William Baxter, in a passage from his book on the law and economics of pollution control, People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution, provides an Anthropocentric view of animal rights through his criterion for solving the problem of pollution and waste. When approaching how to solve a problem, specifically the problem of Environmental pollution, there should be a foundation of a generally held goal which clearly explains why the problem needs to be addressed. The “why” does not have to go wholly uncontended, but it is necessary that the necessity of a solution to the problem is mostly accepted by the population(s) concerned.
Baxter sets forth four goals that problem solving should be framed around, and he admits that each new goal slightly contradicts the previously set forth goal. His first goal he calls the “spheres of freedom” objective, which provides that individuals should be free to act as they choose as long as the interests of other people are still maintained. His second is that human existence necessarily entails “scarcity” which makes the notion that every person can achieve the freedoms which they desire. The goal is that the practice of waste should be eliminated wherever possible so as to attempt to achieve as many of those goals as possible. His third goal is that every human being’s desire for and claim to just governance must be upheld, and that humans should not be regarded as a means for achieving the desire of other humans. His fourth goal is that every individual’s incentives and access to opportunity should be considered under the second goal, the “no waste” principle, and that continuous redistribution of resources be enacted so that each individual has a share of the common wealth of those resources. This is necessary to ensure that people’s ability to strive towards their goals is actually widely achievable in some way.
Baxter’s problem-solving framework and worldview regarding the wellbeing of the earth and all life upon it is very anthropocentric, and he believes that the egalitarian moral community is humans, particularly their role as consumers of non-human resources. In other words, non-human animals have no moral consideration of their own, labeling morality, specifically Planetary management, as a uniquely human endeavor. He points out that “penguins [as opposed to humans] cannot vote now and are unlikely subjects for the franchise” (Baxter 382), so it is the moral obligation of humans to vote concerning those animals according to their own inclinations, and that the preservation of non-human animals should not be done for the sake of the penguins, but for the sake of human dependence on these animals as resources and means to their own human ends. His view that resources ought to be preserved first and foremost for the benefit of man rejects the view that there is an ideal, morally correct way that “nature” should be, and that “nature” itself does not hold within it moral criterion.
Baxter considers the “cost”- to both finances and the pursuit of initiatives- of favoring the preservation of one resource over another through what he calls the “trade-off relationship” (Baxter p384). Some initiatives to lower environmental pollution entail the giving up of other resources which humans depend upon to achieve their goals (Food, housing, protection etc). Efforts for care of the environment should result in greater human satisfaction and achievement of his four listed goals for it to be a worthwhile undertaking. This view is not only Anthropocentric, but also Utilitarian. Even though Baxter adequately points out the need for a general human goal to work towards, his argument is flawed in that it lacks a system for measuring and determining what means will achieve the goal of greatest human satisfaction attainable.
Bryan Norton, in “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism”, also poses the question of whether there should be a moral obligation to preserve the environment, who holds those moral obligations, and why? His main argument is that non-anthropocentric environmental worldviews regarding planetary stewardship are the only adequate views that constitute an environmental ethic. He additionally argues that moral preservation of the environment cannot be individualistic, or suited to the goals of the individual. He also explains the consequences of the individualistic, anthropocentric views that reject environmental ethics.
Based on these two readings, I believe that Norton would agree with Baxter in that waste should be a practice that is avoided, and effectiveness is a qualification in the attempts to solve problems relating to the environment. He would also agree that the question of why we ought to solve those environmental problems should be a widely held consensus. Norton does not deny that there are widely held beliefs that certain environmental problems which concern the health and safety of humans should be avoided, for example careless disposal of toxic wastes. But he would disagree with Baxter in that those are the only environmental concerns that should be held and addressed. The cost to be considered for Norton is not onlythe cost to human consumers, but costs beyond only the concern of humans, which makes him more preferable to the idea of “weak anthropocentrism”.
For Baxter, the value of nature is solely rooted in the benefits it can provide for humanity. Even what some might consider intrinsically beautiful and spiritual about nature would only be valued when the appreciation of nature has some benefit for humanity (for example recreation, the health of fresh air). These sentiments of humanity first nature conservation and the use of nature as a means to an end is more strongly demonstrated through Baxter’s strong anthropocentric Planetary Management Worldview which focuses on the fulfilment of human certain human/private consumer appetites, as opposed to Norton’s consideration of preservation suiting the common good of both private consumers and the public, intellectual citizen.
Word count: 1032
Two line discussion question: In what ways do Strong Anthropocentrism and Weak Anthropocentrism align with shallow and deep ecology respectively? Where do they differ? Specifically consider Baxter’s and Norton’s approaches.
Citations:
Baxter, William. People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.
Norton, Bryan. “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism”. Environmental Ethics. 1984.
Environmental Ethics 
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