Multispecies Justice and Environmental Ethics
Summary
Multispecies justice and environmental ethics interrogate the moral status of non-human beings, challenging anthropocentric norms by extending obligations to animals, plants and ecosystems. Drawing on biocentric, ecocentric and capabilities perspectives, scholars argue that justice must account for the agency, integrity and rights of more-than-human communities, recognising interdependence and shared vulnerabilities. Central debates focus on the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, the reconfiguration of institutions to include non-human interests, and the integration of Indigenous and ecofeminist worldviews that emphasise relational ontologies. This interdisciplinary field has gained urgency in the face of biodiversity loss, climate change and zoonotic diseases, linking ethical theory to practical questions of legal personhood for natural entities, community stewardship and conservation. Building on frameworks such as One Health and Planetary Health, research on multispecies justice seeks governance models that transcend human exceptionalism and promote synergistic flourishing across ecological networks globally.
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Multispecies Justice and Environmental Ethics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multispecies justice and environmental ethics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multispecies justice: A framework that distributes moral consideration and entitlements across human and non-human beings based on shared ecological relationships.
Biocentrism: The ethical stance that all living organisms possess intrinsic value and merit moral consideration regardless of utility to humans.
Ecocentrism: A perspective that regards ecosystems, including their biotic and abiotic components, as central moral subjects beyond individual organisms.
Relational ontology: A worldview emphasising that entities—human and non-human—are constituted through their interdependencies and mutual interactions.
Capabilities approach: A theory of justice concerned with individuals’ and collectives’ real freedoms to achieve valuable ‘beings and doings’, extended here to non-human entities.
References
- Reimagining Relationships: Multispecies Justice as a Frame for the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (2023).
- Should we Ascribe Capabilities to Species and Ecosystems? A Critical Analysis of Ecocentric Versions of the Capabilities Approach. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (2021).
- Senses of injustices-in-place: nature’s voice through Melbourne’s environmental stewards. Sustainability Science (2023).
- Rethinking the Environmental Virtue of Ecological Justice from the Interdependencies of Non-Human Capabilities and Synergetic Flourishing. Philosophies (2023).
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