Draft:Lifeism

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  • Comment: The article has currently assembled a hefty handful of one-line quotes using the term "lifeism", but none of the quoted writers appear to be referring to each other or building on an established concept of lifeism -- they seem to be coining a neologism as part of a discussion of other topics. To show that "Lifeism" is an established philosophical concept, we'd want to see several sources that are explicitly about it, not just using the term once or twice. Something like Tateyama's book would work, except it needs to be a reliable source, with a publisher (preferably an academic one), rather than self-published. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:42, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Lifeism (sometimes spelled life-ism or lifism) is a term that has appeared independently in various philosophical, literary, and cultural contexts since the early 20th century. Though not associated with a single doctrine, it has been used to express ideas centered on reverence for life, biocentric ethics, and identification with the living world across different regions and traditions.

Western Europe and Eastern Asia

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After Darwinism in early 20th century China, along with Utilitarianism, 'Life-ism' was a popular philosophy espoused by Liang Qichao and Yan Fu that aimed to continuously preserve and maximize the quantity of life.[1] In his essay, Lifeism Chinese philosopher Shi Zhengbang introduced Henri Bergson's Lebensphilosophie and highlighted that the core of his thoughts was to 'love life'.[2] Japanese author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in his 1927 novella Kappa, wrote of a fictious religion called 'Lifeism' whose adherents believe their God, the Tree of Life, teaches them to 'live avidly'.[3]

North America

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20th Century

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In his book The Essential Gibran, Palestinian academic and writer, Suheil Bushrui, wrote that Lebanese-American writer, Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) called himself a 'lifeist', and insistently praised life.[4] In 1975, William Bunge and Ronald Bordessa's book The Canadian Alternative: Survival, Expeditions and Urban Change contained a chapter entitled "Machineism versus Lifeism" in which they wrote that "Lifeism, which places man-kind's survival as central..." must defeat its opposite, Machineism, the open-ended worship of machines.[5] American academic Harold Fromm in his 1993 essay, Aldo Leopold: Aesthetic "Anthropocentrist", described Biocentrism as 'a recent invention that one might call cosmic "pro-lifeism".'[6] 1999's Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, which was edited by American Objectivist writer Peter Schwartz, an essay of his was included entitled 'Multicultural Nihilism' in which he characterized lifeism as a prejudice of evaluating life over death.[7]

21st century

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American author and academic, Anthony J. Marsella's 2008 essay, Identity: Beyond Self, Culture, Nation, and Humanity to "Lifeism" advocates that identification with life is our most essential and most authentic identity.[8] German-Norwegian transdisciplinary scholar and author Evelin Lindner, in her 2017 book, Honor, Humiliation, and Terror: An Explosive Mix – And How We Can Defuse It with Dignity, asked, "[w]hat about leaving behind our identification with ourselves and identity with life in general? What about lifeism rather than humanism, humanitarian, or humanistic?"[9] Mitchell K. Hall in 2018 wrote, "[Marsella]'s philosophy of lifeism, stands, I believe, as a further development of a lineage that includes, but is not limited to, Albert Schweitzer’s philosophy in which reverence for life is the fundamental ethical principle and Erich Fromm’s psychologically and socially inflected views on biophilia, versus necrophilia, as reflected in character and culture."[10]

American pshycologist and academic Robert J. Pellegrini in his 2010 book Identities for Life and Death: Can We Save Us from Our Toxically Storied Selves? posits "lifism" as a cognitive-affective-behavioral style that is creative and life-oriented which must overcome its opposite, the toxic "deathism" which is essentially dehumanizing and antagonistic to life.[11]

In his 2025 book Animal Conservation Ethics and the Population Problem: A Habilitation on Rehabilitation, L B DeVaney described lifeism as a more generic concept of which "the conativism of Schweitzer's ethic of reverence for life" is an example.[12]

Animism

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American historian Jack D. Forbes wrote in his 1992 book entitled Columbus and Other Cannibals that the animism of native and folk religious beliefs of Africa, Asia and the Americas was synonymous with "life-ism", and that "perhaps that is what we need, "lifeism", more respect for life, more respect for the living, more respect for all forms of life."[13] In 2001's Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?, edited by American academic Mary Evelyn Tucker, it is written that "European writers long ago referred to indigenous Americans' ways as "animism" a term that means "life-ism"."[14] In the 2012 book The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science it is noted that "the European tradition of referring to Native world-views as forms of animism is quite correct, if understood non-reductively, since the term "animism" can literally be understood as "life-ism"."[15]

Phenomenology

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American academic and author Leonard Lawlor uses the term "life-ism" in his 2002 book entitled Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology to refer to a unified field within the 20th century continental philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, that focuses on life and death, involving concepts such as Edmund Husserl's Erlebnis and Henri Bergson's Élan vital.[16] This is echoed by Michael R. Kelly in his 2016 book Phenomenology and the Problem of Time in which he wrote that there is a certain lifeism in French Phenomenology from the 1940s onwards, citing as examples Jean-Paul Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego which influenced Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty's idea of latent intentionality, the flesh, wild-being; Michel Henry's monolith on life that starts with his Essence of Manifestation', and Jean-Luc Marion's Being Given.[17] American author and academic, H. Peter Steeves in his 2006 book entitled The Things Themselves: Phenomenology and the Return to the Everyday wrote 'We are obsessed with life, we who are alive. It is, I think, a prejudice - a sort of "lifeism"'.[18]

