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Definition of "anthropocentric" []

  • Regarding humans as the central element of the universe. (adjective)
  • Interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "anthropocentric" in a sentence
  • "For decades, the consensus was that as children begin reasoning about the biological world, they adopt only one -- markedly "anthropocentric" -- vantage point, favoring humans over non-human animals when it comes to learning about properties of animals."
  • "Up to now the environmental ethics has been only anthropocentric, that is to say an economics ethics that ignores man's responsibility for nature."
  • "Many traditional western ethical perspectives, however, are anthropocentric or human-centered in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a strong sense) or they assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human beings than to any nonhuman things such that the protection or promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of nonhuman things turns out to be nearly always justified (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a weak sense)."