A Biocentric Reading of Farley Mowat’s A Whale for the Killing

Abstract

Biocentrism is a highly multidimensional phenomenon whose scope extends beyond aesthetics, anthropology, ecology, ethnography, linguistics, politics, philosophy, psychology, semiology, and sociology. It began with philosophy and deep ecology but quickly expanded to become eco-centric as well as anthropocentric and linguistic. “Biocentrism is a life-centered outlook that rejects the view that humanity alone matters in ethics and accepts the moral standing of (at least) all living creatures” (Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy 97). While Arne Nases intended his version of biocentrism to be a sort of ‘radical egalitarianism’, John Rodman’s viewpoint of biocentricity is ‘ecological sensibility, and Paul Taylor argues ‘respect for Nature’ is one of the prevailing forms of biocentrism. This study proposes a biocentric interpretation of Mowat’s A Whale for the Killing, which depicts life and death in an inconceivable catastrophe involving a voiceless giant species.