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Reverence for Life

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Humans are essentially more superior to many things that are living, which in my eyes is understandable. Albert Schweitzer’s main ethical concept is called Reverence for Life. He proposes the idea as the root of the will or drive to live and keep on living on by evolving and improving our lives. Schweitzer’s Reverence of Life philosophy includes all living things that have the ability to feel empathy and even self-actualization with all other living things. The philosophy includes the idea that living beings don’t only care about themselves but also give much concern about the development of lives of other living beings as well. Some of the ideas that Schweitzer mentions do not make complete sense to me. For example Albert says in his article, “we are brothers and sisters to all living things, and nothing else, neither race nor color nor religion nor sex, should be more important than this one deepest, most extraordinary thing connecting us. Personally that doesn’t register in my mind because the fact that I feel as if humans are more superior to many living beings, I can’t be a brother to a species of a plant or I can’t be a brother to an exotic animal such as a tiger. On the other hand, there are some things I do agree with which is the idea of being aware with all of the things we do as living beings. The world has evolved and adapted to us living and gives us the opportunity to keep on living. This idea is only aware by humans; other living beings do not have the ability to become aware of such wills or drives to live. As stated in class, Reverence for Life includes sympathy, love, and in general, all enthusiastic feeling of real value are summed up in it. As I stated before I disagree with most of the philosophy of Reverence for Life, but on the other hand I disagree with how you can be related to a piece of grass and be considered brother and sister.

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