Current microbiome research has revealed that microbes support nearly all life on Earth, are essential for food production, affect human physical health and psychological well-being and maintain ecological processes.
Consequently, there are many reasons to value them, especially in times of ecological crises and the pending end of the so-called antibiotic era. However, a theoretical analysis of the existing values regarding microorganisms is still missing in environmental ethics and the environmental humanities.
In this paper, we provide such an ethical analysis. Therefore, we briefly introduce different value types (Section 2.1) and then discuss what values exist with respect to the microbial world, focusing on the various instrumental and especially relational values (Section 2.2).
The different values we examine are the direct use value, life support and ecological function value, scientific value, transformative and religious/spiritual value, existence value and aesthetic value. To introduce the latter, we use the example of visual and poetic art that humans co-create with microorganisms to illustrate what this value encompasses.
Concluding, in Section 3, we argue why such values could be used as a cornerstone to establish distinct microbial ethics and human–microbe relations that do justice to the complexity of our human entanglement with microbes.

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Zusammenfassung

Die aktuelle Mikrobiom-Forschung verdeutlicht die Unerlässlichkeit von Mikroben für nahezu alles Leben auf der Erde, für die Nahrungsmittelproduktion, die körperliche Gesundheit und das psychische Wohlbefinden des Menschen und für die Aufrechterhaltung ökologischer Prozesse.
Es besteht also eine Vielzahl an Gründen, Mikroben wertzuschätzen, insbesondere in Zeiten ökologischer Krisen und einer Krise der sogenannten Antibiotika-Ära. Eine theoretische Analyse bestehender Werte in Bezug auf Mikroorganismen steht jedoch sowohl in der Umweltethik als auch in den Environmental Humanities noch aus.
In diesem Artikel arbeiten wir solch eine ethische Analyse aus. Hierfür stellen wir zu Beginn die zentralen Wertetypen vor (2.1). Im Anschluss daran diskutieren wir verschiedene Werte, die in Bezug auf die mikrobielle Welt existieren, wobei wir auf instrumentelle und insbesondere relationale Werte fokussieren (2.2).
Die Werte, auf die wir hierbei eingehen, sind die folgenden: direkter Nutzwert, Lebenserhaltungs-Wert, wissenschaftlicher Wert, transformativer und religiöser/spiritueller Wert, Existenzwert und ästhetischer Wert. Letzteren vertiefen wir durch das Beispiel verschiedener Kunstformen, die Menschen gemeinsam mit Mikroorganismen schaffen.
Abschließend argumentieren wir in Kapitel 3, warum solche Werte die Grundlage für eine eigene Mikroben-Ethik darstellen können und was sie für respektvolle Mensch-Mikroben-Beziehungen aussagen können, welche der Komplexität unserer menschlichen Dependenz von Mikroben gerecht werden.

1 INTRODUCTION

Philosopher of science and pioneer in systematically thinking about microbe–human relationships, John Dupré (2007, p. 19) states ‘Microbes have been the only kinds of organisms on this planet for the majority, perhaps 80%, of the history of life. And they continue to be the dominant life form. It is calculated that even by sheer biomass microbes continue to constitute over the half of contemporary terrestrial life’, as Zwart (2010, p. 43) points out, ‘Earth is basically a microbial planet’. Microbes, these statements demonstrate, have been the first life forms to inhabit our planet and are essential for almost every other life form on Earth. Yet, their importance for everyday human and nonhuman life is still widely unaccounted for—in popular and scientific discourse.

In (bio)medical research and related disciplines, a change in the perspectives on microbes and the microbiome can be discerned. The importance of microbes beyond their role in infectious disease processes, long underestimated within these disciplines, has recently attracted close attention (Gao et al., 2023; Puschhof & Elinav, 2023), even calling for an ‘epistemic revolution’ (Bapteste et al., 2021). A multitude of research efforts delve into the realm of infectious diseases, grappling with the complexities posed by current and future epidemics and pandemics. Moreover, other studies explore potential correlations between the composition of the human microbiome and various physiological and psychological afflictions. The numerous avenues of investigation of the microbiome underscore its profound impact on the onset and progression of diverse physical conditions, not limited to infectious diseases, including diabetes, allergies or asthma (see, e.g. Aldriwesh et al., 2023; Zubeldia-Varela et al., 2022). However, the scope of microbiome research extends beyond physical illnesses alone. There is growing evidence suggesting a close association between the microbiome and mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety disorders (Mitrea et al., 2022).

