Ecological Crisis,Anthropocentrism, and Human Nature

Lynn White asserts in his well - known essay The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis that the ecological crisis in our present society is deeply grounded in Christianity, which is the most anthropocentric religion that the world has ever seen, because in terms of man' s relationship to nature it emphasizes that nature has no reason for existence save to serve human beings. According to Lynn White, the only way to get out of our ecological crisis is to adopt a modest, but non - heretical, and man - and - nature -friendly religious view, which is supposed to replace the anthropocentric Christian beliefs. However, all forms of religion, including Christianity, merely exert an external influence upon natural environments, because our established attitudes towards nature and towards man' s relationship to nature are in essence deeply connected with our own nature. That is to say, our ecological crisis and the anthropocentric Christian axiom both share a biological root; human beings by nature desire to possess whatever they want to possess, but the Christian dogma and anthropocentric view are no more than a strong self - consciousness and conceptualization of that distinctive human nature that man is not willing to be restricted by anything.