Sebastian Estrada
PHIL 3360: Environmental Ethics
Dr. Vicki Toscano
Issues paper#1
Anthropocentrism vs. Biocentrism
1/26/2012

The Historical Roots of our ecologic crisis is an article written by Lynn T. White, Jr. published in the journal Science in 1966. White was a medieval scholar and in this article he blames technology, Christianity, and anthropocentrism as the “Roots” of our ecologic crisis.
He states, “All forms of life modify their contexts,” but believes that this modification should be for the good of the earth like the coral polyp. He states Man must coexist with nature. Man had always been a dynamic element in harmony with the earth. This all changed sometime around the 1850 when the “Baconian Creed” of scientific knowledge started influencing the people. As a result man began to exploit the earth through new advents in technology. White cites the invention of the eight-oxen plow as the beginning of man’s “ruthlessness” towards nature. White continues to argue that Christian Axioms fueled this newfound exploitive attitude towards earth. To White, Christianity’s story of creation and notion that “no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purpose (White).” only served to justify these actions and put Christianity as “the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen.”
White continues to argue that simply applying more science and more technology to our ecologic crisis is not going to solve the problem. To him the issue is essentially religious. White suggests a Franciscan model towards earth and all of it inhabitants and ends by proposing Saint Francis of Assisi as a patron saint for ecologist.
White proposes an interesting argument; I agree that the Bible promotes anthropocentric thought. What I don’t agree with is to the extent it influenced the ecologic crisis. It was more a matter of productivity and financial gains that promoted the exploitation of the land. Christianity does not preach to destroy and take advantage of the land, or at least I have never heard any teachings of the sort. White states, “It is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.” This is an overstatement. It is not God’s will for man to exploit anything. White’s word choice here adds strength to his argument.
Humans have the ability to reason unlike any other living creature on earth; therefore we must assume the responsibility that comes with this greater cognitive power. But the collected corrupted ambitions of few have affected the whole. We must always make sure to do only what is best for the earth regardless of whether one believes in God or not. Humanity must act as protectors/guardians of earth not as individuals exerting dominion over the land.
Created in the Image of God: Humanity and Divinity in an Age of Environmentalism is an article written by Lawrence Troster and originally published in Conservative Judaism. This articles’ main idea was an attempt to find common ground between contemporary Judaism and the more novel Gaia movement.
Troster argues that according to Genesis 1:26-27 humanity was created in the “image of God” and “shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” Troster believes the numerous biblical references to man being created in the image of God (betzelem Elohim) are among the most influential verses of the Jewish and Christian traditions. They “express the enormous value of human life (Troster).”. This belief gives us extraordinary opportunity to be “godlike but not God (Toster).”
Troster then goes on to argue that since the sixteen century there have been developments in the modern secular culture, which have challenged Judaism. These new advancements in knowledge by Copernicus, by Darwin, and more recently Biocentrism, have come to attack the very fundamental beliefs of Judaism and Christianity.
Biocentrism emphasizes that the needs and interests of humans are not privileged, we should not change the ecology of the earth: it is too complex and therefore we must always strive to understand it. And nature is a holistic system in which humans are merely a part of. Troster argues that it is this biocentric perspective which gives rise to Judaism and Christianity as sources of Anthropocentrism. He argues that, contrary to recent bicentric thought, a return to a pantheistic concept of the earth and humanity is only rooted in more anthropocentrism by “postulating a human moral stance towards nature instead of an unrestrained competition with other species. (Troster)”
Troster asserts that there is nothing wrong with religious anthropocentric thought. I agree. He believes that Judaism has always “valued the prohibition of the wanton destruction of nature… Human beings have a unique and dominant role in the world... as stewards and protectors of earth. (Troster)”
Lawrence Troster then goes on to elaborate on the concept of Gaia and attempts to fit it into his Judeo-Christian worldview. Stating that according to James Lovelock, a British chemist, “earth is one living self-sustaining and self regulating organism which he calls Gaia, after the Greek goddess of the earth… The Gaia hypothesis implies that the stable state of our planet includes man as part of, or partner in, a very democratic entity (Troster).” Lovelock argues that if humanity does not change its ways it could go extinct from the environmental change and this would only be “a temporary bump in the long road of life for Gaia (Troster),” We are expendable, life will go on.
Upon completion of these readings, one important question stood in my mind: can anthropocentrism and biocentrism really coexist? According to this, Troster thought so, although he seems a bit biased towards the Judaic school of thought (and to be fair he should as he is a rabbi). I believe they can coexist as well. I think humans do have the anthropocentric right to take care of the environment but in no way are humans above the environment. Just like humans were created in Gods image, so was the earth and the rest of the universe. This is a theoretical image, one that only God knows and one that only has the blueprint for; one that can never be understood by humanity with all of its physical limitations. In the words of Troster, “God is all reality but not all reality is God… Gaia is part of God, but not all of God. Gaia is an entity, and we are just parts of the whole. Humanity should see the world through a panentheistic view; One which assumes God as a transcendent being, God as part of the creation but also above it. Well at least, assuming there is a God.

Citations

Troster, L. Created in the Image of God: Humanity and Divinity in an Age of Environmentalism. Conservative Judaism, Fall 1991, 14–24.

White, Lynn, Jr., The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. Science 155 (10 March 1967): 1203-07.