“A biocentric stance is a life-centered one. It rejects the view that humanity alone matters in ethics, and accepts the moral standing of (at least) all living creatures” (Attfield 1). Man has always considered himself superior to all other creatures. But, after all, man is only one of many animals. Even if human beings wear clothes and live in houses, they are still equal to other creatures.
In the real sense, people came to the earth only a few tens of thousands of years, and modern people only a few hundred years. But humanity has gradually opened up a new world through labor, technological manufacturing, and cultural innovation. In this world, human beings are, in a sense, above everything else. The interests of other creatures are sacrificed for the interests of humanity. For example, to build houses, people will cut down a lot of trees. To open up farmland, man has driven a large number of animals out of the forest. Some of the actions of human beings are trampling on other creatures. But there is one thing that all human beings should understand: all things are equal.
Before the birth of man, there were a large number of animals and plants on the earth. If we had to say who is the master of the planet, it would be the oldest living plant. But nowadays, people do not respect plants very much. If humans still feel guilty about eating animals, they rarely feel guilty about eating plants. The existence of vegetarians, to some extent, represents the human contempt for plant life. When talking about life, people will mention their good friends, relatives and even their dog, but no one will mention the grass.
But, paradoxically, as radical egalitarians do, if humans do not eat plants to respect them and uphold the belief that they are equal to them, humans are likely to starve to death. Therefore, in my opinion, the concept of life center means that human beings should respect and protect the rights and interests of plants based on the minimum protection of their own needs. For example, to grow food, people will destroy a lot of forests. Suppose everyone can save food and reduce unnecessary waste. In that case, people worldwide will save a considerable amount of food every year, and eventually, a large number of forests will be protected from being cut down.
All things are created equal. Many people often say that only human beings can speak the language and have a culture. But who has proved that there is no verbal communication between animals and plants? Just because humans do not understand animals and plants’ language does not mean they do not have language. I once heard a Wolf howl one night in rural China, and soon another crowd of wolves came to the place. If there is no verbal communication between wolves, they will never come together.
In a word, do not solidify everything with human thinking. Everything in the world may not be fair, but every human should defend relative fairness.
Kaize
Work Cited:
Robin Attfield. “Biocentrism Talk.” 1.
I wondered about the issue of becoming vegetarian in this article too. Upon further reflection, I agree there would definitely be abuses if we were all to subsist on plant life. I wondered how much land we would have to convert to serve the agrarian interests of sustaining human life. I don’t want to imagine this concept because we would be taking land from other species and depriving them of habitat and sustenance. Another thought I had was what would we do with ranchland animals? By this I mean sheep and cattle have been domesticated to the point where they could not survive without us. In fact, most horses could not either. Do we then just become vegetarian and euthanize these animals vis a vis sterilizing them so they can’t repopulate? I mean Attfield is provocative with his stance to be vegan but I fail to see how in the end this is really utilitarian, especially when the issue of equal rights cannot be adequately defined or approached from the point of view of utility. Thanks for your blog. I found it quite useful. Juniper 8.
Hi, Kaize, I quite agree with your idea in this article. All living things are equal, and people cannot destroy nature at will. But here is a question like you said, “paradoxically, as radical egalitarians do.” When the development of science and technology requires the inevitable sacrifice of some animals or plants, what should we do? Although sometimes we don’t kill them directly, indirect killing is unavoidable. There are many examples; for instance, during the industrial revolution and the green revolution, people occupied a lot of lands; the ecosystem on this land has been destroyed, so most animals have to move away, and the rest are dead. Besides, As early as the 17th century, some people began to experiment with mice, and now it is the most widely used and the most detailed mammalian experimental animal. Every link of the modern medical experiment is inseparable from various types of mice. The increasing number of gene editing mice and disease model mice has made these mice more miserable. Therefore, I entirely agree with you that “everything in the world may not be fair, but every human should defer relative fairness.” In all, if we want to popularize the Biocentrism, what scale should we hold? And how can we improve the Biocentrism to make it universally acceptable? By Yunxiang
Kaize, this was a delightful read! Your point of view was very enlightening.
Thank you for mentioning the fact that although Biocentrism offers a radical egalitarian perspective, there is often a bit of discrepancy between the fundamental principles underlying the theory and their practices. For example, you mentioned that Biocentrists advocate this idea that all things are created equal. At the same time, Biocentrists such as Andrew Goodpaster argue that beings with more morally considerable kinds of interests and abilities (i.e. rational autonomy and sentience) merit a higher degree of moral considerability.
This in-and-out of itself is elitist because we, as human beings, are placing our own degree of importance on interests that we deem to be ‘morally considerable’. We base the significance of these interests around what we may have interpreted from our own culture, which is something that we discredit plants and animals of having. Perhaps there are common interests shared among both plant and animal culture that are highly valuable yet unrecognizable to humans. Should our failure to understand these interests undermine them? Surely not.
As you had mentioned, we should not solidify everything with human thinking. Although Goodpaster acknowledges that we can identify certain interests of plants (e.g. through balding, yellowing, etc.), the interests of an autonomous and sentient being would theoretically take precedence over those of plants because we disregard the potential for a culture that we cannot comprehend.
Deanne