If one were to read the literature discussing the evolution and history of the approaches to environmental issues, there are 2 or 3 basic ideologies that govern the thought process of human perception about the environment. More specifically, the various outlooks to other living beings are of prime significance in our approach to nature.
A few terms which are to be discussed at this juncture are: Anthropocentricism, biocentricism and ecocentricism.
Each of these are ideologies more than anything else. “Environmentalists” and so called environmentally conscious persons may come from any of these ideologies.
Anthropocentricism refers to keeping the human species as central to all activity. All plan and action will be performed if beneficial to the human species. For example, if a pesticide were to be stopped from usage, the argument would be that the rate of cancer among people is increasing because of the chemical. A certain species would need to be saved because they are essential to control pest populations or because the genetic material may come of some use sometime in the future. In case of man/animal conflict or man/ecosystem conflict, it is man who would be given the preference. It is important to note that the present day environmentalist mostly fall under this category. They fight for environmental causes using the relevant human suffering as a tool for advocacy. According to them, creatures without value for human use are expendable. At many levels, nature lovers would label this approach of ‘human centric’ environmentalism as ’superficial’ or more appropriately ’shallow’. Arne Naess has described this approach as ‘Shallow Ecology’ in his texts of which I will discuss soon in a future post.
In the biocentric perspective, all species are considered to be equal and hence any activity causing any harm to another creature in any way is considered as wrong. This is indeed a more radical ideology and would be hard to digest and accept for most people. If such an ideology were to be accepted, many changes would have to be made to ones lifestyle. Each ideology comes with its share of lifestyle modifications. This one will require the person to give up non-vegetarian food, give up leather, adopt organic food etc. This philosophy is keystone to the Animal Rights movement. They believe that without treating all species the various problems of the human species cannot be solved. Under such a perspective no species would be considered as a pest.
A more holistic perspective would be ecocentricism. Here, the central important is given to the ecosystem with adequate respect to the intrinsic value of non-living elements like air and water. The habitats of creatures are also given importance. Any process that would cause damage to the ecosystem and the biosphere as a whole would be considered as wrong. Therefore human industry and other ‘developmental’ endeavours would need to reorganize accordingly with respect to the biological and the elemental processes of the biosphere.
