Biocentrism is an ethical perspective holding that all life deserves equal moral consideration or has equal moral standing. Elements of biocentrism can be traced back to various religious and philosophical traditions: The systematic exploration of biocentrism and Environmental Ethics within Western philosophical ethics began in the late 20th century, influenced by the environmental movement and growing awareness of ecological crises. In the…
The link between human beings and nature has been weakening since the modern era: the Earth is no longer understood as an integrated and living being, but as an inert and material entity to be exploited. Philosophers such as Raimond Panikkar propose (re)initiating a new relationship with nature from a philosophy that accepts the human…
When Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in September 1962, she was already a celebrated American biologist and author best known for her trilogy of lyrical books on the ocean. But rather than introducing readers to more of the natural world, the mild-mannered 55-year-old’s latest book warned they could be destroying it. In what she referred to…
In 2010, Bolivia hosted the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. A key outcome of the conference was the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted in drafting. CELDF mission is to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert…
As highlighted in a Mongabay Series: Indigenous Peoples and Conservation, Indigenous-led conservation A newly published guidebook is the latest contribution to this effort. Published by the Native-led Bioneers Indigeneity Program, the Guide to Rights of Nature in Indian Country provides strategies and resources for Indigenous communities interested in enacting laws granting ecosystems, landscapes and species legal rights and personhood. Bioneers…
In the early 1970s, after three decades teaching philosophy at the University of Oslo, Mr. Naess (pronounced Ness), an enthusiastic mountain climber and an admirer of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” threw himself into environmental work and developed a theory that he called deep ecology. Naess suggested that the environmentalist movement needed to do much more…
“Legal Animism” actually appeared for the first time in the writings of French legal researcher Marie-Angèle Hermitte. In Ecuador and in Bolivia, we can find a common undercurrent of influences or frictions that pervades these two colliding worldviews. All at once, influences from North American environmental lawyers meld with the use of the divine Earth Mother…
Christopher Stone proposed that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called “natural objects” in the environment-indeed, to the natural environment as a whole. Stone argued that “to say that the natural environment should have rights is not to say anything as silly as that no one should be allowed to cut down a tree.”
The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former is exemplified by Peter Singer, and the latter by Tom Regan and Gary Francione. Philosophers draw distinctions between the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and focus on the principle behind the act. Deontologists argue that there are acts we…
Hindu and Buddhist societies abandoned animal sacrifice and embraced vegetarianism from the 3rd century BCE. One of the most important sanctions of the Jain, Hindu and Buddhist faiths is the concept of ahimsa, or refraining from the destruction of life. According to Buddhist belief, humans do not deserve preferential treatment over other living beings. The Dharmic interpretation of this doctrine prohibits the killing of any living being. Ancient Tamil works such as the Tolkāppiyam and Tirukkural contain…
