moral issue of the day.

NOTES

1. Alisdair Maclntyre,After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). 2. Some of these critics call themselves "deep ecologists" or "radical environmentalists."

For a discussion of radical environmentalism as it relates to Heidegger's thought, of. my essay "Toward a Heideggerian Ethos for Radical Environmentalism," Environmental Ethics 5 (Summer, 1983):99-131. CL also Arne Naess, '~rhe Shallow and the Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement," Inquiry 16 (1973):95-100; George Sessions, "Shallow and Deep Ecology: A Review of the Philosophical Literature," in Ecological Conscious- ness: Essays from the Earthday X Colloquium, ed. Robert Schultz and J. Hughes (Wash- ington, D.C.: The University Press of America, 1981); William B. Devall, "The Deep Ecology Movement," Natural Resources Journal 20 (Spring, 1980):299-322; Devall, "Reformist Environmentalism," The Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 6, No. 2 (Spring/Summer, 1979):129-158.

3. Toward Responsible Growth: Economic and Environmental Concern in the Balance, sponsored by The Continental Group. Cited in Psychology Today 17, No. 4 (April, 1983): 8.

4. John Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature (New York: Scribner's, 1974). About the same time he was saying that no real changes are needed in our current views toward Nature, Passmore remarked that "we do need a 'new metaphysics' which is genuinely not anthropocentric, and which takes change and complexity with the seriousness they de- serve .... The working out of such a metaphysics is, in my judgement, the most important task which lies ahead of philosophy." Cf. Passmore. "Attitudes to Nature," in Nature and Conduct, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. VIII, 1973 (London: Mac- millan, 1975):260-261.

5. Richard A. Watson, "Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals," Envi- ronmental Ethics, Vol. 1 (Summer, 1979):99-129.

6. H.J. McCloskey, "Rights," The Philosophical Quarterly 15, No. 59 (April, 1966):115- 127; cf. also McCloskey, "Moral Rights and Animals," Inquiry 22, Nos. 1-2 (Summer, 1979):23-25. (This entire issue of Inquiry is devoted to the topic of Animals Rights.) CL Tom Regan's essay, "McCloskey on Why Animals Cannot Have Rights," The Phi- losophical Quarterly 26, No. 104 (July, 1976):251-257. Regan has made an important contribution, in several articles, to the notion that non-human beings should be granted moral standing because of their intn'nsic value.

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7. Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," Philosophy and Envi- ronmental Crisis, ed. William T. Blackstone (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1974), pp. 43-68.

8. Kenneth E. Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable," The Journal of Philosophy 75, No. 6 (June, 1978):308-325. Cf. also his "From Egoism to Environmentalism," in Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, ed. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).

9. W. Murray Hunt, "Are Mere Things Morally Considerable?", Environmental Ethics 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1980):59-66.

10. Cf. J. Baird CalJicott, "Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward Nature: An Overview," Environmental Ethics 4 (Winter, 1982):293-318.

11. Christopher D. Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects (Los Altos, Calif.: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1974).

12. John Rodman, '~he Liberation of Nature?",Inquiry 20 (Spring, 1977):83-131. 13. R.G. Frey, "What has Sentience to do with the Possession of Rights?", in Animals' Rights

- A Symposium, ed. David Paterson and Richard D. Ryder (Sussex and London: Centaur Press Ltd., 1979):108.

14. John Rodman, "Animal Justice: The Counter-revolution in Natural Right and Law," Inquiry 17 (Summer, 1974):3-22.

15. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 67. 16. Ibid.,p. 69. 17. S.R.L. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). 18. Ibid., p. 114. 19. Ibid.,p. 156. 20. Ibid.,p. 179. 21. Ibid., p. 144. 22. Ibid., pp. 158-159. 23. On the topic of the human domination of other humans, cf. C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of

Man (New York: Macmillan, 1947). 24. Clark, The Moral Status of Animals, p. 184. 25. Clark, p. 162. 26. On Heidegger's later understanding of technology, Nature, and human existence, cf. his

The Question Concerning Technology, trans. William Levitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977); Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971); Discourse on Thinking, trans. John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); The End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). For a discussion of his views about the domination of Nature, of. Chapter seven of my book, Eclipse of the Self" The Development of Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981); also cf. my essays, "Beyond Human- ism: Heidegger's Understanding of Technology," Listening 12 (Fall, 1977) 74-83; "Heid- egger on Nihilism and Technique," Man and World 8 (November, 1975:394-414: "Tech- nological Culture and the End of Philosophy," Research in Philosophy and Technology 2 (Greenwich, Conn.: Jal Press, 1979); "Marx and Heidegger on the Technological Domina- tion of Nature," Philosophy Today 2 (Summer, 1979):99-112.

27. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Heraklit, ed. Manfred S. Frings, Vol. 55, Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979); Early Greek Thinking, trans. David Farrell KreU and Frank A. Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1975). For a further discussion on Heidegger and Heraclitus, cf. my essay, "Heidegger and Heraclitus on Spiritual Practice," Philosophy Today 27, No. 2 (Summer, 1983):87-103.

28. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 207. 29. Ibid.,p. 240. 30. Ibid.,p. 237. 31. Ibid.,p. 244.

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32. Heidegger, "What Are Poets For?" inPoetry, Language, Thought. 33. George Sessions, "Spinoza and Jeffers on Man in Nature," Inquiry 20 (1977):481-528.

Sessions' essay was criticized by Genevieve Lloyd in "Spinoza's Environmental Ethics," Inquiry 23 (1980):293-311. In reply, Arne Naess wrote "Environmental Ethics and Spinoza's Ethics: Comments on Genevieve Lloyd's Article," Inquiry 23 (1980):313- 325. Cf. also Stuart Hampshire, Two Theories o[ Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).

34. Tom Regan has frequently pointed out that even if the concept of rights proves to be ficticious, it can be helpful in protecting non-human beings from abuse by humans. Cf. his essay "Exploring the Idea of Animal Rights," Animals' Rights - A Symposium (Sussex and London: Centaur Press Ltd., 1979); Regan, "Animal Rights, Human Wrongs," En- vironmental Ethics 2 (1980):99-120.

35. My thanks to Professor David Levin of Northwestern University for having reminded me of the importance of approaching the question of human rights in a "skillful" way.

36. On the topic of the relation between spiritual-psychological growth and the shift in human morality, cf. M.W. Fox, "Animal Rights and Nature Liberation," in Animals' Rights - A Symposium.

37. Peter Russel, The Global Brain: Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap tp Planetary Consciousness (New York: J.P. Tarcher, 1983).

38. Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny (New York: Viking, 1983).

the critique of natural rights and the search for a non-anthropocentric basis for moral behavior

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