Biocentrism

Many philosophers who endorse an environmental ethic are uneasy with the philosophies of Singer and Regan. They see the central focus on animals as not much better than traditional moralists' obsession with humans. These critics agree that an environmental ethic will require better treatment of animals, but this concern for animals follows from a larger concern for nature. The trouble with Singer and Regan is that they have it the other way around: whatever concern they have for nature comes from their concern about animals. The preeminent value of nature is still not at the center of the big screen where it belongs.

According to the critics, Singer and Regan make the following mistake. They suppose that either sentience or being the subject of a life is a necessary condition for moral considerability (i.e., having intrinsic value in the second sense that we distinguished in 3.5). For biocentrists, sentience and being the subject of a life are only part of the story. The rest of the story is the value of life itself.

The view that all life is morally considerable goes back to the extraordinary Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian, theologian, missionary, organist, and medical doctor, Albert Schweitzer. In his 1923 book, Philosophy of Civilisation, he wrote: “True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: ‘I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.’”