Draft:Lifeism

Lifeism - a term used for philosophies that place life itself above all From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Lifeism (also spelled life-ism or lifism) is a term used in ethical and philosophical writing for views that treat life (broadly construed) as a central value, orientation, or identity. In academic usage, it has been developed in at least two distinct strands: (1) as an identity/ethical orientation associated with psychologist Anthony J. Marsella and subsequent discussion of “life identity,” and (2) as a term in continental philosophy used by Leonard Lawlor and later commentators in discourse on about phenomenology, immanence, and “neo-vitalism.” The term also appears in literary and cultural contexts, where it is often used more loosely and without clear reference to a single defined doctrine.

  • Comment: I agree with LEvalyn's comment, which does not seem to have been addressed. Before resubmitting, I suggest that you point out on the talk page or elsewhere the best sources that talk about "lifeism" as an established philosophical concept. MCE89 (talk) 11:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
  • 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)

Definition and scope

Lifeism is a term used for philosophies that place life itself as central. It 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.

Academic and philosophical usage

Identity

Anthony Marsella

Retired American psychology professor Anthony J. Marsella's 2008 essay, Identity: Beyond Self, Culture, Nation, and Humanity to "Lifeism" advocated that identification with life is our most essential and most authentic identity.[1] In 2011 Marsella also published an article entitled “Nonkilling psychology and lifeism” calling for humanity to move beyond unbridled national identities to an identity with life itself.[2]

In her 2013 book, Creativity, Talent and Excellence, Singaporean academic and author Ai-Girl Tan wrote, "Marsella advocates the development of life identity, or lifeism. Lifeism is an identification with life. We are part of life."[3] 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, writes "...it is no longer adequate to continue pursuing isolationist “identities” of groups, religions, or nations, even not the identity of being humans. This is the argument of psychologist Anthony Marsella, who suggests that we have “to move beyond such all-too human dynamics, even beyond our identification and pre-occupation with humanity altogether (such as humanism, humanitarian, or humanistic) and to move to an identity with life – lifeism,” and later asks, "Is humanity everything? What about leaving behind our identification with ourselves and identity with life in general? What about lifeism rather than humanism, humanitarian, or humanistic?"[4] American academic 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."[5]

Others

Another American psychology professor, 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.[6]

In his 2025 book Animal Conservation Ethics and the Population Problem: A Habilitation on Rehabilitation, Leif Brostrom DeVaney described lifeism as a more generic concept of which "the conativism of Schweitzer's ethic of reverence for life" is an example.[7]

Phenomenology

Leonard Lawlor

American philosophy professor Leonard Lawlor used the term "lifeism" 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.[8] In subsequent writings Lawlor expanded on lifeism,[9] also referring to it as "neo-vitalism".[10]

American philosophy professor John Protevi wrote a review of Lawlor's 2006 book, The Implications of Immanence: Toward a New Concept of Life, entitled, 'The "Miniscule Hiatus": Neo-vitalism in the Great French Philosophy of the 1960s' in which he states, "Beyond phenomenology for Lawlor is "life-ism" or "neo-vitalism," the positive working out of the effects of that "miniscule hiatus" that produces a "completion of immanence".[11] In the Editors’ Introduction to their 2017 book Foucault and Animals Matthew Chrulew and Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel wrote, "Leonard Lawlor has articulated a philosophy of "life-ism" opposed to biopower, a notion of immanence of life beyond "man and his doubles" that places death, finitude and powerlessness at the heart of life.[12] Canadian academic and author Philippe Lynes, in his 2018 book Futures of Life Death on Earth: Derrida's General Ecology, wrote "...valuation and the Will to Power culminate in an absolute and unconditional domination over the earth: the mastery and objectification of all beings in view of their calculation, technicization and mechanization. Lawlor's suggestion to counter these disastrous consequences is a renewal of the concept of life, which he proposes as a new-vitalism, life-ism, or mortalism..."[13] In her 2019 book, Another Finitude: Messianic Vitalism and Philosophy, Polish philosopher Agata Bielik-Robson wrote that Lawlor's "life-ism is a view that allows a 'completion of immanence' in the Deluzian sense".[14]

Others

This finding was echoed by Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, Michael R. Kelly in his 2016 book Phenomenology and the Problem of Time in which he wrote that "there is a certain lifeism, if you will, in French phenomenology from the 1940s to the 1960s and into the present. For example, Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego that so influenced Deleuze; Merleau-Ponty's later notions of latent-intentionality, the flesh, wild-being; Michel Henry's monolith on life that starts with his Essence of Manifestation'; Jean-Luc Marion's Being Given."[15]

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"'.[16]

Other usage

After Darwinism in early 20th century China, along with Utilitarianism, 'Life-ism' was a popular philosophy espoused by writers like Liang Qichao and Yan Fu that aimed to continuously preserve and maximize the quantity of life.[17] 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'.[18] 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'.[19]

In his book The Essential Gibran, Palestinian academic Suheil Bushrui wrote that Lebanese-American writer, Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) called himself a 'lifeist', and insistently praised life.[20] In 1975 geographers 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.[21] In 1981's volume 89 of American magazine Science Digest an article entitled 'The Spark of Life' discussing Sidney W. Fox's work on abiogenesis stated, "Many of us suffer from what might be called "lifeism" - a bias in favor of life as we know it."[22]

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."[23] 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"."[24] 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"."[25]

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".'[26] 1999's Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, which was edited by American Objectivist writer Peter Schwartz, included an essay by him entitled 'Multicultural Nihilism' in which he characterized lifeism as a prejudice of evaluating life over death.[27]

The 2007 book, Revolution on Canvas, Volume 2: Poetry from the Indie Music Scene edited by Rich Balling includes a poem by Aaron Chapman of Nurses in which he writes of 'LIFEism', where life itself takes the place of god as the object of worship.[28]

Criticism

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.[17] A chapter of Australian philosopher of biology Kim Sterelny's 2001 book, The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays entitled 'The Extended Replicator' contains a section called 'Against Lifeism?' in which he points out the complexity of replication and that we need not limit our focus on copying and replication to living organisms.[29] Echoing the concern of Wang, 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, 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."[30] 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."[7]

See also

  • 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
  • Biopower – Concept in the postmodern theory of social control
  • Conatus – Innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself
  • Deep ecology – Ecological and environmental philosophy
  • Ecocentrism – Stance of environmentalism that values should be centered around nature, not humanity
  • Ecological civilization – Hypothetical society state
  • Humanism – Philosophical school of thought
  • Lifeworld – Epistemological concept
  • Moral circle expansion – Broadening of moral consideration
  • Nonkilling – Approach to nonviolence
  • Organicism – Philosophical and political conception of society as a living organism
  • Philosophy of Biology – Subfield of philosophy of science
  • Reverence for Life – Concept in Albert Schweitzer's ethical philosophy
  • Sentientism – Ethical theory based on sentience
  • Struggle for existence – Competition for resources needed to live
  • Teleonomy – Apparent purposefulness brought about by natural processes
  • Vitalism – Belief about living organisms
  • Will to life – Philosophical concept

References

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