Non-Anthropocentrist Environmental Ethics: Notes on Taylor's "An Ethics of Respect for Nature"

Notes: Taylor’s “An Ethics of Respect for Nature”

Summary of the article: The most rationally acceptable of the two competing types of environmental ethics is the non-anthropocentric one. It is justified by being supported by a world view that is internally coherent and consistent with scientific knowledge. The arguments for the view that only humans have inherent worth (or have the most inherent worth) are either question-begging or based on implausible assumptions, or both.

Outline: Major Divisions of the Paper

I. Human-Centered and Life-Centered Systems of Environmental Ethics (Introduction: the two competing types of views)
A. Anthropocentrism: Only humans have inherent worth, and so, only humans are worthy of being treated as having intrinsic value.
B. Non-anthropocentrism: Other life forms have intrinsic value as well (a variety of views, though Taylor doesn’t make this last point)

II. The Good of a Being and the Concept of Inherent Worth
A. Preliminaries: defining some terms
1. The good of a thing: whatever enhances or preserves the life and well-being of a kind of thing. Organisms are “teleological centers of life”. That is, each species has a set of capacities, a characteristic pattern of growth and development (life-cycle), and a set of activities that are characteristic of that species. To enhance or preserve the capacities or set of activities or pattern of development of a member of a species is to benefit that species, and to do the opposite is to harm it.
a. Doesn’t require that the organism has interests.
b. Doesn’t require that the organism take an interest in its well-being.
c. Doesn’t require that the organism is conscious, or capable of pleasure or pain.
d. Open-ended whether machines can have a good of their own.
2. Inherent worth:
a. Implies two principles:
i. Principle of moral consideration: x is deserving of concern and consideration simply in virtue of being a member of a species (or even for being a member of Earth’s living community/ having its own good). The good of each is to be accorded some value and so acknowledged as having some weight in the deliberation of all rational agents.
ii. Principle of intrinsic value: regardless of what kind of entity it is in other respects, if it is a member of Earth’s community of life, the realization of its good is something that is intrinsically valuable. Therefore, its good is prima facie worthy of being preserved or promoted as an end in itself and for the sake of the entity whose good it is. Can’t be treated as a mere means to an end.
b. Definition: x possesses inherent worth: x’s good is deserving of the concern and consideration of all moral agents, and that the realization of its good has intrinsic value, to be pursued as an end in itself and for the sake of the entity whose good it is.
c. Implication/application: Inherent worth of living things grounds the duties owed to living things. When agents so consider living things in this way, they place intrinsic value on them, and place themselves under obligations to help and not to harm them.

III. The Attitude of Respect for Nature
A. Parallel to the respect for persons
1. Seeing a thing as having inherent worth. Leads to:
2.. Commitment to live a certain kind of life in relation to the thing(s) with inherent worth, This implies:
3. Taking on rules and duties to help and not harm the thing(s) with inherent worth.
4. It gives rise to 3 sets of steady, permanent dispositions:
a. To seek certain ends
b. To carry out one’s practical reasoning in a certain way.
c. To have certain feelings.
B. Attitude of respect for nature has three main components (see p. 55 for details)
G. Connection between this attitude and the duties:
1. Anyone with the attitude will be disposed to comply with the rules/duties/standards of character.
2. Acting that way is a means of manifesting the attitude of respect.

IV. The Justifiability of the Attitude of Respect for Nature:
A. The argument: (justified by being implied by a justified world view).
1. The attitude of respect for nature is implied by a certain world view (“the biocentric outlook on nature”)
2. The world view is justified by being logically consistent and coherent, as well as being consistent with current scientific knowledge.
3. Therefore, the attitude implied by the justified world view is itself justified.
B. Three elements of a world view
1. A belief system
2. An ultimate moral attitude
3. A set of rules of duty and standards of character
C. (1) justifies (2) (in that it makes the attitude seem the suitable one to adopt).; and (2) justifies (3) (once the attitude is adopted, one makes the moral commitment, because one considers those rules to be binding on all moral agents.
D. The account is neutral with respect to Kantian or Consequentialist ethics.

