Anthropocentrism: Humanity as the Only Purposeful Creation at the Center of the Universe

More than two thousand years ago, Protagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher, famously proclaimed, “Man is the measure of all things.” This seems to be a sentiment that, though literally ancient, remains widespread today. Ideas of human exceptionalism, or human supremacy, humanism, speciesism, carnism — call it what you will — remain prevalent in today’s society and speak to how human beings regard animal beings on a fundamental level.

In philosophy, there’s a word for this kind of ideological commitment to conceptualizing humans as the center of meaning, value, knowledge, and action — basically, the center of the universe. Anthropocentrism is the “philosophical viewpoint arguing that human beings are the central or most significant entities in the world” (Britannica). This viewpoint positions humans as separate from nature, which is to say, superior to nature.

Anthropocentrist ideology maintains that human life has intrinsic, naturally occurring value while other entities (including animals, plants, minerals, and so on) are resources to be exploited for the benefit of humankind.

What does this kind of ideology ultimately point to? It reflects assumptions about who this world is meant for, who is to govern the world, and why they are to do so. Human or nature - which is ultimately in charge? People have traditionally believed, very narrowly, that humanity is the one and only purposeful creation at the center of the universe with the exceptional capacity for consciousness. Historically, this has largely been believed among Western cultures and remains a popular thought today even despite scientific research proving the sentience of non-human animals. Human beings tend to de-value (or remain entirely ignorant about) the capacities of other animals possibly because learning about animal intelligence would disrupt inherited concepts of human superiority and the idea that everything on this planet exists not WITH us but FOR us.

Adam Weitzenfeld and Melanie Joy, authors of “An Overview of Anthropocentrism, Humanism, and Speciesism in Critical Animal Theory,” explain, “Anthropocentrism, as an ideology, functions to maintain the centrality and priority of human existence through marginalizing and subordinating nonhuman perspectives, interests, and beings. Anthropocentrism requires that a society have a concept of humanity, assign privilege to it, and measure all other beings by this standard (4).”

In regards to the origin of anthropocentrism, Weitzenfeld and Joy add, “Although the cultural hegemony of anthropocentric ideologies and institutions has been present for at least five thousand years — such as in creation stories and sacrificial rites whereby humans are ordained to have dominion over other creatures in the service of the divine — these stories and rites were grounded and centered in something beyond humans (i.e., deities)…Not until modernity would deities be widely regarded as antiquated justifications for humanity’s rule, and humans could rule the world with no external constraints set by a nonhuman actor.”

“Anthropocentrism is not the effect of inescapable, ahistorical constraints of human sensibilities, but rather it is a historic development born from specific institutional and philosophical traditions.”

If the way humanity views itself as the source of knowledge and value comes from institutional and philosophical traditions and not from inescapable sensibilities, why haven’t the ways in which we regard animals evolved along with the rest of our values, practices, beliefs, and traditions?

Even while emerging research shows time and time again that animals are astounding beings with intelligence, emotions, complex communication skills, and myriad abilities, there still seems to be a significant disconnect between what we know about the capacities of non-human animals and how we continue to treat them.

Why does our society perpetuate the anthropocentrist ideology that humans are the one and only creation with the exceptional capacity of free will? Do people not believe, despite scientific evidence, that animals are conscious? Is it that we don’t believe animals are intelligent even when it’s been proven that they are? Or is that we don’t believe animals are as intelligent as we are? Why are we interested in intelligence anyway? Does intelligence equate to the right to life? Is it about business, even though the meat and dairy industry would argue they’re just supplying basic demand? Or is it more about our own comfort and our inherited habits, the habits we as a society are unwilling to change?

Undoubtably, our society is need of a paradigm shift in how we regard animals. To begin to value all life would mean to collectively recognize this basic concept:

The world is all of ours, not some of ours.

Still, I’m interested in why an evolution in our behaviors towards animals hasn’t yet taken place even with the exceptional amounts of emerging research about animal sentience. This very much seems to be about intelligence — consciousness, free will, meaning, value, knowledge - and most importantly, why humans think they are more entitled to life than is any other animal.

More on this topic in my next blog post.