Reasons to Respect Nature

For this paper, I will choose Paul Taylor as the first author. Taylors’s reasoning and beliefs will also be compared with Karen Warren’s way of thinking about ecofeminism and nature in relation to subordination of women by men. Both authors have their stances on how nature is perceived and how we should look at the differentiation of humans and nature. With Warren, her stance on women being compared with nature and both being subordinate to man will be a main point to discuss when it comes to the concept of domination.

My argument on Taylor’s view of respecting nature in the same way as humans is that while I agree with him saying that both humans and plants should be treated with respect, there should also be lines of superiority to take into account in order to distinguish the two from each other properly.

Paul Taylor’s view on the concept of biocentric egalitarianism is supportive to his beliefs of humans, animals and plants having inherent worth.

In other words, he is supportive of biocentric egalitarianism and thinks that each individual organism that holds good qualities should be considered as things having inherent worth. Taylor claims that there are standards and capacities for living things that humans need not pay attention to, for doing so and basing beliefs on human standards can lead us to think we are superior to plants and animals. “To use only standards based on human values is already to commit oneself to holding that humans are superior to nonhumans, which is the point in question” (Taylor, 157).

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Human standards normally convince people that humans are morally superior due to us actually having rational thinking and free will. This way of thinking is what Taylor sees as how humans view themselves as having more importance or inherent worth than nonhumans. But Taylor believes that species impartiality is what is important to understand if you want to accept and respect all living things, canceling out our feelings of superiority over another living thing and viewing it as having equal worth. “One who accepts that doctrine regards all living things as possessing inherent worth – the same inherent worth, since no one species has been shown to be either “higher” or “lower” than any other.” (Taylor, 160).

The second author to compare Taylor’s views with is Karen Warren, who believes that the relations between the domination of women along with nature that are based on a logic of domination is inadequate at least. Her views are similar to Taylor’s in the sense that they believe that superiority over one another and conceptual frameworks that show how people view themselves as being better are not right, depending on what the arguments of oppression or superiority are based on. Both of these authors believe that a sense of equality should be upheld in order to curtail the belief of domination. Warren argues against structured beliefs, such as oppressive conceptual frameworks that, in ways, show why women are subordinate to men. “The problem is not simply that value-hierarchical thinking and value dualisms are used, but the way in which each has been used in oppressive conceptual frameworks to establish inferiority and to justify subordination.” (Warren, 347). This is similar to what Taylor would argue about, with him saying that human standards are not necessary because they can drive humans to feel a sense of bias and superiority about themselves, while lacking regards to other nonhuman things.

If Warren were to agree with one thing about Taylor, it is considering the lack of oppression towards other humans or things that some would view as inferior. Both of them understand that there should be a sense of respect established to minimize discrimination towards each other. Both women and nature are compared to each other as being subordinate to man, but Warren gives an example about how a lack of respect towards nature can, in turn, lead to a lack of respect towards women. “In India, for example, both deforestation and reforestation through the introduction of a monoculture species tree (e.g., eucalyptus) intended for commercial production are feminist issues because the loss of indigenous forests and multiple species of trees has drastically affected rural Indian women’s ability to maintain a subsistence household.” (Warren, 347). This quote emphasizes that every living thing has good qualities of their own that contribute to us in some way. The balance of the natural world plays an important role for us giving our due respect for nature. Because just as how nature provides resources for us, mothers provide babies for the world. And this is just like Taylor thought about how each of us having inherent worth determines our moral relations with life.

However, if there is one thing that Warren would disagree with Taylor on, it is not having logic of domination to properly show how one living thing is distinguished from another. Some people might not treat other living things as equally as humans, but that does not necessarily show a lack of respect towards nonhuman things. “First, without a logic of domination, a description of similarities and differences would be just that-a description of similarities and differences.” (Warren, 348). Warren believes that there should be assumptions that one needs to base their arguments about superiority on to get to the conclusion, which is the arguments themselves.

To conclude, I agree with Taylor that humans, animals and plants should be treated with respect. However, I do not think that capacities and human standards should be ignored for the sake of equality. It is as Warren had said, there should be an understanding of differences and superiority between two things. It is similar to comparing a cow to a carrot. “I agree with Taylor that we have reason to respect nature, but if we treat a chimpanzee no better than we would treat a carrot, that is a failure of respect, not a token of it.” (Schmidtz, 174). Even if you see them as equal, it would be disrespectful to either the side of nature or the side of the animals. This way of thinking is similar to how Warren thinks about the logic of domination, which shows more than just a list of similarities and differences between two things. Just because there is reasoning behind why something is superior to another, it does not necessarily signify a lack of respect towards something.