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Humans and Nature: A Spectrum Not a Dichotomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Ken Dyer  and
Pam Gunnell
Ken Dyer
Affiliation:
Mawson Graduate Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide
Pam Gunnell
Affiliation:
Mawson Graduate Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide
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Among the most significant, controversial and difficult concepts for environmental educators and students alike to come to terms with are those of the anthropocentric (or totally human centred) view of the environment compared with the biocentric (or totally non-human centred) attitude to the environment. The concepts are significant because they represent profoundly different philosophical positions and also because they may have far reaching implications and, therefore, consequences in practice. Eckersley (1992, p.26) says:

… the most fundamental division from an ecophilosophical point of view is between those who adopt an anthropocentric ecological perspective and those who adopt a nonanthropocentric ecological (or ecocentric) perspective.

They are controversial because both views have been said, by different authors, to be either totally disastrous or absolutely redeeming for the planet. For instance, in his recent authoritative and well received book Towards A Transpersonal Ecology, philosopher Warwick Fox writes (1990, p. 13)

… anthropocentrism represents not only a deluded but a dangerous orientation toward the world.

and adds (1990, pp. 18-19) that it is

… empirically bankrupt and theoretically disastrous, practically disastrous, logically inconsistent, morally objectionable and incongruent with a genuinely open approach to experience.

Yet Jeff Bennett, expressing the anthropocentric view in a volume entitled Reconciling Economics and the Environment, says that

… a complete property rights system over ecosystems, and even individual species making up an ecosystem, can ensure their conservation.

(Bennett & Block 1991, p.272)

Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 9 , 1993 , pp. 53 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

References

Bennett, J. & Block, W., Reconciling Economics and the Environment, Institute of Public Policy, Sydney, 1991.Google Scholar
Eckersley, R., Environmentalism and Political Theory. Toward an Ecocentric Approach, UCL Press, London, 1992.Google Scholar
Fox, W., Toward a Transpersonal Ecology. Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism, Shambhala, Boston & London, 1990.Google Scholar
Reynolds, V., The Biology of Human Action, W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1976.Google Scholar
Sagoff, M., The Economy of the Earth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Weston, J. (ed.), Red and Green. The New Politics of the Environment, Pluto Press, London, 1986.Google Scholar