More Limits in Jain Environmental Ethics

Unlike anthropocentric, zoocentric, speciocentric, or biocentric perspectives, Jainism advances a sentiocentric view that grounds inherent worth in an organism’s capacity to feel, a capacity present in humans, animals, plants, and even microbes. Drawing on the insights of Christopher Framarin and Kristi Wiley, this article explores Jain sentiocentrism and examines it alongside “modernist” views that question the sentience attributed to certain organisms in the traditional Jain taxonomy. The article has three aims: (1) to demonstrate how the Jain sentiocentric system endures as a strong position in contemporary animal and environmental ethics; (2) to constructively critique Jain assertions of sentience in microbes, plants, and possibly some animals; (3) to ask if insentient organisms could still qualify as having inherent worth according to an alternative standard than sentience, and what this question might mean for a “modernist” reconsideration of Jain environmental ethics.