Significant strides have been made in various academic domains with regard to microbes and the microbiome, with notable emphasis placed on social sciences (Greenhough et al., 2020) and medical ethics and history (Berg et al., 2020; Cañada et al., 2022; D'Abramo & Neumeyer, 2020; Formosinho et al., 2022; Hoffmann, 2019; Ishaq et al., 2021; Kling, 2019; Ma et al., 2018; Marchesi & Ravel, 2015; Mathias, 2018; McGuire et al., 2012; O'Doherty et al., 2016; Pitlik & Koren, 2017; Prescott, 2017; Rhodes, 2016; Rhodes et al., 2013; Robinson et al., 2022; Smith, 2020; Wilkinson et al., 2021; Woodworth et al., 2017). Microbes serve as a cornerstone for the sustenance and vitality of all life forms on Earth, making them a focal point across various disciplines within the environmental humanities (Bradshaw, 2023; Cockell, 2004, 2005; Lorimer, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2020). Their intrinsic connection to human beings and the intricate interplay with all living organisms underscore their pivotal role in ecosystem dynamics. As entities beyond the human realm, microbes offer insights into non-anthropocentric perspectives, challenging long-held notions of human supremacy and highlighting our profound reliance on other life forms for both physical and psychological well-being (Cockell, 2004; Rook & Brunet, 2005).

Additionally, exploring the intricate relationships between humans and microbes through microbiome studies has the potential to redefine our understanding of selfhood (Ironstone, 2018; Parke, 2021; Rees et al., 2018) and, notably, our appreciation of the microbial communities that inhabit our bodies. Furthermore, it is imperative to acknowledge Indigenous scholarship (Robinson et al., 2022), which often offers diverse perspectives on co-existing with nonhuman entities. This discourse has frequently been overlooked or misrepresented (Benezra, 2021, p. 512). These developments call for a reevaluation of our relationship with microbes and with each other through the microbial lens (Ibid.: 524).

Assessing the impact of microbes on living organisms is a multifaceted endeavour. Contemporary scientific findings challenge the traditional classification of microbes as ‘beneficial’ or ‘harmful’, as pathogenicity is dependent on various factors, including the host's condition (Casadevall & Pirofski, 2014; Greenhough et al., 2018). Consequently, throughout microbiome studies, there is an increasing demand to question binary thought patterns. This demand aims to foster innovative research that moves beyond viewing microbes solely as agents of disease, a mindset that permeates even linguistic conventions, for example, when using war metaphors for ‘harmful’ microbes and describing ‘beneficial’ ones as friends (Beck, 2021; Höll & Bossert, 2022b; Ironstone, 2018, p. 336). However, proponents of a more positive outlook on microbes often must defend themselves against prevailing perceptions of pathogenicity and the associated fear of microbial lethality. The latter links the politics of antimicrobial warfare to the microbial politics of war, ultimately resulting in ‘micropolitics’ (Paxson, 2014).

These initial efforts to tackle human–microbe relationships from diverse humanities' perspectives impressively show that microbes sustain almost all life forms on Earth, are essential for food production, affect human physical health and psychic well-being and maintain ecological processes. This diverse and often ground-breaking work in what we might call microbiome humanities also implicitly addresses many of the crucial values we, in this paper, assign to microorganisms. Zwart (2010), for example, demonstrates microbe's life support value, Bradshaw (2023) and Lorimer (2017a) refer to their existence and ecological function value, whereas Benezra (2021) contemplates the knowledge production value, and Dickinson (2018) quite literally showcases the aesthetic value of microbial life. However, neither an explicit examination of the corresponding values nor a systematic review of these has been carried out to date.

This fact shows that microorganisms are highly important for multidisciplinary environmental scholarship and action yet remain niche research and underrepresented in the humanities (Especially, if compared with the ten thousand of publications on medical microbiome research that has been produced in recent years), including environmental ethics and philosophical value theory specifically (for an overview of microbiome and microbial research in the humanities, cf. Höll & Bossert, 2022a). However, many reasons exist for valuing them. The field of (environmental) humanities microbiome research is still a significantly under-researched topic that needs further exposure.

This paper revolves around the need to advocate for and critically analyse the valuation of microbes. First, we give a brief overview of the different value categories and explain which value categories we consider useful in our effort to highlight different reasons for valuing microbes (2.1). Afterward, we examine the various values that (can) exist in relation to microbes (2.2) and subsequently discuss the significance of the outlined values, arguing why we think they can serve as a cornerstone for establishing a microbial ethics (3). Such microbial ethics (as discussed in more detail in Section 3) may enable us to form human-microbe relations that do justice to the complexity of human entanglement with the microbial world. The values we present in this paper demonstrate that there are good reasons to aim for human-microbe relations that allow for more differentiation and complexity than most of the current perspectives on microbes do. Therefore, we think that they serve as a valuable foundation for establishing a microbial ethics. In our final Section (4), we conclude the paper by calling for much more differentiated perspectives on microbes and further research on responsible human–microbe relations that build upon the different values we outline here.

Our understanding of microbes is based on the following broad definition by Maureen O'Malley: ‘Microbe’ […] is a broad and convenient term that is used to cover a range of microscopic life […]. It encompasses all unicellular life forms (prokaryotes, protists, unicellular fungi and algae) and often includes viruses, even though these entities are not cellular and are rarely considered to be alive in the way that cellular life is (O'Malley, 2014, p. 1–2).