V. The Biocentric Outlook on Nature; The World view: 4 Components
A. Humans are conceived as members of Earth’s community of life, and such membership and its terms applies equally to all human and non-human members.
B. The Earth’s ecosystem: interconnected and interdependent for each member’s proper function on all of the other individuals.
C. Each organism is conceived as a teleological center of life, pursuing its own good in its own way.
D. Humans are not superior to any other life form. Such a belief is irrational.

VI. The Denial of Human Superiority:

Arguments for human superiority based on merit
A. Argument 1:
1. The arg: Humans are superior because we have capacities that other species lack.
2. Objection: This doesn’t show we’re superior and so are more valuable. Every species has capacities that others lack.
B. Argument 2:
1. The arg.: Humans are superior because we have capacities that are more valuable than any other, no matter what species.
2. Objection: question-begging: valuable to whom? Obviously, to humans. But why privilege what humans value as objectively valuable?
a. Such capacities aren’t valued by other species, for they don’t contribute to excellence with respect to their proper function.
b. Other species have superior capacities to humans, from the standpoint of that species (cheetahs’ running speed).
C. Argument 3:
1. The arg: Humans are morally superior beings because they possess (while all other species lack), the conditions necessary to be morally good or bad (free will, rationality, autonomy, etc.)
2. Objection: the objection is incoherent. Only beings with capacities for moral agency can be judged to be either moral or immoral. So its incoherent to say that plants, for example, are morally inferior to humans, for they don’t have the capacities required for moral agency at all (they can’t be called immoral if they can’t do things that moral agents do. Compare: you can’t call a rock a bad dancer, for a rock doesn’t even have the capacities required to dance (legs, etc.))

Arguments for human superiority based on inherent worth

D. Argument 4:
1. The arg: Humans, simply by being members of the species Homo Sapiens, have a higher degree of intrinsic worth than any other species.
2. Objection:
a. The idea of degrees of inherent worth is based on an obsolete, morally repugnant idea of a strict hierarchy of social classes. According to the picture, members of higher classes were more valuable and important than members of lower classes. As such, just by being born into a rich family automatically made you more valuable than poorer people, no matter what you do. Now, we live in a democracy, and the class system seems morally absurd. No person is more valuable than any other, no matter how rich or poor you are. So, since the idea only gets justification from the false view of classes, the idea is faulty as well.
b. Today, unknowingly, we still hold to the basic idea of classism, but at the level of species, not wealth. This idea is just as morally repugnant as the classist idea. We’re not more valuable than other life forms just because we were born into the “prestigious” human race.
E. Final critique of the idea that humans are superior: There are three views of human beings that people use to justify human superiority: Greek humanism, Cartesian dualism, and the Judeo-Christian view of the world.
1. Greek humanism says humans are more valuable because we possess rationality. This makes us live on a higher plane and endows us with nobility. But this justification is question-begging. Rationality is valuable only to humans.
2. Cartesian dualism says humans are more valuable because humans have souls and animals don’t. This makes us more like divinity, since we are spiritual beings. But why think having a soul makes things more valuable than things that don’t have souls? Why is soul-stuff more valuable than physical matter?
3. The Judeo-Christian world view says that humans have more value because we are at one of the highest levels of the Great Chain of Being. Only God and angels are higher than humans, and everything else is lower in the chain. Also, we alone (besides the angels) are made in God’s image. This makes us extremely valuable, certainly more valuable than things that don’t bear God’s image. The problem with this justification is that it’s only plausible if you accept the Judeo-Christian world view. If you don’t think that you’re made in God’s image, then you can’t use the “I’m made in God’s image” justification for saying that humans are superior.
G. Now, the biocentric outlook says that all forms of life have equal inherent worth. So, each life form is worthy of being treated as though it has intrinsic value. Therefore, all humans are obligated to treat them as ends in themselves. Humans aren’t more valuable than any other life form.

VI. Moral Rights and the Matter of Competing Claims:
A. If all life forms are equally valuable, how do we decide between competing claims of consideration?
B. Doesn’t answer in detail, but says that if the account is true, then humans don’t automatically get direct consideration over any other species merely because they are human.