Is environmentalism anthropocentric?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume V, p. 34 of the PDF edition · English translation

In the previous chapters we saw the differences between environmentalism and consideration for animals. We also investigated some factors that can lead people to confuse one position with the other. In this chapter we will investigate a related question: is environmentalism anthropocentric?

As we will see below, environmentalism by itself is not anthropocentric. What happens is that most proponents of environmentalism combine it with anthropocentrism and give greater weight to the latter. This does not mean, however, that if environmentalist principles are not combined with anthropocentrism, the result for animals will be positive. Quite the contrary. All of this will be explained in detail below.

Environmentalist positions tend to present themselves as the opposite of anthropocentrism. However, proponents of environmentalism who approve of slaughtering nonhuman animals to achieve their goals typically condemn doing the same to humans⁶³. This disparity is curious, to say the least, since the human species is the greatest of all threats to environmentalist goals: it is overpopulated, it would have to be classified as an invasive species in most of the places where it is found, and it is an enormous threat to ecological balance, to the preservation of ecosystems, to biodiversity, and so on.

This indicates that those who maintain this disparity are subordinating their environmentalist position to anthropocentric speciesism. That is, these people, even though they accept environmentalist goals, believe that the good of humans is more important than these goals, unlike the good of nonhuman animals. This is a blatantly anthropocentric speciesist attitude, since it places the good of humans above environmentalist goals and the good of nonhuman animals below them. Nevertheless, it is the predominant position among proponents of environmentalism⁶⁴.

A rare few environmentalists argue that environmentalist extermination programs should also be applied to humans. For example, Pentti Linkola, in addition to defending

the consumption of nonhuman animals, also advocated breeding humans for consumption⁶⁵ and praised the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis for contributing to the maintenance of ecological balance⁶⁶. Linkola was one of the few environmentalists who applied the principles of environmentalism without subordinating them to anthropocentric principles.

Linkola's view, however, is widely considered repugnant by the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of environmentalists. Yet the problem with Linkola's position is easy to see because it harms not only nonhuman animals but also humans. Since the victims of other environmentalists' positions are only nonhuman animals, the predominance of anthropocentric speciesism keeps most people from seeing that there is exactly the same problem with environmentalism in general: placing nonsentient entities above the good of sentient beings.

The point is this: the central reason for rejecting a position like Linkola's also implies rejecting environmentalist practices of killing nonhuman animals. The reason is this: sentient beings, human and nonhuman, are harmed if they suffer and also by death, since death prevents them from having positive experiences. No nonsentient entity is capable of suffering or of being prevented from enjoying positive experiences. These harms are particularly serious (which is why we try so hard to avoid them in our own case). This reason explains why the good of humans should be placed above environmentalist goals, but it implies at the same time that there are exactly the same reasons to place the good of nonhuman animals above environmentalist goals.

This means that there are good reasons to reject not only positions like Linkola's (which are purely environmentalist and advocate exterminating both nonhuman animals and humans to achieve environmentalist goals) but also the positions of the vast majority of other environmentalists (who subordinate their environmentalist position to anthropocentric principles and advocate exterminating only nonhuman animals to achieve environmentalist goals). The central reason, as we have seen, is that there are reasons to prioritize sentient beings over nonsentient entities.