What these tiny life forms can and should be valued for will become clear in the next sections (We surely do not want to negate or minimize the negative and even deadly effects of pathogenic microbes—such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus—when we elaborate on which values can apply to them. However, since science is just beginning to understand the sometimes very complex correlations of how microbes affect e.g., the human body, we do not want to reproduce the ethically problematic way of speaking of ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ microbes (cf. Beck, 2021), nor do we want to exclude certain microbes from the outset of our investigation).

2 VALUES REGARDING MICROBES

When we speak of valuing, we mean ‘attributing importance, or relevance’ (Deplazes-Zemp & Chapman, 2021) to microbes, not a sense of valuing that is close to ‘desiring’. In the microbial context, understanding valuing as ‘desiring’ would rather be misleading. We provide reasons why microbes can and should be regarded as highly important beings, relevant, for example, to the maintenance of life on Earth and the well-being of humans and animals. These reasons are strong but unrelated to any human desire to wish microbes to do so.

Before elaborating on these different values, we want to highlight our understanding of values or the different categories of values that we consider useful in the context of this paper, distinguishing between intrinsic, instrumental and relational values.

2.1 Different value categories

The differentiation between intrinsic, instrumental and relational values is highly important for any engagement with value theory or types of values. It reveals the many different reasons for arguing for protecting individuals, entities or wholes of ‘nature’. To summarize, someone or something has instrumental value if she, he, or it offers a direct, material benefit for the valuers. Intrinsic values are the ones that someone or something has in itself, regardless of whether it serves the purposes, purposes or goals of others. Relational values refer to existing relationships with someone or something that gives meaning to this individual, entity or entire on the part of the valuers (Jax et al. (2013: 263) provide a different categorization of values than we do here. They differentiate between inherent (synonymous to what we refer to as intrinsic), fundamental, eudaimonistic, and instrumental values. While there surely are slight differences in meaning, we think that what we call relational values covers a lot of what Kurt Jax and colleagues call fundamental, and eudaimonistic values. As we explain below, we understand relational values to be eudaimonistic values. Most of what Jax et al. (Ibid.: 262) frame as fundamental values, i.e., valuing someone or something “for being the fundamental and substantial conditions for life on earth and the fundamental context of relation for human being”, we refer to as relational values, although in some cases a clear distinction from instrumental values does not make sense, since they are sometimes interrelated, such as what we discuss as life support or ecological function values for microbes (2.2)). As will be highlighted in Section 2.2, all three value categories are found for microbes. Before elaborating on the many different values that illustrate that microbes are, can be and, as we would argue, need to be valued by us (as humans) in many ways, we want to go a little more into detail on the three different value categories.

Within value theory, the term intrinsic value has many different uses. This leads Newman et al. (2017, p. 27) to distinguish between the concept of intrinsic value and the conceptions of intrinsic value. ‘The concept of intrinsic value appears in the work of philosophers [and other researchers] who endorse very different conceptions of it’ (Ibid.), meaning that all using the term intrinsic value build on the same concept of it, even though they differ in their specific use of the term. The concept of intrinsic value understands it as a value that someone or something has ‘in and of itself, independently of it serving the ends, purposes, or goals of others’ (Newman et al., 2017, p. 26). In the debate about which individuals, entities or entireties have such value and for what reasons, the terms intrinsic value and inherent value are often used synonymously. Inherent value is the value attributed to an individual, entity, or entirety, which leads to this individual, entity or entirety being directly morally considerable for no other reason except the reason of possessing inherent value. The inherent value, which we want to focus on here when dealing with intrinsic values (In the environmental humanities literature (especially in environmental ethics), one finds the differentiation between subjective instrinsic value and relational intrinsic value, where a subjective intrinsic value ‘is ‘projected onto’ nature by human valuers without the properties of the natural object placing any restraints on the valuing reaction’ (Newman et al., 2017: 29). A relational intrinsic value, on the other hand, is ‘actualized when a person perceives certain properties of a natural object.’ (Ibid: 30). Both value types can occur regarding microbes. A property important to the relational intrinsic value could be ‘beauty’, as it is addressed with the aesthetic value (cf. 2.2). With an understanding of subjective intrinsic value as just stated, anything could have such a value for anyone at any time. Since this is potentially all-encompassing without further reasonable restrictions, we do not think that an investigation on such an understanding of intrinsic value is helpful to overcome anthropocentric perspectives by including microbes at this point. An exploration of the different understandings of intrinsic value in relation to microbes is a research gap important to fill, and we call on environmental ethicists and philosophers to engage with it), is often connected with having rights (for animals, this is intensively elaborated on within animal ethics, cf. Francione, 2000; Koorsgard, 2018; Regan, 2004, for microbes cf. Cockell, 2004).

