There's a common misconception that embracing humanistic values means adopting narrow, short-sighted thinking. This error, in part, stems from conflating two distinct things: value frameworks (what we consider important) and analytical approaches (how we study and understand things).

The Core Problem

The term "anthropocentric thinking" illustrates this confusion perfectly. It's used a few different ways.

The first is in a technical sense, to describe a tendency to reason about unfamiliar organisms through analogy to ourselves:

“The cognitive construal that we propose may underlie these misconceptions is known as anthropocentric thinking; this is simply the tendency to reason about unfamiliar biological species or processes by analogy to humans. Analogical reasoning—trying to understand an unfamiliar idea or situation by comparing it with something that is more well known—is a common strategy used across many domains of learning. In biology, human beings are a familiar and accessible biological kind and are therefore a very tempting source of knowledge that is often misapplied to nonhuman living things.”

From Common Origins of Diverse Misconceptions: Cognitive Principles and the Development of Biology Thinking

This tendency is useful to be aware of when studying other creatures or ecosystems. However, there is another usage of "anthropocentric thinking" that points to a worldview in which humans as both analytically and morally central:

“When we speak of something being anthropocentric, we refer not to a natural law but to an orientation of values and behaviour. This is what helps us see that privileging the human as a supreme being above others was a construction.”

“Though our thinking patterns are entrenched, no version of human logic is a species trait, it can be culturally shifted. In fact, although Western modern models of thinking have had deep planetary consequences, they have never been total. Countless cultures across our world have lived with nature as a teacher, existing in symbiosis with its processes and laws.”

…

“By moving away from anthropocentric perspectives and embracing interconnected ways of understanding our environments, we can address not only the climate crisis but also the myriads of other intertwined crises we face.”

From Human Logic: Unlearning Anthropocentric Thinking at BIOHM

In other words, only by moving away from human flourishing as our standard of value can we become analytically capable of understanding our environments and saving ourselves. This is a popular package deal.

When people merge these frameworks, they are implicitly assuming that:

• Human oriented values frameworks constrain us to reductionist and myopic thinking
• 'Ecological thinking' must be rooted in biocentric, ecocentric, or environmentalist values
• Systems thinking applied to our environment is broadly and necessarily the purview of non-humanistic movements

This creates two problems:

1. A false choice between humanistic values and comprehensive understanding
2. A bizarre and profound misdiagnosis of cognitive challenges as value problems

Separating Values from Analysis

Value frameworks determine what we consider important and worthwhile. A humanistic framework centers human flourishing, while an ecocentric framework prioritizes ecosystem integrity.

Analytical frameworks are tools for understanding the world. Systems thinking, ecological analysis, and historical investigation are methods available to anyone with the tools, regardless of their intent.

The Real Challenge

The difficulties in understanding complex systems are real, but are not aided (in my view impeded) by decreased interest in human flourishing. Contrary to the call above, we need:

• Clearer separation of analytical framework from values frameworks
• Self awareness and transparency about what standard of value one is operating with when advocating a particular development strategy
• Much clearer focus on human flourishing as the standard by which we develop and evaluate environmental infrastructure options
• Better/broader practice of systems and statistical thinking, which are inherently unintuitive
• Better/broader epistemic hygiene in the study of surrounding ecologies
• Basic research and targeted piddling to illuminate areas of knowledge with non-obvious application
• A range of positive, technically grounded, competing visions of how human flourishing could be advanced with a robust understandaing of the ecologies around us
• Celebration of historical success - including infrastructure achievements and improvements in environmental safety as well as great thinkers, researchers, and builders

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