Spring UIL Topic

RESOLVED: Anthropocentrism ought to be valued above biocentrism

Introduction and Background

This is a very interesting resolution that will bring LD debate back to a comparison of values.  The terms you will be comparing are fairly complicated.  Many of you may not have even seen these words before reading the resolution, and if you had seen then, you probably did not have an understanding of their meaning. 

Anthropocentrism is a human centered view of the world. It considers human beings to be the most important living thing on earth and argues that all decisions should be made to benefit human beings. Even if the environment is valued, it is valued only to serve humans (i.e. keep the air clean so it does not make us ill).  Anthropocentrism is strong in many religious cultures such as Protestantism. 

Biocentrism challenges this traditional view by questioning the assumed moral superiority of human beings to other species. Biocentrism argues that all living things have intrinsic moral value, rather than instrumental value.  Intrinsic moral value means that all life forms, including humans, plants and animals, are ends in themselves regardless of whether or not they are useful as means to other ends.  All life forms have rights and values that should be protected.

As we mentioned earlier, this is a comparative resolution, which means that you are comparing anthropocentrism to biocentrism to assess which one is better. Comparative resolutions often become difficult for the affirmative, because many negative debaters like to argue that they do not have to support the alternative (which in this case would be biocentrism), they just have to prove that the affirmative (anthropocentrism) is bad or that neither should be valued above the other. If this happens, the affirmative can argue that negatives must uphold the alternative as the better option. If they do not, the affirmative can argue that the round is unfair and the resolution isn't actually being debated. 

All comparative resolutions present a large temptation for both the affirmative and the negative: arguing in a circle. Arguing in a circle is the logical fallacy of "begging the question." This means that your conclusion is the same as your premise. For instance- "Biocentrism is good because it values all things." Well, that's the definition of biocentrism, but you still haven't answered why it's good.  Make sure you explicitly state why valuing all life is better than valuing human life.  The affirmative and the negative must ensure that they have substantial reasons for upholding one over the other. 

The resolution specifies how you should figure out which one is better through the word "ought." "Ought" implies a moral obligation. Basically the resolution is asking you to figure out which of two alternatives is more moral.

One last note before we get into the arguments: be especially careful to be gender neutral.  It will be very easy for debaters to slip into gendered language saying "man" should be valued highest.  Make sure you say "humans," "people," or "individuals."  Using gendered language alienates some judges and may be used as an argument against you.  Reading quotes from authors who use gendered language is often unavoidable, especially considering the date when many of the philosophers used in LD debate wrote, but you should try to avoid using it yourself.

A Discussion of the Value

We talked a little bit about the temptation to "beg the question" of the resolution with the logic of your case.  It is very easy to slip into this problem with the selection of your value.

For instance, if the affirmative chooses the value of "human life" then they have chosen a value that can only be achieved through anthropocentrism. However, the value needs to be something that is achievable through both the affirmative and negative.  The same would occur if the affirmative chose values such as justice, happiness, or anything to do with government as these would also probably do the same amount of damage unless the affirmative provided a clear reason as to why it was not a completely anthropocentric value.

Conversely, if the negative were to choose a value that only considered the environment, they would have the same problem. On the other hand, negatives should be careful not to choose a value that assumes anthropocentrism. A default value for many debaters is "justice" or "happiness" or any of a dozen extremely common values, however, most of these are seen through human eyes and not through the eyes of the natural environment. Because of this, a clever affirmative could easily defeat the negative value if they were to make the argument that the negative's value assumed anthropocentrism and thus anthropocentrism wins by default.

So, after reading this you are probably confused as to how you could choose a value. Well, not to fear, it can be done. Morality is the weighing mechanism of the resolution, so that particular value would work for either side. Life is also a decently easy value to argue for both sides of the resolution, since both views argue some form of life. Things like fairness could also be used, but they would have to be coupled with an explanation of how non-human living entities can be treated "fairly," or a similar explanation of how it works for both sides of the resolution.  Basically, you just need to be creative and thoughtful when picking out your value.

The Affirmative

First, the affirmative can argue that anthropocentrism is necessary for human survival. In some sense, humans have to triumph over the environment in order to sustain themselves. They must eat animals and plants for food, suck all of the nutrients out of the ground to grow more food, and decimate perfectly good plots of land to build homes and businesses. In order to function normally, humans must be considered over the environment. In Politics Aristotle argues " [W]e must believe, first that plants exist for the sake of animals, second that all other animals exist for the sake of man, tame animals for the use he can make of them as well as for the food they provide; and as for wild animals, most though not all of these can be used for food or are useful in other ways; clothing and instruments can be made out of them.  If then we are right in believing that nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man." In other words, humans are supposed to be the center of the universe because all things exist to be used by them. As humans, we are not supposed to place animals and plants at an equal playing level, because we need them to survive. Consider this a "food chain" argument.

Second, the affirmative (perhaps controversially) can argue that anthropocentrism will protect the environment. A subdivision of anthropocentrism, enlightened anthropocentrism, argues that because humans need the environment to survive, all moral duties we have towards the environment are derived from our duties to humans. It is not in our best interest to pollute the air to the point where we can no longer breathe it without growing a third leg or tear down forests that provide us with clean air, or destroy top soil to the point where we can no longer grow food. Because humans understand the link between the environment and human life, anthropocentrism already functions to protect the environment. Affirmatives can argue that the advantage of protecting the environment is not unique to the negative. Basically, anthropocentrism achieves this benefit by default.

