The Relationship Between Man And Nature: Human-centrism Or Non-human-centrism

Environmental pollution and ecological crisis have been the lingering pain in the minds of people in the economic development. It has become No.1 public enemy that threats the survival of mankind. The problem is the imbalance between human and nature, and the underlying causes have attributed to long-standing human-centrism. This idea maintains that only human beings are of intrinsic value as the master of nature; while the nature is no more than a tool to achieve human own objectives, with human's own interests and values as the evaluation criteria over everything. Human-centrism emphasizes the confrontation between the subject and the object, highlights the subject. The development of human-centrism is actually the course of the establishing and strengthening of the subject's position. As a result, it's drawn to modern times, while Human-centrism ran wild. The relationship between man and nature has become completely opposite, with the world tranquility being totally disturbed and causing serious environmental pollution and ecological crisis.To save the Earth and mankind, Non-human-centrism emerged firmly opposing to the traditional concept of human-centrism. To build a new relationship between man and nature, non-human-centrism learned a valuable ecological ethics from traditional Chinese culture, such as "Harmony between man and nature" of Confucianism, the idea of "Imitation of Nature" of Taoism and the"equality of all living creatures"of Buddhism. Such ideas as Animals liberation/Rights theory, the life-centrism (biocentrism) and Eco-centrism have been evolved into three schools. In non- human-centrism, those point of views held by some of the human-centrists like "all should be centered on human's interests and values" and "man is the master of nature" and "nature is man's tools" are the underlying causes of environmental pollution and ecological crisis. Non-human-centrism is to overthrow such viewpoints of value, and it thinks that animals, plants and even the whole ecosystem and the natural world have the same intrinsic value as human being, advocates the idea that the relationship among the ethical concerns of man and man should be extended to non-human existence (animals, plants and ecological systems), requires to regard the value of the non-human world by taking an interests in the entire ecological system and the entire community of life. They oppose to have human's interests and values as the only yardstick of judgment; pursue equality of all things and harmony, stability and beautifulness of the ecological community. Non-human-centrism would like to weaken human's position as subject by emphasizing on equality of all, respecting for nature and safeguard the overall interests of a ecological community so as to arouse the concern of the nature. It hopes to eradicate the environmental pollution and ecological crisis from the ideological source.However, whether it is Human-centrism or Non-human-centrism, their views about the relationship between human-nature have done a partial understanding. Marxism believes that human is a part of nature, while nature is the foundation of survival and development of mankind. Man and nature are indivisible. In the process of transforming nature, human must play an active role and respect objective laws, considering both current and long-term interests. The relationship between human -nature must be associated with interpersonal relationship. It called for changes in production and social system (that is, interpersonal relationships) to promote and improve the relationship between human-nature. By this way, man will achieve reconciliation between man-nature and man-man. Therefore, Marxism, on its content, has gone beyond both Human-centrism and Non-human-centrism, with the realization of a mutually dialectical unity between man and nature, naturalism and humanitarian, Utilitarianism and ultra-utilitarian, measure of man and things, and human centered and non-human centered morality. On the basis of Marxist thinking on the relationship between human and nature that has gone beyond the human-centrism and non-human-centrism, we need the guidance of Marxism to pursue the new Environmental Ethics and construct a ecological civilized society where human-nature and man-man can co-exist in harmony, and to achieve sustainable development and scientific development.