Ecocentrism
Encyclopedia
Ecocentrism (ˌɛkoʊˈsɛntrɪzəm, from Greek: οἶκος, oikos, "house"; and κέντρον, kentron, "center".) is a term used in ecological political philosophy
to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centred, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief
and subsequent ethical claim. The ontological belief denies that there are any existential
divisions between human and non-human nature sufficient to claim that humans are either (a) the sole bearers of intrinsic value
or (b) possess greater intrinsic value than non-human nature. Thus the subsequent ethical claim is for an equality of intrinsic value across human and non-human nature, or ‘biospherical
egalitarianism
’.
According to Rowe:
and:
and recognizes that all species, including humans, are the product of a long evolutionary process and are inter-related in their life processes. The writings of Aldo Leopold
and his idea of the land ethic
and good environmental management are a key element to this philosophy.
Ecocentrism focuses on the biotic community as a whole and strives to maintain ecosystem composition and ecological processes. The term also finds expression in the first principle of the deep ecology
movement, as formulated by Arne Næss
and George Sessions in 1984
which points out that anthropocentrism
, which considers humans as the center of the universe and the pinnacle of all creation, is a difficult opponent for ecocentrism.
, the political and ethical movement that seeks to protect and improve the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities by adopting environmentally benign forms of political, economic, and social organization and through a reassessment of humanity's relationship with nature. In various ways, environmentalism claims that non-human organisms and the natural environment as a whole deserve consideration when appraising the morality of political, economic, and social policies.
Arne Naess
has identified anthropocentrism as a root cause of the ecological
crisis, human overpopulation
, and the extinction
s of many non-human species. Others point to the gradual historical realization that humans are not the centre of all things, that “A few hundred years ago, with some reluctance, Western people admitted that the planets, Sun and stars did not circle around their abode. In short, our thoughts and concepts though irreducibly anthropomorphic need not be anthropocentric.”
(meaning values centred on technology) as two opposing perspectives on attitudes towards human technology and its ability to affect, control and even protect the environment. Ecocentrics, including "deep green" ecologists, see themselves as being subject to nature, rather than in control of it. They lack faith in modern technology and the bureaucracy attached to it. Ecocentrics will argue that the natural world should be respected for its processes and products, and that low impact technology and self-reliance is more desirable than technological control of nature.
Technocentrics, including imperialists, have absolute faith in technology and industry and firmly believe that humans have control over nature. Although technocentrics may accept that environmental problems do exist, they do not see them as problems to be solved by a reduction in industry. Rather, environmental problems are seen as problems to be solved using science. Indeed, technocentrics see that the way forward for developed and developing countries and the solutions to our environmental problems today lie in scientific and technological advancement.
These are reproduced here:
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centred, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
and subsequent ethical claim. The ontological belief denies that there are any existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
divisions between human and non-human nature sufficient to claim that humans are either (a) the sole bearers of intrinsic value
Intrinsic value
Intrinsic value can refer to:*Intrinsic value , of an option or stock.*Intrinsic value , of a coin.*Intrinsic value , in ethics and philosophy.*Intrinsic value , in philosophy....
or (b) possess greater intrinsic value than non-human nature. Thus the subsequent ethical claim is for an equality of intrinsic value across human and non-human nature, or ‘biospherical
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
’.
According to Rowe:
The ecocentric argument is grounded in the belief that, compared to the undoubted importance of the human part, the whole ecosphereEcosphereEcosphere has several different meanings:* In ecology the term ecosphere can refer to the Earth's spheres, a planetary ecosystem consisting of the atmosphere, the geosphere , the hydrosphere, and the biosphere....
is even more significant and consequential: more inclusive, more complex, more integrated, more creative, more beautiful, more mysterious, and older than time. The "environment" that anthropocentrismAnthropocentrismAnthropocentrism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective....
misperceives as materials designed to be used exclusively by humans, to serve the needs of humanity, is in the profoundest sense humanity's source and support: its ingenious, inventive life-giving matrix. Ecocentrism goes beyond biocentrismBiocentrism (ethics)Biocentrism , in a political and ecological sense, is an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species, ecosystems, and processes in nature - regardless of their sentience...
with its fixation on organisms, for in the ecocentric view people are inseparable from the inorganic/organic nature that encapsulates them. They are particles and waves, body and spirit, in the context of Earth's ambient energy.
and:
To switch Western culture from its present track to a saving ecopolitical route means finding a new and compelling belief-system to redirect our way-of-living. It must be a vital outgrowth from our science-based culture. It seems to me that the only promising universal belief-system is ecocentrism, defined as a value-shift from Homo sapiens to planet earth. A scientific rationale backs the value-shift. All organisms are evolved from Earth, sustained by Earth. Thus Earth, not organism, is the metaphor for Life. Earth not humanity is the Life-center, the creativity-center. Earth is the whole of which we are subservient parts. Such a fundamental philosophy gives ecological awareness and sensitivity an enfolding, material focus.