Contrary to inherent value stands the instrumental value. An entity possesses instrumental value when it is valuable to someone else due to its (physical) usefulness or benefits to this individual (Non-material benefits are discussed under relational values. For an explanation of why eudaimonistic values, i.e. values contributing to a good human or animal life, are relational, not instrumental, see Chan et al., 2018, p. A4). Obviously, a simplistic distinction between inherent and mere instrumental moral values falls short of accounting for the specific character and quality of many existing relationships between humans and the nonhuman world. It would be a far too simplistic perspective on values, ignoring that humans and animals need many parts of the nonhuman world for being able to live a good life.

For being able to incorporate these aspects into value theory one must acknowledge the importance of relational values, values assigned to entities because of a morally relevant relation to others. Relational values can address a significant aspect of the human-nature relationship that cannot be covered by instrumental and intrinsic values alone. For that reason, relational values have experienced an enormous upsurge in environmental humanities, social sciences and biodiversity conservation debates in recent years (cf. Chan et al., 2016, 2018; Deplazes-Zemp & Chapman, 2021; Himes & Muraca, 2018; Jax et al., 2018; Klain et al., 2017). When talking about relational values, we mean values relational in content (Chan et al., 2018, p. A4), which means that the relationship itself matters when attributing such a value.

According to Anna Deplazes-Zemp and Chapman (2021), we understand relational values as eudaimonistic values (cf. also West et al., 2018, p. 30). We do not hold eudaimonistic values to be a subcategory of relational values, as suggested by others (cf. Chan et al., 2018; Himes & Muraca, 2018; Muraca, 2011). Eudaimonistic values refer to entities or collectives considered intrinsically valuable as a condition for achieving a good human or animal life. This valuation goes far beyond a mere physical benefit. We assume that all existing relationships that are as intense as to promote the ‘establishment’ of a relational value are important for a good human or animal life. They may differ in their importance for a good life, but it does not seem useful to assume a relational value that does not promote the good life of humans or animals in one way or another (Individuals or entities to which a negatively experienced relationship exists, and which therefore hinder leading a good life have no relational value for the person valuing them. Here, the distinction between positive and negative relational values could make sense, insofar as one can also attribute a certain relevance to negative relationships for one's own life or, e.g. for the further development of one's character). In the following, we will detail how microbes contribute to the good life of other living beings, how they are valued instrumentally, and which concrete values derive from that.

2.2 Values for and of microbes

Microbes are valuable for many reasons. As mentioned above, within science and public media, the trend can be found towards highlighting that only a tiny percentage of microbes are pathogens dangerous to human and animal health, while most of these life forms are essential for the flourishing of life on earth (Zwart, 2010). In this section, we discuss in detail why microbes are valued and assign them to different values. Here, we focus on instrumental and relational values–briefly touching relational intrinsic values (cf. footnote 4), leaving the question open if microbes possess an inherent moral value (This question is essential when dealing with ethical questions about the [morally right or wrong] treatment of microbes and as such it is crucial for bioethics and environmental ethics. Within biocentric perspectives of environmental ethics—which assign inherent value to all living beings—microbes can be seen as litmus test for the approaches [Wienhues, 2022, cf. also Cockell, 2005, 2016 for an interesting and innovative approach to arguing for the inherent value of microbes]. Since it is beyond the scope of this paper to elaborate on all existing biocentric arguments, and since our purpose instead is to present an overview of existing values regarding microbes, we think it is appropriate for the papers purpose to leave that difficult question open).

Konrad Ott (2007) demonstrates the many different values that exist regarding the biodiversity of the planet. We argue that most of the values Ott elaborates can be transferred to microbes, and hence, we do so in the following. A non-exhaustive list of values that exist regarding microbes is as follows:

1. direct use value, 2. life support value, 3. ecological function value, 4. scientific value (including knowledge production value), 5. transformative value, 6. religious or spiritual value, 7. existence value, 8. aesthetic value.

Note that the order in which we have named the different values does not imply a hierarchy of values. To make substantial claims about which values would be the most important in a hierarchy and which arguments would speak in favour of prioritizing certain values, further research is needed, and we expect that it is difficult to make universal claims about this, as it may vary from culture to culture. Note also that this non-exhaustive list of values summarizes the different values regarding microbes, whereas the differentiation between intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values we introduced in Section 2.1 describes different value categories. These value categories are broader since each value within the list can be classified as either intrinsic, instrumental, relational or a combination (cf. Figure 1).

Details are in the caption following the image — **FIGURE 1**
Open in figure viewer PowerPoint

Values for and of microbes
(Source: oOwn, inspired by Jax et al., 2013).

The only value we hold to be merely instrumental is the direct use value. When thinking about benefits generated by microbes, one probably thinks about their indirect impact, for example, the contribution of microbes to insulin production or beer production (see Paxson, 2008 for an interesting overview of the contribution of microbes to food, especially cheese production). We believe such benefits contribute to the direct use value (although their contribution is indirect) because microbes play a crucial role in producing foods, medicines, or other goods humans consume. Furthermore, the microbes themselves are consumed directly. This predominantly occurs in health care, for example, when certain microbes are consumed to regenerate the microbiome of our human body after taking antibiotics or when microbes are added to certain foods to improve human intestinal health.

