Reverence for life
Every living being is a center of life pursuing its own flourishing: on that ground it deserves respect, not mere use.
Supports
Schweitzer, Paul Taylor · Civilization and Ethics; Respect for Nature (1986)
- Every organism, plant, insect, or microbe, is oriented toward its own good: it grows, feeds, defends itself, reproduces, as though its life were an end for it.
- Having a good of one's own is not feeling it: the plant senses nothing, yet there are things good or harmful for it, a fulfillment that is its own.
- Now what has a good of its own has a worth that is not merely our use-value: to reduce it to a means is to scorn the end it is for itself.
Therefore So the moral circle extends to all life: not that all lives are worth the same in every circumstance, but that none is mere material, and that destroying a life always calls for a reason.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Put to the test