Ecocentrism is not an argument that all organisms have equivalent value. It is not an anti-human argument nor a put-down of those seeking social justice. It does not deny that myriad important homocentric problems exist. But it stands aside from these smaller, short-term issues in order to consider Ecological Reality. Reflecting on the ecological status of all organisms, it comprehends the Ecosphere as a Being that transcends in importance any one single species, even the self-named sapient one.
Origin of term
The ecocentric ethic was conceived by Aldo LeopoldAldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
and recognizes that all species, including humans, are the product of a long evolutionary process and are inter-related in their life processes. The writings of Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...
and his idea of the land ethic
Land ethic
A Land Ethic is a philosophy that guides your actions when you utilize or make changes to the land. This specific term was first coined by Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac . Within this work, he wrote that there is a need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with man's relation to...
and good environmental management are a key element to this philosophy.
Ecocentrism focuses on the biotic community as a whole and strives to maintain ecosystem composition and ecological processes. The term also finds expression in the first principle of the deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
movement, as formulated by Arne Næss
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher, the founder of deep ecology. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo....
and George Sessions in 1984
which points out that anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective....
, which considers humans as the center of the universe and the pinnacle of all creation, is a difficult opponent for ecocentrism.
Background
Environmental thought and the various branches of the environmental movement are often classified into two intellectual camps: those that are considered anthropocentric, or “human-centred,” in orientation and those considered biocentric, or “life-centred.” This division has been described in other terminology as “shallow” ecology versus “deep” ecology and as “technocentrism” versus “ecocentrism". Ecocentrism can be seen as one stream of thought within environmentalismEnvironmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
, the political and ethical movement that seeks to protect and improve the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities by adopting environmentally benign forms of political, economic, and social organization and through a reassessment of humanity's relationship with nature. In various ways, environmentalism claims that non-human organisms and the natural environment as a whole deserve consideration when appraising the morality of political, economic, and social policies.
Anthropocentrism
Ecocentrism is taken by its proponents to constitute a radical challenge to long-standing and deeply rooted anthropocentric attitudes in Western culture, science, and politics. Anthropocentrism is alleged to leave the case for the protection of non-human nature subject to the demands of human utility, and thus never more than contingent on the demands of human welfare. An ecocentric ethic, by contrast, is believed to be necessary in order to develop a non-contingent basis for protecting the natural world. Critics of ecocentrism have argued that it opens the doors to an anti-humanist morality that risks sacrificing human well-being for the sake of an ill-defined ‘greater good’. Deep ecologistDeep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
Arne Naess
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher, the founder of deep ecology. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo....
has identified anthropocentrism as a root cause of the ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
crisis, human overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
, and the extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
s of many non-human species. Others point to the gradual historical realization that humans are not the centre of all things, that “A few hundred years ago, with some reluctance, Western people admitted that the planets, Sun and stars did not circle around their abode. In short, our thoughts and concepts though irreducibly anthropomorphic need not be anthropocentric.”
Technocentrism
Ecocentrism is also contrasted with technocentrismTechnocentrism
Technocentrism is a term that denotes a value system that is centred on technology and its ability to affect, control and protect the environment. Technocentrics have absolute faith in technology and industry and firmly believe that humans have control over nature...
(meaning values centred on technology) as two opposing perspectives on attitudes towards human technology and its ability to affect, control and even protect the environment. Ecocentrics, including "deep green" ecologists, see themselves as being subject to nature, rather than in control of it. They lack faith in modern technology and the bureaucracy attached to it. Ecocentrics will argue that the natural world should be respected for its processes and products, and that low impact technology and self-reliance is more desirable than technological control of nature.
Technocentrics, including imperialists, have absolute faith in technology and industry and firmly believe that humans have control over nature. Although technocentrics may accept that environmental problems do exist, they do not see them as problems to be solved by a reduction in industry. Rather, environmental problems are seen as problems to be solved using science. Indeed, technocentrics see that the way forward for developed and developing countries and the solutions to our environmental problems today lie in scientific and technological advancement.
