Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that although African environmental ethics has been considered in some quarter as decisively anthropocentric in orientation, I differ slightly with this common conception and argue that it might be viable to consider it as moderately anthropocentric. I will then proceed to give reasons why I think so. At the same time, I do not intend to portray African environmental ethics as decidedly non-anthropocentric, that is, as moving towards considering non-human animals as morally equal to human beings. This is precisely out of the realisation that such an ideal relation seems not to be the objective of establishing harmonious co-existence between human beings and non-human animals. In defending the moderate anthropocentric view as the character of African environmental thinking, I am trying to suggest how it could be understood differently from its common conception as either decidedly anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric. For reasons of closer familiarity, I will use some examples from Zimbabwean environmental ethical perspective as I seek to defend the position that the moderate anthropocentric view seems to be a viable representation of the relations between human beings and nonhuman animals in African environmental ethics.
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Notes
- 1.
I find it necessary, from the onset, to justify why I think that it is human beings who actually extend some moral value to non-human animals. Even though it might be acceptable that they indeed have inherent value independent of what human beings consider them to be, I still think that it is human beings who speak about such values based on their thoughts about non-human animals and their moral status. Because human beings are the ones who pronounce certain segments of or the environment as a whole as having moral value, I maintain that it is proper to speak of human beings extending moral status to them. The thinking that non-human animals have moral status independent of what human beings consider them to be, and that perhaps that they consider themselves as having inherent value might be subject to debate especially if one considers that it is not non-human animals’ perspective that is at play here but that of human beings.
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Masaka, D. (2019). Moral Status of Non-human Animals from an African Perspective: In Defense of Moderate Anthropocentric Thinking. In: Chemhuru, M. (eds) African Environmental Ethics. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18807-8_15
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