Kyle Burchett

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. My research is aimed at understanding how negative human-environment interactions are based on ultimately human-life-negating metaphysical assumptions - in particular, those regarding humanity's status in the natural world in comparison to that of other species. I trace the current human-induced mass extinction event to anthropocentric notions of the ‘moral community’ as arbitrarily restricted to a small number of multicellular organisms deemed to be sufficiently ‘like us.’ Additional factors taken into consideration are the deeply-ingrained assumptions humans have made concerning the inexhaustibility of nature and how such assumptions influence irrational consumption patterns.