Discuss Schmidtz Biocentric Perspective

The Portrayal of Women to Men in the Book of Genesis For the past two-thousand years, the Book of Genesis has served as work of literature to the western civilization. Whether people believed in the Bible or not, the Book of Genesis tell stories they talk about having good morals, teaching live-learned lessons and overall it gives a glimpse of how the first human being acted when the world was developing and how they handle problems and situations. However, even though the book of Genesis shows a tone of life long morals, Genesis also shows the different sides of humans. Genesis shows how human can be deceitful, evil, and disobedient to authority figures. But these traits with humans were rarely displayed by man, but mostly by woman. In

The Origins of Morality: How Nature, Nurture, and Especially Free Will Influence One’s Moral Framework

In Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor develops the following four elements of the biocentric outlook on nature: 1. Humans are members of the Earth's community of life in the same sense and on the same terms as other living things. 2. The natural world is an interdependent system. 3. Each organism is a Teleological Center

When there are many biocentric individualists appealing to extend the moral standing to the other creatures than human, they always focus their minds on the every individual in the system no matter whether this individual is either conscious or non-conscious. Like the Taylor argued, “conscious or not, all are equally teleological centers of life in the sense that each is unified system of goal0oriented activities directed toward their preservation and well-being.” (taylor, 210). Gary Varner, as one member in the group of the biocentric individualism, is also having the similar argument that every non-conscious and conscious entity should have the moral standing in the different way. In this essay, I will first dispart and reconstruct Gary Varner’s argument into four premises and then indicate how it contradicts with the Peter Singer’s argument whose view is deviate from that of Varner in terms of the required conditions with which giving one entity moral standing.

Frankenstein Human morality is a product of evolution by heritable variation and natural selection. It is fully part of the natural world but is none the worse for that – on the contrary. In the last sentence of On the Origin of Species, Darwin states that “there is grandeur in this view of life… on which endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” The beautiful and wonderful forms include true moral agents who respond to real moral facts and who form a natural moral community. Their existence contributes to the grandeur of Darwin’s evolutionary view of life.

In Stanley Benn’s “Egalitarianism and Equal Consideration of Interests”, it is explained that animals and human imbeciles are distinguished not because of fundamental inequality, but solely on the basis that the two subjects are of different species. In regard to animals’ moral rights and the infringement of those rights due to the practice of speciesism, Singer employs a utilitarian style of argument to defend animals’ moral rights; in short, the interests of each being which is involved should be taken into consideration and said interests should be given the same weight as that of another being. Speciesism is morally wrong because it attempts to assign undeserved weight to the interests of beings of separate species, solely based off the difference of species. Naturally, or rather unnaturally, human beings have always awarded themselves the utmost importance due to the idea of human dignity, as in humans occupy the central spot within any earthly ranking. Logically, Singer argues that the practice of speciesism is wrong because the conditions in which it exists are synonymous to the conditions which facilitate racism and sexism, before they had been recognized as

Persson and Savulescu argue that Sparrow’s objections only apply to a confident proposal of moral bioenhancements while they merely support a cautious proposal. A confident proposal claims that there are effective moral bioenhancements which when discovered and applied will, more or less by itself, solve many of the moral problems of our time. A cautious proposal claims that moral bioenhancements are possible and warns of the problems of misuse or lack of interest to develop that may arise if they are indeed discovered. Persson and Savulescu then go on to argue that Sparrow has made six mistaken claims in his article and has made a fetish out of current egalitarianism which, as we see, allows for great inequalities.

The question of the morality of humans’ state of nature has long been researched, however a definite answer fails to exist. The state of nature is

In nature, the biotic community do not construct paradigms; however, humankind has allowed social constructs to set standards. The standards or logical ways of thinking, and viewing the world have set boundaries between rich, poor, privileged, unprivileged, men, and women. As noted by Professor Picarelli, nature, to reiterate welcomes variations

1). In this article, Regan makes a number of excellent points. Firstly, is the concept called “subject-of-a-life.” By his definition, in order to fit the criteria of this principle, an organism must posses much more than just simply being alive; living and breathing. If that were to be the only criteria, than a grandiose amount of creatures would be able to hold the metaphorical title of being a subject-of-a-life..but they do not. Regan first subdivides what it means to be a subject-of-a-life into two general categories. First, the moral agents. These are individuals who are capable of being held morally accountable. On the other hand, are moral patients, which Regan describes as individuals who are not able to to be held morally accountable.

Evolution is the succession of inherited traits from generations that develop over time. Similarly, moral relativism is the process of expanding a person’s morals and beliefs during their lifetime. However, instead of advancing over generations based on proceeding genes, moral relativism focuses on changing because of the environment around them, or rather the surrounding culture. Therefore, understanding right and wrong is subject to a person’s individual decision dictated by personal and situational circumstances. Christians who hold a biblical worldview believe that ethics are derived from the revelations of God demonstrated in the Bible. Although, this basis comes from the character and nature of God, not necessarily what Christians should do in specific

Personally, I am sympathetic to Paul Taylor’s idea that people should respect for every living organism. From his book “Respect for Nature”, he proposes a definition of environmental ethics called Biocentric Individualism. It basically means that humans are not superior to any living organisms. Humans are a part of nature,

Morality is basically the individual’s perception of what is “good'' or “right.'' The human behaviors are determined by the environment. What so ever human is behaving is just because of its environmental factors (Rest, 1994; Godwin, 2008).Moral Imagination is the mental ability to create or use ideas, images, discern moral aspects implanted within a situation and develop a range of possible solutions of the situation from a moral point of view (Godwin, 2008; Werhane, 1998; Werhane, 2002; Heath, 2008; Mehalik and

Frans de Waal begins his argument by first stating the question as to whether or not a human’s moral actions originated from the psychological and behavioral nature of our evolutionary ancestors. He concludes this thought by saying that our moral actions do, in fact, originate from the psychological and behavioral nature of our evolutionary ancestors. De Waal further argues that the foundations of human morals are found in the primates of today. They are composed of actions and emotions whose evolutionary role assists us in our social organization and unity. In the beginning pages of his book, De Waal

Our conclusions on any occasion are direct consequences of any developed concept in our minds. We see the world as we want to see it through our personal perceptions. When we are categorizing anything as desirable or otherwise, we judge using the concepts that we hold to us. Although different concepts may shape different conclusions, they are all influenced by beliefs and experiences. So, to what extent do our beliefs modify the conclusions that we may reach? The knowledge obtained through out someone’s life through their experiences, or belief system direct decision making almost completely. In my essay I will explore how Ethics and Human sciences correlate with this topic. I will also implement and tie in the connections of Reason and link these concepts with belief and experiences.