Challenges to Biocentrism

Chapter 2 takes up two distinct sets of challenges to biocentrism. The first concerns the relationship between moral status and normative theory. The challenge is that there is no defending the claim that nonsentient organisms have moral status without defending a particular normative theory. This chapter defends the view that questions about the bearers of moral status can be settled independently of issues of normative theory. The second challenge, the subjectivist challenge, rests on the claim that there is no satisfactory account of welfare that does not depend in some way on the bearer of welfare having cognitive capacities, that attributions of welfare to nonsentient things are illusory, derivative, etc. Here the chapter makes space for the welfare of nonsentient organisms by defending an objective-list view of welfare and using the subjectivist challenge to set conditions of adequacy for a theory of welfare for nonsentient organisms.

Conclusion

The primary aim of this work has been to show that biocentrism is false by developing the strongest, most plausible version of the view and then exposing it to new criticisms, criticisms that are not susceptible to the standard biocentrist responses. The conclusion takes up the broader implications of the death of the ethic of life in four domains: environmental ethics and environmental practice, medicine and medical ethics, emerging technologies, and within philosophy more broadly. Given the webs of interdependence in nature, it argues that not much hangs, in terms of policy, on the fact that biocentrism or teleocentrism is false, but there are edge cases: cases where, for example, we might be thought to have an obligation to restore specific species or make reparations for past environmental wrongdoing, where the answer to questions about moral considerability matters.

The Moral Irrelevance of Biological Welfare

Chapter 6 considers what options are left for the biocentrist. It argues that if one is committed to biocentrism, one ought really be committed to what may be called teleocentrism, the view that all things that are teleologically organized have a welfare. The chapter explains why this view is false and so biocentrism is also false. It first argues that there are no grounds for accepting that the welfare of nonsentient organisms is morally significant while denying the significance of the same kind of welfare in nonorganisms, such as artifacts and biological collectives. In other words, if biocentrists wishes to maintain that nonsentient organisms are morally considerable, they must give up biocentrism in favor of teleocentrism. The chapter then argues that teleocentrism is to be rejected and that, on balance, the most justified position is one on which we simply accept that not all welfare matters.

The Strategy of Exclusion and the Problem of Collectives

Chapter 4 begins to develop the case against biocentrism. Biocentrism faces a problem of exclusion; it is not possible to adopt the account of welfare defended in chapter 3 in a way that grounds the welfare of nonsentient organisms while excluding biological collectives or artifacts. Chapter 4 develops this problem of exclusion with respect to biological collectives. This requires consideration of an issue within the philosophy of biology: the problem of the levels or units of selection. The chapter argues that the biocentrist is committed to a view about the levels of selection that grounds the view that only individual organisms are teleologically organized. But among the views available concerning which things are ultimately subject to natural selection, none of them will serve as a foundation for biocentrism. The chapter argues that the correct view about the units of selection is one on which biological collectives are sometimes teleologically organized.

The Etiological Account of Teleological Welfare

Chapter 3 develops an etiological account of teleological welfare, an account that satisfies the conditions of adequacy set forth in the previous chapter and so answers the subjectivist challenge. It explains how if nonsentient organisms really are teleologically organized, their good can be defined in terms of their ends in a way that is nonarbitrary, nonderivative, and subject-relative. However, this depends on providing a naturalized account of teleology—one on which teleology isn’t merely illusory, arbitrary, or derivative. Borrowing insights from etiological theories of function, the chapter develops an etiological account of teleology, explaining why it is superior to a theory that defines welfare in terms of functions. It also argues that the etiological account of teleology is the only game in town as far as biocentrism is concerned; alternative accounts of naturalized teleology, such as autopoietic accounts, are ill-suited to the aims of defending biocentrism or grounding teleological welfare.

Introduction

The introduction provides a characterization of the ethic of life, an ethic on which all living organisms are deserving of some level of moral concern. There are many philosophical and religious traditions which might be viewed as endorsing such an ethic. The chapter articulates how the ethic of life has been modified, clarified, and developed in the Western academic tradition and contrasts this view with other views about moral status within this tradition: anthropocentrism, sentientism, and holism. The introduction then provides an overview of the conclusions that will be defended, including that the ethic of life is mistaken and must be rejected. A summary of each chapter of the book is provided along with the sketch of the overall argument of the book. The introduction closes with a discussion of the methodology employed throughout: the method of reflective equilibrium. The chapter defends this method by contrasting it with alternative approaches to settling ethical issues.

The Strategy of Exclusion and the Problem of Artifacts

Chapter 5 develops the problem of exclusion with respect to artifacts. It seems clear that artifacts are teleologically organized. Biocentrists must find some way to distinguish the teleological organization of artifacts from that of organisms. The chapter argues that none of the attempts to distinguish artifacts from organisms succeed; they either fail to draw the relevant line between even simple artifacts and nonsentient organisms, or they are arbitrary, ad hoc, or question-begging. Many have seen such an implication as a reductio of biocentrism, but this is a mistake. The chapter explains why, even though biocentrism is false, it shouldn’t be dismissed simply because we must countenance artifact welfare.

Biocentrism

Chapter 1 articulates the commitments of biocentrism vis-à-vis explaining the form of moral status that advocates of the view take living things to have, moral considerability, as well as the strategies these advocates employ both for arguing that all living things are morally considerable, and for excluding certain things, such as artifacts and ecosystems, from being morally considerable. The foundation of biocentrism is a commitment to the importance of welfare in grounding moral status and delineating the boundaries of moral status. For the biocentrist, welfare or well-being is necessary for having moral status; anything that lacks a welfare or that can’t be benefitted or harmed, can only matter from the moral point of view in some indirect or derivative way. And, biocentrists argue, it is because nonsentient organisms have a welfare and because artifacts and ecosystems do not that the boundaries of moral status can be neatly drawn.