Deep Ecology and Intrinsic Value in Nature

The Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Arne Naess (1912–2009) coined the term "deep ecology" in a short but highly influential 1973 paper, "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement," published in the journal Inquiry, distinguishing it from what he termed "shallow ecology" — environmental concern motivated primarily by human health, resource sustainability, and the welfare of people in wealthy industrialized nations — in favor of a "deep, long-range" movement that questions basic anthropocentric assumptions about humanity's relationship to nature and asserts that non-human life possesses intrinsic value independent of its usefulness to human purposes. Naess later formalized this position, together with the American environmental philosopher George Sessions, in the 1984 "Eight Points" or "Basic Principles" of the Deep Ecology Platform, which affirm the intrinsic value of all life-forms regardless of their instrumental usefulness to humans, and hold that the flourishing of non-human life requires a substantial decrease in the present scale of human population and interference with the non-human world.