The following values—life support value, ecological function value and scientific value—can be evaluated both instrumentally and eudaimonistically, showing that microbes or their ‘products’ often do not have merely instrumental value but contribute to (humans and animals) good life.

As Zwart (2010, p. 43) points out, ‘Earth is basically a microbial planet’. Microbes have been the first life forms to inhabit our planet, and they are essential for almost every other life form on Earth, for example, when they inhabit mammal intestinal tracts and are responsible for functioning digestion without which we could not live (well). Therefore, the reason for ascribing them a life support value (an instrumental as well as eudaimonistic value in our understanding) is apparent. The same applies to the ecological function value, which we also consider to be an instrumental and an eudaimonistic value. All ecosystems on planet Earth depend on microbes in the way they have evolved to function. Humans and animals depend on functioning ecosystems to sustain our lives and those of animals in the way we are used to. The loss of functioning ecosystems (or so-called ecosystem services, cf. Armsworth et al., 2007; Chaudhary et al., 2015; for an ethical perspective, cf. Jax et al., 2013, who address the value we discuss here as ‘fundamental value’, cf. footnote 3) means losing CO₂ sinks, climate regulation or O₂ production, to name just a few important ‘services’ (cf. Lone & Malik, 2021 for interesting investigations on microbes, microbiomes and climate change).

Another value that highlights the enormous importance of microbes for humans is the scientific value (either an eudaimonistic or purely instrumental one, depending on which aspects one focuses on). Here, we see not only the value of the direct benefit (which must pass through various stages of science before it can benefit anyone) but also the value of challenging entire traditions of thought. Microorganisms challenge scientific and philosophical concepts central to Western science and philosophy traditions, such as the biological species concept, theories of individuality, or the anthropocentric paradigm. The biological species concept, popularized by Ernst Mayr (1970), defines a species as a set of individuals that reproduce fertile offspring. According to this understanding, ‘[a] member of a species will rarely, if ever, interbreed with a member of a sibling species; each chooses mates within its own species’ (Mallet, 2013, p. 681). This concept was questioned within biology even without considering microbes (cf. Mallet, 2013). However, when talking about microbes, one needs an entirely different understanding of species (Dupré, 2007; Ereshefsky, 2010). One reason for this is the common asexuality of prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and protists (single- to few-celled eukaryotes), which drops them out of this definition (Dupré, 2007, p. 20; O'Malley, 2014, p. 72). Similarly, lateral gene transfer (synonymously: horizontal gene transfer), which is common in microbes, has ‘enormous consequences for the notion of species and tree of life’ (Ibid.: 81; Lateral gene transfer [LGT] is in direct contrast to vertical gene transfer, as occurs in sexual reproduction. In LGT, genes are not passed along a lineage to offspring, but from one existing organism into another existing organism). Microbes raise the question, important for the philosophy of biology but also for ecology and biodiversity conservation, of which species concept can be meaningful and whether it is not the most convincing solution to apply different species concepts for life forms as different as Vibrio cholerae (cholera bacteria) and Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Giant Panda). Furthermore, microbes question our notion of an individual (For an overview of the philosophical landscape regarding concepts of biological individuality cf. Pradeu, 2016). If myriads of microbes live in and on us and substantially influence our body functions, how can we perceive ourselves as individuals? What does it mean for concepts of individuality and even more for concepts of autonomy, if microbes (meaning other living beings) directly influence our physical health and psychic well-being? Furthermore, if we as humans not only depend on the biosphere as an external environment but also highly depend on the microbes living in and on our bodies, how can we dare to perpetuate moral anthropocentrism? (Moral anthropocentrism ascribes an inherent moral value only to human beings, meaning that only humans are directly morally considerable so-called ends-in-themselves. It needs to be distinguished from methodological anthropocentrism that states that we as humans can only argue from a human perspective, never from the perspective of any other species). It is not within the scope of this paper to answer highly controversial questions like this (for more detailed discussions, cf. Kopnina et al., 2018; Rees et al., 2018; Zwart, 2010). However, they highlight how microbes challenge concepts within science and the humanities and, with this, underpin the scientific value that can be attributed to these tiny living beings.

The value of the microbial world for the lives of other living beings is also demonstrated by the following values—transformative value, religious/spiritual value, existence value and aesthetic value–which we interpret as being merely eudaimonistic. We argue that these values all relate to questions of the good life but in ways that go well beyond an instrumental understanding. Of course, things we use instrumentally, such as cars or beer co-produced by microbes, can also contribute to our good life by providing convenient mobility or good taste and cultural significance in some societies. But the values we discuss here contribute to a good life at the level of ‘providing meaning’ or ‘influencing our very being’ and thus go far beyond any instrumental value.

