Paul Taylor (1923 to 2015) was an American philosopher whose book Respect for Nature (1986) argued that every living thing, every animal, plant and micro-organism, has a good of its own and so has inherent worth, and that humans are not inherently superior to other living things. From this he built a set of moral rules for how humans should treat the living world. Therapeutic Shamanism meets him in rejecting human superiority, and goes further, holding that not only living things but rivers, rocks and mountains are conscious beings deserving equal respect.
Who was Paul Taylor? #
An American philosopher who taught for four decades at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, at a time when environmental ethics was still a young field. He first set out his view in an essay, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature” (1981), and then in full in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, published by Princeton University Press in 1986 and reissued for its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2011.1 The book was groundbreaking in an ethics that does not put humans at the centre, and has been widely anthologised and taught in courses on ethics and environmental philosophy around the world.2
What is the biocentric outlook? #
The way of seeing the world on which his ethics rests. Taylor named four beliefs that make it up: that humans are members of the Earth’s community of life on the same terms as other living things; that every species, ours included, is part of a web of interdependence, so that how any living thing fares depends on its relations with other living things; that every organism is a “teleological center of life”, a unique individual pursuing its own good in its own way; and that humans are not inherently superior to other living things.3
The third and fourth beliefs carry the weight. Every living thing, whether an animal, a plant or a micro-organism, has a good of its own that it is pursuing in its own way, and so has inherent worth and deserves respect. For Taylor moral worth rests on that, and not on being able to feel pain. This sets him apart from ethics built on sentience, such as Peter Singer’s, which count only beings that can suffer. It also sets him apart from deep ecology and other holistic views, because for Taylor the bearer of worth is the individual living thing, and not a species, an ecosystem or a river.3 See What did Arne Næss teach about deep ecology?
Why did he deny that humans are superior? #
Because he could find no argument for it that held up. We have abilities other species lack, but other species have abilities we lack: the speed of the cheetah, the spider’s web, the power of plants to live on sunlight. Why count ours as proof of superiority and not theirs? Arguing that intelligence makes humans superior to eagles is, for Taylor, no better than arguing that sight and flight make eagles superior to humans. To call humans morally superior to animals and plants is not false but “simply confused”, since only moral agents can be morally better or worse. He went through the classic arguments for human superiority, from Greek thought, from the medieval Great Chain of Being and from Descartes, and found none of them sound.4
If no being is inherently superior, all living things have the same inherent worth, and may not be used merely as means to human ends.4
What does respect for nature ask of us? #
Taylor set out four rules of duty: do no harm to living things; do not interfere with them and their ecosystems; do not deceive wild animals; and make amends where harm has been done. Together they forbid harming any living thing in nature without good reason. For the times when human and non-human interests clash, there are five priority principles: self-defence against organisms that threaten us; proportionality, so that the basic interests of any being outweigh the non-basic interests of another, whatever the species; minimum wrong, so that where humans pursue their own non-basic ends they must cause the least harm possible; and principles of fair sharing and of restitution.5
What are the criticisms of his view? #
Several, from different sides. Some find the equality of worth too extreme, since it implies that a pine tree has the same inherent worth as a human being. The philosopher Kristin Shrader-Frechette found the rules “complex, cumbersome and unworkable”, saying that each of us would have hundreds of conflicting duties of compensation alone. Others point out that a living thing having a good of its own describes it, but does not by itself tell us we ought to care: a virus has a good of its own too. The philosopher Louis Lombardi pointed to an odd feature of the view on rights, since Taylor, having denied human superiority, still restricted moral rights to humans. And Taylor himself admitted that the biocentric outlook cannot be proven, arguing only that a rational, clear-sighted person would find it acceptable, which his reviewer Edward Abplanalp calls the weak link in the argument.6
The priority principles are the book’s own answer to such clashes between human and non-human interests, allowing self-defence and giving basic interests more weight than non-basic ones, whilst asking that harm be kept to the least. To Lombardi, who argued that a wider range of abilities gives humans greater worth, he answered that beings with a narrower range of abilities still realise their own good, and that what matters is not how many abilities a being has but how they are organised and work together.6
How does his work connect with Therapeutic Shamanism? #
Most strongly in the denial of human superiority. One of the central stories of Taker culture is the myth of human supremacy, the idea that humans are the ‘highest’ form of life and so have the right to use the earth and all other life for their own ends. It lies at the heart of our separation from nature, and freeing ourselves from it is part of thinking like an animist again.7 Shamanism is an entirely non-hierarchical way of looking at the world: humans are not superior to animals, animals are not superior to plants and stones, and “everything is equal and deserving of equal respect”, in day-to-day life as well as in journeys.8 Taylor’s careful dismantling of the arguments for superiority is a philosopher’s road to the same place. See What is the myth of human supremacy? and How does animism understand power and hierarchy?
Equality of status does not rule out hunting or eating. The historian Yuval Noah Harari, in Sapiens, points out that for hunter-gatherers humans hunting sheep did not make sheep inferior to humans, any more than tigers hunting humans made humans inferior to tigers, and that all beings were part of one interactive community. In Therapeutic Shamanism that is the very essence of animism as a way of being.9 Taylor’s priority principles wrestle with the same question in the language of rules.
Where does Therapeutic Shamanism see further, or differently? #
In how far the circle reaches. Taylor’s worth belongs to individual living organisms only, so a river, a mountain or a species has no standing of its own in his scheme. In shamanism everything is made of energy that is alive and conscious, and so the circle of equals takes in the land as well: the rivers and rocks, mountains and lakes, seas and clouds. Finding Your Deep Soul has a thought experiment that invites the reader to feel what it would be like to see all of these as equal in status to humans.10 The other Peoples have a different kind of consciousness, not a lesser one, and the Plant People in particular are far more collectively aware than we are; all the grass on the planet is part of one consciousness.11 See Who are the Animal, Plant and Stone People?
And in how the view is reached. Taylor conceded that his outlook cannot be proven, and held only that it is reasonable. Animism is not a belief so much as an experience, found through direct contact with the other Peoples, in journeys and in daily life.12 Where Taylor asks us to accept respect for nature on rational grounds, Therapeutic Shamanism invites people to go and meet the other beings, and to see what respect grows from that.
