  Resisting Sylvan’s broad push for a non-anthropocentric, environmental ethic are several arguments suggesting the inevitability of human chauvinism. Foremost among them are arguments that, he claims, “parallel” arguments for egoism. Their rejection follows similar grounds for rejection of egoism—cf. Routley and Routley (1979b, esp. 47). This paper also distinguishes strong forms of human chauvinism (endorsing what Sylvan later termed the sole value assumption: that only members of the human class and some of their possible states have intrinsic value) from weaker forms that merely endorse, for example, “the Greater Value Thesis: the invariable allocation of greater value or preference … to humans, while not however entirely excluding non-humans from moral consideration” (ibid., 36)—a thesis also rejected by Sylvan. Paske (1991) defends a qualified version of the thesis; the moral differentiation in favour of most humans can be justified (by appeal to deontologically-constrained hedonic consequentialism). Attfield (1981), considering versions of the Last Man Example, also rejects strong human chauvinism while defending the greater value thesis, thus defending a weak chauvinism in Sylvan’s sense. “The good of trees might outweigh some of our whims: but it does not outweigh our interests except where our interests depend on it” (1981, 51).