Within the environmental humanities, the term transformative value is often understood as a value attributed to nature because by directly experiencing nature, people are transformed into ‘nature lovers’ who subsequently also want to protect nature (cf. Norton, 1987; Ott, 2007, p. 116). In this sense, nature has a transforming effect on people, and this transforming power should be valued positively. However, encounters and experiences with microbes do not happen for most people in such a way that one can encounter and experience certain natural areas. They are not visible without technical support, and the influence they have on our bodies (as well as on animals, processes, etc.) can be understood—if at all—primarily on an intellectual level, not on the level of direct encounter. However, we want to emphasize that microbes transform us, indeed. Microbes turn humans into multispecies beings. They have been doing this since the beginning of human existence (cf. Hird, 2009), which is why the concept of transformation can be transformed here itself. On the one hand, we are not transformed into multispecies beings within our lifespan; we are multispecies beings from the beginning regarding our microbiome. On the other hand, microbes transform us in some way throughout our lives when they cause or cure diseases (cf. Dietert & Dietert, 2015), influence our behaviour, impact our weight, etc. This transformation occurs not only on a direct bodily but also on an intellectual level. On an intellectual level, scholars increasingly recognize that we live in very close symbiosis with microbes. They live in and on us (One might argue that a transformation can also take place on a political level. The political level is affected because accepting these close entanglements should—as we would argue—help societies all over the world to overcome the dominant anthropocentric paradigm. Such an overcoming of anthropocentrism would lead to a modification of many social areas in which we currently use other living beings as means to human ends [cf. for many Blattner, 2020]). In our sense, this transformative value is an eudaimonistic value. It contributes to the good life to perceive oneself as interwoven with others and to wish to preserve the web of life accordingly instead of seeing oneself as an isolated being who values others primarily for instrumental reasons.

Religious or spiritual values are often also eudaimonistic values, especially for those who choose and engage in their faith voluntarily. One can attribute religious/spiritual value to microbes in two respects. On the one hand, they are responsible for producing or helping to shape certain natural areas, processes or entities that (can) have religious or spiritual value for groups of people. Some places, processes or entities that are objects of religious or spiritual appreciation would not exist without microbes. On the other hand, the entanglements between humans and ‘their’ microbes highlight the connection of humans (with God as well as with other living beings) important for some theological theories (cf. Kunnen & Carlson, 2017) and lead, for example, Christian theologists to ask the question ‘what does it mean to be a human created in the image of God in light of the microbiome?’ (Hill, 2020, p. 39).

Existence value is attributed to an individual, an entity or an entirety based on their existence alone, without any other reasons. Regarding microbes, it is difficult to leave all other arguments out of an evaluation of these life forms. On the one hand, most people who do not deal with microorganisms professionally (or privately) probably find it difficult to grasp the value of the mere existence of these living beings. On the other hand, microbes and (their impact on) other living beings and ‘nature’ are so deeply entangled that it seems difficult to value them for their mere existence alone. Accordingly, evaluating their existence is strongly related to the values already mentioned. Their existence is evaluated positively, for example, because they are important for beer production or for the functioning of our intestines; they influence our psyche and generate natural beauty like the Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. The fact that they are essential for all life on the planet makes it difficult not to appreciate their existence. However, this is still related to their ‘services’ or the benefits they create (The existence of some microbial species might of course also be evaluated negatively, especially in cases of pathogenic microbes. We understand valuing as ‘attributing importance, or relevance’ [Deplazes-Zemp & Chapman, 2021]. This could be a relevance that is evaluated negatively. However, investigating this is a very complex endeavour. While microbes such as the SARS-Cov-19 virus are likely to be perceived only negatively, other [potentially] pathogenic microbes may be evaluated more nuanced. Indeed, biologists and ecologists may view some diseases as positive if they help maintain ‘strong’ populations of certain animals). Going beyond that, it can be assumed that, indeed, people who value the mere existence of microbes exist, which is why we think it is useful to list this value separately. Further, we argue that this value is relational and, in our understanding of relational values, an eudaimonistic value (cf. Section 2.1.) rather than an intrinsic value. Valuing the existence of someone or something is relationally linked to the person who values it; therefore, it does not correspond to an intrinsic value, which, detached from relations, simply lies in the other being or entity, as we understand the intrinsic value here.

The last value we want to discuss is the aesthetic value of microorganisms. Microbes can be considered valuable in aesthetic ways. The aesthetic value as an eudaimonistic value has gained wide interest in environmental studies (Plato & Meskin, 2014). Since the 1960s, the field of environmental aesthetics, which was established as a counterpart to the concepts in line with Kantian Naturästhetik, has focused on emphasizing the aesthetic value of nature. The aesthetic value of microbes can, on the one hand, be related to the generation of ‘Naturschöne’. Microbes generate natural beauty, such as the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, known worldwide for their impressive beauty. The bright colours of the springs are created by the presence of microbes but are valued in the first place as beautiful by humans for the visual pleasure they provide to them. The concept of the ‘Naturschöne’ is a central element of aesthetic theory, with Immanuel Kant as its prominent intellectual pioneer. However, the ‘Naturschöne’ that is ‘natural beauty’ in the broadest sense is created by nature but can (only) be perceived by humans, and thus enables the appreciation of microorganisms beyond the context of health and disease.

