Anthropocentrism is a sin in most environmental literature. A simplistic interpretation of anthropocentrism means prioritizing humans and neglecting the interests of other species and ecosystems. To be virtuous is thus to be biocentric or ecocentric. But is this a false dichotomy? Becoming aware of anthropocentrism can mean marinating ourselves in guilt for what our species’ collective behavior over many centuries has wrought. However, it might be more productive to understand that facing reality is more about “What are our options?” I argue for an “enlightened anthropocentrism” as opposed to what I will call the “narcissistic anthropocentrism” of the progress/capitalism/carbon consumption narratives that rest on a separation between humans and other species. We could do no better than to revisit philosopher Hans Jonas’ (1903 – 1993) The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age.
Jonas resisted neo-Darwinian, reductive explanations of humans as well as the Cartesian/Baconian conception of nature as a dead mechanism–the metaphysics that accelerated the intensity of ecological mess we are in. Jonas was one of the first to argue for responsibility to future generations. He was also an anthropocentric thinker—but with a twist. Yes, there is an emergency: but we haven’t been updating our ethics to match our technology—our speed of change. Nor have we updated our metaphysics to match reality. When Jonas says that the appropriate ethical stance should be to foster leading a human life that is worth living, a life we can call human, he understands how the future of humanity is entwined with all that lives on this planet.
His ethics revolved around the imperative implied by biological life generally as well as the “permanence of genuine human life.” Would a “genuine” human life not mean meeting basic needs? Furthermore, he bases his ethics on the phenomenon/paradigm of parental responsibility—the unselfish obligation parents have to their children transferred to an idea of humanity. Obviously, this means protecting the conditions for life, which provides a bridge to the current discussion of the human as species in the Anthropocene literature. Are or can we be committed to supporting what it would take to preserve and continue as a species? I think this what Jonas had in mind when he claimed there was a built-in ethical imperative in the idea of “man,” i.e., that there should be “man.” Jonas used the word “man,” which we can replace with “human.” If this imperative reflects what people would think if they thought deeply, then the imperative is to protect our habitat. Without it, there will be no human species. Part of being human is being able to project a future, which must include the idea of species. There is no individual future in the absence of the species. Nor is there a human species without projecting the future of an environment made up of interdependent species and forms of life. Our survival thus depends on our contribution to the greater good of the whole.