In critique of anthropocentrism: a more-than-human ethical framework for antimicrobial resistance

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often framed as a One Health issue, premised on the interdependence between human, animal and environmental health. Despite this framing, the focus across policymaking, implementation and the ethics of AMR remains anthropocentric in practice, with human health taking priority over the health of non-human animals and the environment, both of which mostly appear as secondary elements to be adjusted to minimise impact on human populations. This perpetuates cross-sectoral asymmetries whereby human health institutions have access to bigger budgets and technical support, limiting the ability of agricultural, animal health or environmental institutions to effectively implement policy initiatives. In this article, we review these asymmetries from an ethical perspective. Through a review and analysis of contemporary literature on the ethics of AMR, we demonstrate how the ethical challenges and tensions raised still emerge from an anthropocentric framing, and argue that such literature fails to address the problematic health hierarchies that underlie policies and ethics of AMR. As a consequence, they fail to provide the necessary tools to ethically evaluate the more-than-human challenges that the long list of actors involved in managing AMR face in their everyday practices. In response to such shortcomings, and to make sense of these challenges and tensions, this article develops an ethical framework based on relationality, care ethics and ambivalence that attends to the more-than-human character of AMR. We formulate this approach without overlooking everyday challenges of implementation by putting the framework in conversation with concrete situations from precarious settings in West Africa. This article concludes by arguing that a useful AMR ethics framework needs to consider and take seriously non-human others as an integral part of both health and disease in any given ecology.

Abundance and absence: Human-microbial co-evolution in the Anthropocene

“…The plurality of practices that underscore the emergence and intensification of antimicrobial resistance and dysbiosis belie singular and universal approaches for their remediation. To this end, experimentation with fermentation (Hendy et al, 2021), rewilding (Lorimer, 2016(Lorimer, , 2017, and probiotic practices grounded in an ethics of the more-than-human (Cañada et al, 2022) at a diversity of scales and contexts might hold promise. Beyond this, fostering generalised microbiological literacy in society (Timmis et al, 2019), and natural-social science collaboration (Barendse, 2021;Bradshaw, 2022b) might help us to reconnect to the microbial world.…”

A Qualitative Study on the Implementation of the National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance in Singapore

“…However, there were concerns that each sector might have their own areas of focus and concern, resulting in data that might not be interpretable and useful across the One Health spectrum. Given that AMR is a One Health issue that affects humans, animals, and the environment, it is important to develop systems that shift away from anthropocentrism, which prioritises human beings as ‘morally superior to everything else in the natural order’, while focusing on a dynamic form of interaction where humans are an equal component in a reciprocal and symbiotic relationship with the rest of nature [ 23 ]. An integrated AMR and AMU surveillance system will provide a clearer idea of the country’s AMR situation, possibly elucidating the transmission pathways of certain microorganisms and providing evidence useful for the development of appropriate strategies for optimal AMU [ 24 ].…”

The Intelligence of Plants: A New Narrative? Notes on a Contemporary Cultural Phenomenon

“…This evolution has also important ethical implications, and many authors have already explored the notion of a "more-than-human ethics" (see for ex. Cañada, Sariola & Butcher 2022), even if much more should be done concerning the exploration of interactions between humans and other living beings in the era of the Anthropocene.…”