On the other hand, there is much more to explore regarding the aesthetic values of the microbial world. Viewing microbes as aesthetically valuable only in terms of their contribution to the ‘Naturschöne’ would be a reduction. There are many examples in which microbes and humans together form something aesthetically valuable, making human–microbe collaboration, which often remains unseen, sensually perceptible. Since the aesthetic value of microbes is not as ‘self-explanatory’ as, for example, its contribution to support life or ecological function, in the following, we use an example from poetry to illustrate this extraordinary way of (literally) getting in touch with the microbial realm. By focusing on a poetic approach to the microbiome and enriching our value analysis with a literary studies perspective, we want (i) to highlight that art (including poetry) can serve as an archive, a mirror and a seismograph for pressing societal questions, like the ones linked to our human microbiome and (ii) to provide an example of how microbes are a fascinating research area for humanities research areas seldomly connected with the study of microorganisms, as we call for more (interdisciplinary) academic engagement with the microbial world from all disciplines.

The possibilities of aesthetically valuing microbes are key to the literary work of the Canadian poet and professor of poetry, Adam Dickinson. His poetry collection Anatomic (Dickinson, 2018) is a highly complex and interdisciplinary challenging assemblage of ‘a long poem in sections, called ‘Hormone’, [that] runs throughout, with the chemical and microbial poems floating in amongst these streaming segments’ (Dickinson, 2018, p. 145). The basis of the collection was the exact monitoring of the microbes, hormones, chemicals, etc., which surrounded and circulated through bodies and left traces in the author's body itself. He sent samples of his blood, sweat, urine and faeces to collaborating laboratories for detailed analysis since ‘[b]eing able to read the chemicals and microbes in bodily fluids means being able to read the writing of the Anthropocene’ (Ibid.: 143). In doing so, he literally deciphers the close entanglements between microbes and humans that are also emphasized more and more in recent scientific studies. Dickinson's texts demonstrate that often potentially dangerous elements that seem to penetrate our bodies from the outside are first released into the environment by humans themselves (like lead, arsenic, etc.) and that many of the potentially pathogenic microbes are not pathogenic per se, but only become dangerous in combination with certain human (mis)conducts (Casadevall & Pirofski, 2014).

I wear multinational companies in my flesh. But I also wear symbiotic and parasitic relationships with countless nonhumans who insist for their reasons on making me human…I am an event, a site within which the industrial powers and evolutionary pressures of my time come to write. I am a spectacular and horrifying crowd. (Dickinson, 2018, p. 9)

However, Dickinson's endeavour to generate aesthetic value from microbes, even in the face of their potentially life-threatening capacity, underpins the arguments that there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ living beings (Beck, 2021).

3 DISCUSSION: THE NEED FOR A MICROBIAL ETHICS

To overcome such binary perspectives on microbes, make substantial claims about how human–microbe relations should be framed and find answers to the complex questions of how we should treat (all the different forms of) microbes, microbial ethics is needed.

As a normative ethical approach, with its central task of evaluating actions and social practices to distinguish morally right and wrong actions/practices, microbial ethics must answer the question of what is morally right or wrong to do with microbes or how to treat them. It must also answer the question of what social practices are morally right or wrong concerning the microbial world and thereby address how morally good, or at least welcome, human-microbe relations might be shaped.

Therefore, microbial ethics, as we understand it, is a tool for orienting the actions of individuals and social practices toward microbes. This can give us a normative orientation for practice in two regards. First, we need to discuss how to ethically evaluate actions or social practices that affect microbes, and second, how to build human-microbe relations that do justice to the manifold different entanglements between humans and microbes without being (too) undifferentiated. Microbes are neither ‘bad pathogens’ nor ‘helpful microorganisms’ (cf. Beck, 2021; we elaborate more on that in Höll & Bossert, 2022b). Some of them are harmful or beneficial to human health and well-being, whereas one microbial species can be harmful to certain humans but not to others, depending on the bodily condition of thehuman. Therefore, a lot of knowledge is needed to evaluate human–microbe relations and human actions toward the microbial world ina differentiated way. To establish responsible relations towards and responsible treatment of microbes, sufficient knowledge is needed, as well as the willingness and possibility to establish responsible relations and treatment (cf. West et al., 2018, p. 31, who discuss this in terms of stewardship for the natural world; What we refer to as ‘willingness to establish responsible relations’, West et al., 2018 refer to as care, and what we refer to as ‘possibility to establish responsible relations’ West et al., 2018 call agency. The concepts of care and agency encompass much more, so we have not used them here, although we think they will be useful for further research on a microbial ethics), leading more people to ask the important question ‘who do we invite and who do we overlook when we meet the other in ethical encounters’ (Hird, 2010, p. 38). However, since not every individual will be able to acquire this large amount of necessary knowledge, a theory of microbial ethics can provide normative guidance for everyone if it is transferred to and discussed within societies.