While it is true that humans only recently started the green movement, and that before, say, 1970, we were completely content with sending toxins into the air and stripping the earth of all of its treasures so we could make things like steel and tires, now that we have become more educated on the harmful effects of our actions, we are toning it down. Most will argue, that the tone down has absolutely nothing to do with how much we love trees and bushes, but it has everything to do with the fact that we, as humans, would like to stick around for as long as possible.

Third, the affirmative can argue that biocentrism will not protect human life and should be avoided because of that. Biocentrism argues that humans are "but another member of the world biological community" instead of uniquely different from all over forms of life. Biocentrism gives no special value to any living thing, including humans. Philosopher Paul Taylor says "To accept [the biocentric outlook] and the world view in its terms is to commit oneself to the principle of species-impartiality. No bias in favor of some over others is acceptable. The impartiality applies to the human species just as it does to nonhuman species." This puts us in a bind. What happens if I have an infection and need to kill the living bacteria? What happens if a rat has decided he wants to live in my car? What happens if I need to lay some concrete to build a house where a colony of ants are living? The affirmative can make very compelling arguments that we should not allow bacteria to take over our body because we believe it has inherent value. 

Fourth, the affirmative can argue that there will always be decisions that pit humans against the environment, and that it is important that humans always be most important. The affirmative can point out many instances in which nature and humans conflict (such as the ones listed above), and humans should come out on top. For instance, building a factory that destroys a piece of a forest, but gives several hundred starving people in a third world country jobs so that they can have money to survive is a clearly moral decision. The affirmative is in a good position to prove that nature and humans will come into conflict and that humans should be given preference. If the affirmative can do this, they will win the round.

The Negative

First, the negative should establish the importance of giving non-human entities autonomy and worth. Many judges are going to wonder why you are giving shrubberies moral worth, so you are going to have to break down the ideas of biocentrism explaining how and why everything has moral worth. You will need to explain that polluting and destroying parts of the natural environment is wrong not only because a sustainable environment is essential to present and future human wellbeing but also because the natural environment has certain value in its own right that ought to be respected and protected.  For more information on this topic Google "environmental ethics" or "deep ecology" and you should find many articles to help you write your case. 

Second, the negative can argue that anthropocentrism fails to take into account how interrelated human lives are to the world around them.  Many biocentric philosophers argue that people should conceptualize themselves and the world in relational terms.  Mathew Humphry says in Preservation versus the People? Nature, Humanity and Political Philosophy,  "Existence itself is seen in relational terms, 'things' in the world do not exist as discrete entities, but as 'intrinsic relations', 'such that the relations belong to the definitions or basic constitutions of A and B so that without the relation, A and B are no longer the same things'. 30  In similar vein, Eckersley states that biocentrism is 'based on an ecologically informed philosophy of internal relations, according to which all organisms are not simply interrelated with their environment but also constituted by those very environmental interrelationships'." Humans cannot consider themselves the center of the universe because they live in relationships with everything else. Thus, anthropocentrism cannot provide the best route to morality because it fails to understand the intertwined status of humans with nature.

Third, the negative can argue that the most moral way to make a decision is to look at the whole impact on everything around us. John Stuart Mill proposed Utilitarianism as a way to measure the impact on everything, not only humans. He says in Utiliarianism (1861) that morality should secure the existence of ""to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation" (chap. 2). In relation to human environmental action, Aldo Leopold gives his "Land Ethic." Which is as follows: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Fourth, the negative can note the importance of protecting the environment and argue that anthropocentrism cannot fully do the job. Erik Katz says in "Nature as Subject: Human Obligation and Natural Community" that "The promulgation of environmentalist or preservationist policy will thus depend upon the contingent existence of relevant preservationist needs of the human community.  To use one of Martin's examples: the chincona tree will be preserved only as long as the human community needs the quinine which is produced from it. But this act of preservation is only a contingent moral obligation: if no human need is satisfied by the tree's preservation, if, for example, an artificial source of quinine is discovered, there will be no moral reason to preserve the species."

So, while it is true that humans will protect the environment because they need it to survive, they will only protect what is necessary for them to survive. A lake that is not used for a water supply can be used as a dump for toxic liquids, regardless of the fish and plants that live in it, and a non-farmable field will be built upon because we need a new shopping mall regardless of the animals that inhabit it. Negatives can argue that the only reason humans protect the environment is to protect themselves, and that is not enough.

Fifth, the negative can argue that biocentrism will allow many species to prosper, including human beings. The idea of biocentrism is not to limit what human beings can or cannot do. Biocentrism simply says humans cannot do whatever they want without regard to other living things. Katz says " Human flourishing is important because it is an essential component of the natural community." Biocentrism does not remove humans from the natural world, it simply forces them to consider the ramifications of their actions. He continues "An environmental ethic that excluded humans from the natural community, for example, would prohibit humans from filling in a small marsh area in order to expand a pre-existing housing development on its border. But an environmental ethic that considers human well- being as part of the natural community (not, of course, the supreme part), as part of the moral end of action, might permit the expansion of the housing development after a comparison of the benefits and harms to the human population and the natural environment (the marsh)."