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anthropocentrism — English
A philosophical viewpoint that human interests should be at the centre of all our actions in, and decisions about, the environment. Humans are seen as more important than nature and nature actually only exists to provide for humans. This is called utilitarianism (or sometimes utilism) and it means that the only value of nature is that it serves as a resource for humankind. Nature has no intrinsic value, and all environmental conservation, protection and management is ultimately aimed at sustaining and improving human existence. Most of the mainstream environmental sustainability views and theories are based in the notion that the environment has to be managed in order to ensure a good life for the future generations. Humans are seen as having the responsibility to protect the environment for the wellbeing of the generations to come. Humans are therefore accountable to the future generations for the condition of the environment they will inherit. An anthropocentric viewpoint is in direct opposition to an envirocentric one (see “ecocentrism”), where the environment is regarded as having intrinsic value, that is, value for its own sake, not for the sake of humans. The environmental management that you will study in this Geography or Environmental Management courses is underpinned by an anthropocentric philosophy. Envirocentric strategies have never found enough traction to become mainstream ethical viewpoints on which theory and practice could be based; they remain the ethics and ways of thinking and doing of the radical fringe (that is, the fringe paradigms). (See “accountability” and “genetically manipulated organism”.)
