anthropocentrism
Sign in to saveAnthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From an anthropocentric perspective, humankind is seen as separate from nature and superior to it, and other entities (animals, plants, minerals, etc.) are viewed as resources for humans to use.
Anthropocentrism is the belief that humans are the most important beings on Earth and are fundamentally separate from and superior to nature. This worldview treats other living things and natural resources primarily as tools for human use rather than as entities with their own value or importance.
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Encyclopedic overview
15 sectionsContents
- Environmental philosophy
- Cognitive psychology
- Abrahamic traditions
- Jewish opposition to anthropocentrism
- Catholicism
- Human rights
- Moral status of animals
- Early critiques
- Challenging human exceptionalism
- Animal welfare perspectives
- Animal rights perspectives
- In popular culture
- See also
- References
- Further reading
Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From an anthropocentric perspective, humankind is seen as separate from nature and superior to it, and other entities (animals, plants, minerals, etc.) are viewed as resources for humans to use.
It is possible to distinguish between at least three types of anthropocentrism: perceptual anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms informed by sense-data from human sensory organs"); descriptive anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms that begin from, center upon, or are ordered around Homo sapiens / 'the human'"); and normative anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms that make assumptions or assertions about the superiority of Homo sapiens, its capacities, the primacy of its values, [or] its position in the universe").
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “anthropocentrism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.