Abstract
Anthropocentrism is a concept with a long history. This chapter briefly outlines this history to identify what it entails and show its historical importance. It then engages with its ethical significance by, first, engaging with the ways its proponents have justified it, before, subsequently, examining a number of criticisms that have been made against it.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aristotle. (2009). Politics (trans: Barker E.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Descartes, R. (1999). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (trans: Cress D. A.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Foucault, M. (1994). The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage.
Freud, S. (2001). A difficulty in the path of psycho-analysis. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud: An infantile neurosis and other works (Vol. 17, pp. 135–144). London: Vintage.
Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, & women: the reinvention of nature. London: Free Association Books.
Hayles, N. K. (2005). My mother was a computer: Digital subjects and literary texts. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Hayward, T. (1997). Anthropocentrism: A misunderstood problem. Environmental Values, 6(1), 9–63.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/. Accessed June 2014.
Kant, I. (2006). Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (trans: Louden R. B.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Norton, B. G. (1984). Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism. Environmental Ethics, 6, 131–148.
O’Neill, O. (2014). Environmental values, anthropocentrism and speciesism. In M. Boylan (Ed.), Environmental ethics (2nd ed., pp. 122–134). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Passmore, J. (1974). Man’s responsibility for nature: Ecological problems and western traditions. New York: Scribner.
Rae, G. (2014). Heidegger’s influence on posthumanism: The destruction of metaphysics, technology, and the overcoming of anthropocentrism. History of Human Sciences, 27(1), 51–69.
Thacker, E. (2004). Biomedia. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
White, L. (1967). The historical roots of our ecological crisis. Science, 155, 1203–1207.
Wolfe, C. (2003). Animal rites: American culture, the discourse of species, and posthumanist theory. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Further Readings
Boddice, R. (Ed.). (2012). Anthropocentrism. Leiden: Brill.
Pojman, P., & Pojman, L. (Eds.). (2011). Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (6th ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning Publisher.
Steiner, G. (2010). Anthropocentrism and its discontents: the moral status of animals in the history of western philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Rae, G. (2014). Anthropocentrism. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_24-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_24-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities