Stuart, we're being buried rather quickly in this forum, so I forgive you for not responding to my earlier post, here. One question for you about anthropocentrism:First let me recognize (as I have earlier in many other posts) that I cannot possibly know the world as anything other than human. Let me next say that I believe (and lo and behold it is a fundamental of feminist philosophy, so clearly you will be up to date on this) it is important to try and recognize one's biases when analyzing an issue, and that it is important to question one's assumptions. In this case those would be:
I am a product of my society, which has told me from day one that I am superior to all other species, that I am the steward of this planet, that everything on it is my resource, and that I know or can learn enough to govern over all of this and manipulate it, and that this is only natural.
My question then is this: In recognizing that I (and you, and all the rest of the industrialized world, and now most non-industrialized countries and "developing" countries) have been told all this from the days of our respective births (through, media, religion, formal and informal education, government, and advertising), CAN YOU GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY HUMANS ARE SUPERIOR, ONE CHARACTERISTIC WHICH DEFINES US AS SUCH, WHICH HAS NOT BEEN SET UP BY US AS A CRITERION SOLELY BECAUSE IT WILL DEFINE US AS SUPERIOR? I argue that you can't, that each and every one of these criteria are anthropocentric. The desperation with which humans try to define themselves as superior is pathetically clear: First we thought we were the only animals who could use tools. When we realized that wasn't true, we said we were the only animals to make our own tools. Sadly, this too is untrue, so we turned to the language thing, which crumbled. Then we decided we were better because we could learn new languages. Ooops... along came a chimp which learned sign language, then taught it to her babies, which meant we weren't the only ones to be able to teach new languages. Hmmm.... what about being aware of the self? Nope. That same chimp clearly demonstrated, using a mirror and sign language that she was fully conscious of herself as a distinct identity. Why, oh why do we struggle so hard to rationalize our superiority complex, or rather our inferiority complex? It's pathetic. Funny, though, the normal human obsession over speed, size, and strength have not been used to demonstrate our superiority as a species, since it was obvious without the research that we were not the strongest, largest, or fastest. We have some issues to work out as a species.
(I await your response with its insistance that "god said we're superior". I wonder if you are secure enough in your faith to admit that (just supposing in the most hypothetical of ways) if god didn't exist, then my arguments stand.)