Criticism

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When 'Life-ism' was being espoused in China by Liang Qichao and Yan Fu it was criticized by their contemporary Wang Guowei as too subjective and therefore limiting.[19] American academic and author Forrest Clingerman in his 2011 book, Placing Nature on the Borders of Religion, Philosophy and Ethics indicates a suspicion of such a worldview, echoing the concern of Wang Guowei by writing, "I love life. And I love living things. But I worry that as ethicists we have fallen into a bias: we are lifeists. And like sexism, racism, classism and speciesism, lifeism must be overcome."[20] In his 2025 book Animal Conservation Ethics and the Population Problem: A Habilitation on Rehabilitation, L B DeVaney wrote that lifeism "seems problematic as the sole criterion for morality."[21]

See also

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  • Ahimsa – Ancient Indian principle of nonviolence
  • Biocentrism – Ethical point of view that extends inherent value to all living things
  • Biophilia hypothesis – Idea that humans innately seek connections with the natural world
  • Conatus – Innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself
  • Ecocentrism – Stance of environmentalism that values should be centered around nature, not humanity
  • Ecological civilization – Hypothetical society state
  • Humanism – Philosophical school of thought
  • Nonkilling – Approach to nonviolence
  • Reverence for Life – Concept in Albert Schweitzer's ethical philosophy
  • Sentientism – Philosophy placing sentient individuals at the center of moral concern
  • Struggle for existence – Competition for resources needed to live
  • Teleonomy – Apparent purposefulness brought about by natural processes
  • Will to life – Philosophical concept

References

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  1. ^ Liu, Joyce C H (2012). The Translation of Ethics. Netherlands: Rodopi. p. 88. ISBN 978-94-012-0719-5. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  2. ^ Li, Sha (2017). The Reception of Human Rights in Early Modern China: 1897 - 1927. Italy: Key. p. 84. ISBN 978-88-6959-884-5. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  3. ^ Akutagawa, Ryunosuke (1927). Kappa. Japan. Retrieved 13 June 2025.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Suheil, Bushrui (2007). The Essential Gibran. UK: Oneworld. p. 184. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  5. ^ Bunge, William; Bordessa, Ronald (1975). The Canadian Alternative: Survival, Expeditions and Urban Change. York University. pp. 414–422. Retrieved 15 July 2025.
  6. ^ Fromm, Harold (Spring 1993). "Aldo Leopold: Aesthetic "Anthropocentrist"". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 1 (1): 43. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
  7. ^ Schwartz, Peter (1999). Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (PDF). USA: Penguin Group. p. 233. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  8. ^ Marsella, Anthony J. "Identity: Beyond Self, Culture, Nation, and Humanity to "Lifeism"". transcend.org. Transcend Media Services. Retrieved 26 May 2025.
  9. ^ Lindner, Evelin (2017). Honor, Humiliation, and Terror: An Explosive Mix – And How We Can Defuse It with Dignity (PDF). USA: World Dignity University Press. pp. 118 & 323. Retrieved 28 September 2025.
  10. ^ "Creativity Reconsidered" (PDF). Discussion forum archives. indigenouspsych.org. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  11. ^ Pellegrini, Robert J. (2010). Identities for Life and Death: Can We Save Us from Our Toxically Storied Selves?. USA: AuthourHouse. pp. 97–98. Retrieved 15 July 2025.
  12. ^ DeVaney, Leif Brostrom (2025). Animal Conservation Ethics and the Population Problem: A Habilitation on Rehabilitation. United States: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 76. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  13. ^ Forbes, Jack D. (1992). Columbus and Other Cannibals. USA: D–Q University Press. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-58322-982-8. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  14. ^ Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?. USA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 2001. p. 284. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  15. ^ Haag, James W.; Peterson, Gregory R.; Spezio, Michael L., eds. (2012). The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science. UK: Routledge. p. 44. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
  16. ^ Lawlor, Leonard (2002). Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology. USA: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-10915-6. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  17. ^ Kelly, Michael R. (2016). Phenomenology and the Problem of Time. USA: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 103.
  18. ^ Steeves, H. Peter (2006). The Things Themselves - Phenology and the return to the every day. USA: State University of New York Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-7914-8127-1. Retrieved 10 June 2025.
  19. ^ Liu, Joyce C H (2012). The Translation of Ethics. Netherlands: Rodopi. p. 88. ISBN 978-94-012-0719-5. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  20. ^ Forrest Clingerman; Mark H Dixon, eds. (2011). Placing Nature on the Borders of Religion, Philosophy and Ethics. USA: Ashgate. p. 212. ISBN 978-1-4094-8152-2. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  21. ^ DeVaney, Leif Brostrom (2025). Animal Conservation Ethics and the Population Problem: A Habilitation on Rehabilitation. United States: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 76. Retrieved 21 September 2025.