ABSTRACT
Note first that many o f those who claim to be rejecting any kind of anthropocentrism actually do seem to accept the anthropocentrism about justification. Deep ecologists write pamphlets in which they urge their fellow literate beings-who, they readily acknowledge, are all humans-to think like a mountain. And the militant radical environmentalists o f Earth First! who refuse “any compromise in defense o f Mother Earth” are willing to commit to reams of (presumably recycled) paper to defend and publicize their positions, not to mention participating in political organizing with people who disagree with them. Obviously some of this is to mobilize people, not to justify the position. However, the aggressively defensive tone of, say, Christopher Manes’s Green Rage or the debates in the pages o f Earth First! cannot but convey a desire to have others see and perhaps accept these radicals’ point o f view.1 Even Edward Abbey, whose monkey-wrenching eco-terrorists o f The Monkey Wrench Gang and other novels eschewed the need for justification, himself engaged in debates endlessly.2
