Relation to others· Morals
Biocentrism
Axis: Moral circle — To whom do we owe moral consideration?
Every living being, sentient or not, has a worth of its own: plants, insects, and micro-organisms included. Ethics rests on reverence for life as such, each organism pursuing its own good in its own way.
Philosophers 1
Show inferred positions (1)
Jonasinferable
finds it "at least not senseless" to ask whether the condition of extra-human nature has a moral claim on us, "not only for our sake but for its own". His answer goes not through suffering but through purposiveness: in every living being that pursues its end, being says yes to itself, and that yes is a good in itself. It is a biocentric grounding, not a pathocentric one. The human keeps a priority, that of the sole subject of responsibility, but it does not reserve intrinsic value to humans.
The Imperative of Responsibility, ch. I · The Imperative of Responsibility, ch. III-IV
Argument
- 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.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position
- Biocentrism grants a value of its own to every living thing, sentient or not: the plant, the insect, the bacterium.
- Yet every day we destroy them by the million: to cure an infection, an antibiotic kills billions of bacteria; walking, farming, building, we crush, uproot, displace. Even a plant-based diet feeds on lives. , a doctor, knew he had to sacrifice some lives to save others.
- A principle that condemns our every gesture no longer tells anything apart: either it forbids living, or we break it constantly and it becomes a mere formula.
Therefore So respect for all life, taken seriously, is either paralysing or empty: a narrower criterion, such as , is needed for respect to really guide our choices.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position
- Biocentrism grants a worth of its own to all that pursues its good, sentient or not.
- But 'pursuing a good' is said in two senses: a clock 'wants' to tell the time, a virus 'wants' to replicate, without anything mattering to anyone. A genuine interest presupposes a subject to whom its fate can make a difference.
- Without sentience, there is no point of view from which living or dying is good or bad for the organism: one can destroy it, one does not wrong it; 'respect' has no addressee.
Therefore So moral worth requires a being able to feel its good: below sentience there are admirable mechanisms, not subjects toward whom we would have duties.
See the page- PrescriptiveMoralReverence for life
To count, must one be capable of suffering, or is it enough to be alive? A tree, an insect pursue a good of their own: do they deserve our respect on that ground, or does life without sentience oblige us to nothing?
a plant, an insect