When establishing such a microbial ethics, many lessons can be learned from approaches in plant ethics (e.g. Burgat, 2020) since plants and microbes have in common that they differ in many ways from humans and other animals. When arguing how to treat microbes ethically right or wrong, there will be even more conflicts of interest than in the same cases for animals alone or animals and plants. Therefore, arguments and/or principles are needed for how to act in such cases of conflicting interests and which interests should be prioritized. This includes arguments for balancing conflicting interests. In particular, the enormous diversity of microbes (species) and their specific characteristics make this balancing an extremely complex undertaking. The development of a microbial ethics—understood as a coherent and consistent normative theory—is a research gap that should be urgently addressed. The values we present in this paper show that there are good reasons to aim for more responsible human-microbe relations. As such, we believe that they serve as a valuable starting point for developing a normative theory of microbial ethics.

4 CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN–MICROBE RELATIONS

Here, we provided an analysis of the various values that (can) exist in relation to microbes, thereby introducing a non-exhaustive list of nine different values (direct use value, life support value, ecological function value, scientific value (including knowledge production value), transformative value, religious or spiritual value, existence value and aesthetic value). As the list of values is open, we invite researchers from the environmental humanities, social sciences, microbiology, ecology and related disciplines to extend the list and further investigate the values that exist with respect to microorganisms.

We went into more detail about the aesthetic value than the other values, and we have introduced it–in addition to the concept of ‘Naturschöne’—by means of an example from poetry. This slight deepening of the aesthetic value is due to the aspect that art can serve as an archive, a mirror, and a seismograph for pressing societal questions. These pressing societal questions include (i) the threat of a—as the World Health Organization (2020) names it—‘silent pandemic’ of antibiotic resistance that occurs due to a problematic treatment of microorganisms, (ii) the danger of collapsing soil microbiomes (Singh et al., 2023) that may influence agriculture, as well as (iii) the overarching normative question of how to cohabitate the planet with other living beings in a more sustainable way to, among others, prevent an even greater loss of biodiversity.

Furthermore, this discussion of the aesthetic value of microbes demonstrates how a focus on the value of microbes can serve as a critical lens to open up new perspectives on, new understandings of, and new dispositions towards microbes (Thanks to Beth Greenhough for pointing this out). If we move away from the binary thinking about microbes in terms of ‘good’ (probiotic) and ‘bad’ (pathogens) microbes and recognize their contributions to aesthetic works—as well as to the production of knowledge and in the context of the other values discussed here—this may allow us to relate to them in different ways.

To address the pressing social questions mentioned above, we think a microbial ethics, analogous to animal or plant ethics, is urgently needed. We provided first thoughts on what such ethics need to consider, calling for a much more nuanced perspective on microbes and our actions and social practices toward them.

When arguing how to treat microbes ethically right or wrong, there will be even more conflicts of interest than in the same cases for animals and plants. Therefore, arguments and/or principles are needed for how to act in such cases of conflicting interests. We think the values outlined here can provide a good basis for developing such arguments and/or principles. Even if the investigation of a possible prioritization of values or their actual occurrence in different societies remains a research gap, these values give first indications of the variety of reasons why microbes should be valued positively. Accordingly, we have good reasons to treat them in an ethically appropriate way and to investigate further what that way should be.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Both authors jointly had the idea for this paper. Leonie N. Bossert drafted most of the first version of Chapter 2, and Davina Höll drafted most of the first version of Chapter 1. Both authors jointly drafted the first version of Chapters 3 and 4. Both authors jointly revised the manuscript.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors warmly thank Kai Chan, Rachelle Gould, Beth Greenhough, Simon West and Anna Wienhues for very helpful and constructive feedback on an earlier version of this paper and Niklas Schwarz and Malin Recknagel for technical support.

FUNDING INFORMATION

None.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors have no financial or competing interests to declare.

Open Research

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

No data has been collected for this paper.

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Volume7, Issue4

April 2025

Pages 804-814

On the values of microbes: An ethical investigation of relational values associated with the microbial world

Abstract

Zusammenfassung

1 INTRODUCTION

2 VALUES REGARDING MICROBES

2.1 Different value categories

2.2 Values for and of microbes

3 DISCUSSION: THE NEED FOR A MICROBIAL ETHICS

4 CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN–MICROBE RELATIONS

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FUNDING INFORMATION

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

Open Research

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

REFERENCES

Figures

References

Information

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On the values of microbes: An ethical investigation of relational values associated with the microbial world

Abstract

Zusammenfassung

1 INTRODUCTION

2 VALUES REGARDING MICROBES

2.1 Different value categories

2.2 Values for and of microbes

3 DISCUSSION: THE NEED FOR A MICROBIAL ETHICS

4 CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN–MICROBE RELATIONS

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FUNDING INFORMATION

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

Open Research

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

REFERENCES

Figures

References

Related

Information