Biocentrism
The distinction between biocentrism and ecocentrism is ill-defined. Ecocentrism recognizes Earths interactive living and non-living systems rather than just the Earth's organisms (biocentrism) as central in importance.A Manifesto for Earth
In 2004 Ted Mosquin and Stan Rowe published A Manifesto for Earth in the journal Biodiversity. This was a synthesis of their deliberations on ecocentrism and contained a Statement of Conviction followed by a set of Core Principles with their associated Action Principles.These are reproduced here:
Statement of conviction
Everyone searches for meaning in life, for supportive convictions that take various forms. Many look to faiths that ignore or discount the importance of this world, not realizing in any profound sense that we are born from Earth and sustained by it throughout our lives. In today’s dominating industrial culture, Earth-as-home is not a self-evident percept. Few pause daily to consider with a sense of wonder the enveloping matrix from which we came and to which, at the end, we all return. Because we are issue of the Earth, the harmonies of its lands, seas, skies and its countless beautiful organisms carry rich meanings barely understood. We are convinced that until the Ecosphere is recognized as the indispensable common ground of all human activities, people will continue to set their immediate interests first. Without an ecocentric perspective that anchors values and purposes in a greater reality than our own species, the resolution of political, economic, and religious conflicts will be impossible. Until the narrow focus on human communities is broadened to include Earth’s ecosystems – the local and regional places wherein we dwell – programs for healthy sustainable ways of living will fail. A trusting attachment to the Ecosphere, an aesthetic empathy with surrounding Nature, a feeling of awe for the miracle of the Living Earth and its mysterious harmonies, is humanity’s largely unrecognized heritage. Affectionately realized again, our connections with the natural world will begin to fill the gap in lives lived in the industrialized world. Important ecological purposes that civilization and urbanization have obscured will re-emerge. The goal is restoration of Earth’s diversity and beauty, with our prodigal species once again a cooperative, responsible, ethical member.
Core principles
- Principle 1 The Ecosphere is the Center of Value for Humanity
- Principle 2 The Creativity and Productivity of Earth’s Ecosystems Depend on their Integrity
- Principle 3 The Earth-centered Worldview is supported by Natural History
- Principle 4 Ecocentric Ethics are Grounded in Awareness of our Place in Nature
- Principle 5 An Ecocentric Worldview Values Diversity of Ecosystems and Cultures
- Principle 6 Ecocentric Ethics Support Social Justice
Action principles
- Principle 7 Defend and Preserve Earth’s Creative Potential
- Principle 8 Reduce Human Population Size
- Principle 9 Reduce Human Consumption of Earth Parts
- Principle 10 Promote Ecocentric Governance
- Principle 11 Spread the Message
See also
- Deep ecologyDeep ecologyDeep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
- Earth liberationEarth liberationEarth liberation has no universal understanding as a concept, as it is much considered to be a part of radical environmentalism, or as a militant off-shoot, favouring instead radical and revolutionary environmentalism.-History:...
- Ecocentric embodied energy analysisEmbodied energyEmbodied energy is defined as the sum of energy inputs that was used in the work to make any product, from the point of extraction and refining materials, bringing it to market, and disposal / re-purposing of it...
- EnvironmentalismEnvironmentalismEnvironmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
- Ecological humanitiesEcological humanitiesThe ecological humanities is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades...
- EcofeminismEcofeminismEcofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
- Gaia hypothesisGaia hypothesisThe Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
- HolocentricHolocentricHolocentric is a philosophical position which focuses on solutions as the outcome of human activity and on critical learning.One of the four fundamental worldview types proposed by Richard Bawden in 1997, the other three being Technocentric, Ecocentric, and Egocentric.Drawing on ideas introduced by...
- TechnocentrismTechnocentrismTechnocentrism is a term that denotes a value system that is centred on technology and its ability to affect, control and protect the environment. Technocentrics have absolute faith in technology and industry and firmly believe that humans have control over nature...
Further reading
- Bosselmann, K. 1999. When Two Worlds Collide: Society and Ecology. ISBN 0-9597948-3-2
- Eckersley, R. 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach. State University of New York Press.
- Hettinger, Ned and Throop, Bill 1999. Refocusing Ecocentrism: De-emphasizing Stability and Defending Wilderness. Environmental Ethics 21: 3-21.