Environmental Ethics: 
          From Theory to Practice
                 Marion Hourdequin
        Companion Website Material„Chapter 3
                Companion website by Julia Liao 
                  and Marion Hourdequin
          www.bloomsbury.com/uk/environmental-ethics-9781472510983
                   © Marion Hourdequin 2014
         Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice. London: Bloomsbury
                            ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE 
                                              Chapter Outline
                 Chapter 3. Anthropocentrism and its critics: 
                 Broadening moral concern
                    Introduction: Intrinsic value and moral standing
                    For further thought
                    Value and the environment: Sentiocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism
                     Valuing animals
                      Peter Singer and Animal liberation
                          Regan and animal rights
                      Palmer’s ethical contextualism
                     Valuing life
                       Valuing ecosystems, species, and biodiversity
                       For further thought
                    Beyond intrinsic value? Relational approaches to ethics
                       Leopold’s relational ethics
                       Deep ecology and the relational self
                       Classical Confucian and Daoist perspectives on the relational self
                       For further thought
                    Conclusion: Care and meaning„toward a relational perspective in 
                      environmental ethics
                    Further reading
                                                   Key points
                                                  Introduction
                    ●   Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Aristotelian virtue ethics 
                        have all been criticized as overly anthropocentric. Although 
                        anthropocentrism allows that nonhuman entities have value, it 
                        treats this value as purely instrumental: that is, nonhuman entities 
                        have value only as means to the ends of humans.
                    ●   Many environmental philosophers argue that nonhuman 
                        organisms and other elements of the natural world also have 
                        intrinsic value (value in their own right, or for their own sake).
                       www.bloomsbury.com/uk/environmental-ethics-9781472510983
                                            © Marion Hourdequin 2014
                     Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice. London: Bloomsbury
                                 COMPANION WEBSITE MATERIAL—CHAPTER 
                    ●   Questions of intrinsic value often are tied to questions of moral 
                        considerability. The term moral considerability refers to an entitys 
                        moral status, to whether it “counts” morally and can be the object 
                        of direct duties or obligations. Typically, an entity is considered 
                        morally considerable if and only if it bears intrinsic value.
                    ●   Just as moral considerability has to do with an entitys moral 
                        status, legal considerability has to do with an entitys legal status.
                    ●   Moral considerability and legal considerability are distinct 
                        concepts, but they are often interrelated. For example, creating 
                        new legal structures and granting legal considerability to 
                        nonhuman entities may change how people view the moral status 
                        of those entities. Conversely, if we grant that animals are morally 
                        considerable, we may be prompted to change our laws in light of 
                        this moral commitment.
                           Value and the environment: Sentiocentrism, 
                                      biocentrism, and ecocentrism
                    ●   Many philosophers have called attention to the lack of coherent 
                        and consistent ethical values in human actions toward animals. 
                        Peter Singer and Tom Regan, in particular, have proposed two 
                        different ways of addressing this problem.
                    ●   Peter Singer argues that just as humans are not assigned different 
                        levels of moral considerability based on differences in qualities 
                        such as intelligence, differences in intelligence (and similar 
                        qualities) should not be used to discount the moral considerability 
                        of animals.
                    ●   For Singer, it is sentience—the capacity to feel pleasure and 
                        pain—that makes a being a bearer of interests, and thereby, 
                        morally considerable. Singer argues that the principle of equal 
                        consideration of interests applies to all sentient beings.
                    ●   Singers utilitarian view allows human and animal interests to 
                        be traded off against one another in order to achieve maximum 
                        overall utility, as long as the interests of each individual receive the 
                        same weight.
                        www.bloomsbury.com/uk/environmental-ethics-9781472510983
                                             © Marion Hourdequin 2014
                      Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice. London: Bloomsbury
                            ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE 
                    ●  Tom Regan rejects the utilitarian view. He argues that individual 
                        beings matter for their own sake, not as mere receptacles of 
                        utility. According to Regan, all experiencing subjects of a life 
                        have inherent moral worth that grounds duties of respect toward 
                        them.
                    ●   Clare Palmer argues that Singers and Regans arguments are both 
                        limited by their focus on animal capacities such as suffering and 
                        consciousness. Palmer believes that human obligations to animals 
                        should take into account the relationships between humans and 
                        animals. Thus, our greater engagement with domestic animals 
                        can generate stronger obligations toward them than toward wild 
                        animals with which we have limited interaction.
                    ●   Other philosophers, like Kenneth Goodpaster, argue that instead 
                        of rationality or sentience, the fundamental condition for moral 
                        considerability is simply being alive. Developing a related view, 
                        Paul Taylor argues for life-centered biocentrism. According to 
                        Taylor, humans are just one form of life that depends on many 
                        others. Taylors view decenters human importance and suggests 
                        that we recognize each living thing as having a good of its own 
                        and as deserving of respect.
                    ●   Taylors argument for biocentrism is an example of a philosophical 
                        position that is grounded not solely in deduction from accepted 
                        premises, but instead in arguments for a shift to a new moral 
                        outlook. To be convincing, such arguments may ultimately 
                        require greater engagement with the natural world and other, 
                        nonphilosophical forms of thought and communication.
                    ●   In contrast to sentiocentric and biocentric arguments about the 
                        moral value of individuals, ecocentrism is concerned with the 
                        moral considerability of ecological systems.
                    ●   Most ecocentric arguments attempt either to show that 
                        ecosystems possess the same features that make individuals 
                        morally considerable, or they argue that novel features of 
                        ecosystems qualify them as having moral value.
                    ●   Harley Cahen argues that ecosystems lack the teleological 
                        organization that is required for moral considerability. Interactions 
                        within ecosystems may follow structured patterns, but the 
                        ecosystem as a whole is not goal directed.
                       www.bloomsbury.com/uk/environmental-ethics-9781472510983
                                            © Marion Hourdequin 2014
                     Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice. London: Bloomsbury