3.4 Ecocentrism
Also known as ecosystem holism, Ecocentrism is a holistic worldview that emphasizes on safeguarding natural entities like species, landscapes or ecosystems. It also values entities, relationships, and processes which take place in the ecosystem (Kose, 2014). It is a kind of ecosystem-centered ethic which values everything in the ecosystem as well ecosystem itself. Ecocentrism sees environmental degradation comprehensively as a consequence of an unsustainable lifestyle. It expands moral consideration beyond individuals to entire collections that is species and ecosystems. The main important aspects of the position are; humans are members of the biotic community, the good of the biotic community implies adequate ethical principle,…show more content… Holistic non-anthropocentrism was introduced by Aldo Leopold, whose land ethic in A Sand County Almanac (1949) was one of the keystone of environmental philosophy (Kortetmäki, 2013).The central idea in Leopold’s ethics is that humans ought to view themselves primarily as members of the biotic community instead of as being superior. Holmes Rolston III is another example of an environmental holist: In his ethic, among many other things, Rolston believed that since organisms protect themselves from threat then they must have moral value (Rolston, 2012). Eco-centrists claim that we have direct responsibilities to environmental collections, such as animal species and rain forests, but not exactly to the individuals…show more content… Ecocentrism places the interests of the ecosystem higher than that of the individuals hence as pointed out by Regan this subordination of the right of individuals to biotic concern leads to environmental fascism. Eco-fascism is the idea that the community or species is superior to individuals. According to eco-fascistic theories, human beings are no different from other members of nature. Therefore, any kind of individual can be sacrificed for the good of the whole however this violates the right of individual for the wellbeing of the ecosystem (Kose, 2014); in a situation of making a choice between an endangered species and a human individual, ecocentrism is likely to vote for the endangered species in the name of integrity of biotic community. Ecocentrism just like eco-fascism condones sacrificing the individual for the good of the community as a whole. For this reason, ecocentrism is, therefore, implausible and impractical: The idea of extending moral concern to biotic entities seems crazy and extremely impractical for policy makers. The directive to preserve the whole over its parts would place the good of the ecosystem over the good of humans and if we take ecocentric tendencies seriously; as human beings will find ourselves doing things which are against our nature.
Fourthly, it is very hard to recognize the duties we have toward ecosystems; defining the boundaries of ecosystems is arbitrary. Ecosystems