Environmental ethics : theory realism and non-anthropocentrism

In this paper I examine three forms of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics. All\ud three are dependent on scientific, theory realism as their method of natural epistemology\ud and as their source of metaphysical claims. The environmental protections offered by\ud such theories are dependent on theory realism. I argue that theory realism does not offer\ud the robust and human-independent view of the world that these three theories require. I\ud do not argue that theory realism is wrong; instead, I argue that theory realism is being\ud overextended and misused in an attempt to establish human-independent justifications for valuing nature. Instead of relying on non-anthropocentrism, I argue that it would be better to embrace weak anthropocentrism. Weak anthropocentrism cannot offer the exact same protections that non-anthropocentrism aims for, but it does justify valuing nature and can offer real and strong environmental protections