is there or isn’t there?

There is a distinction in kind between the organic and the inorganic. There is a distinction in kind between plants and animals. There is a debate about whether or not there is a distinction in kind between human beings and the rest of the life forms.

An implication of the idea of the Anthropocene Era might lend toward considering humans as a species possessing a qualitative differentiation. The discourse of most religions has that intimation.

E. F. Schumacher had a religious orientation and he asserted the distinctiveness of humanity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_for_the_Perplexed

In that book, the one he considered his magnum opus, he distinguished: Inorganic Matter, Plant, Animal, Human. He argued that there are important differences of kind between each “level of being.”

Between mineral and plant is the phenomenon of life. Schumacher says that although scientists say we should not use the phrase ‘life force,’ the difference exists and has not been explained by science. [I believe it can’t be and never will be explained by science.] He points out that though we can recognize life and destroy it, we can’t create it. He directs our attention to the fact that science has generally avoided seriously discussing these discontinuities, because they present such difficulties for strictly materialistic science, and they largely remain mysteries.

He discusses the animal model of humanity which has grown popular in science. Schumacher notes that within the humanities the distinction between consciousness and self-consciousness is not fully appreciated as a qualitative difference. Consequently, people have become increasingly uncertain about whether there is any difference between animals and humans. His thinking then goes in a religious direction. The way he talks about human self-consciousness intimates a touch of the divine. And he says there isn’t any scientific evidence for a level of being above it, contenting himself with the observation that this has been the universal conviction of all major religions. Above it is only that vague conception humans, uniquely, have sensed as a deity.

A practical consideration of this kind of philosophizing is whether or not humans will be able to settle back into being good ecological citizens of the community of nature. Can our self-consciousness manifest in ecological intelligence? Any dumb species will strive for population bloom when there is an abundance of nutrients and an absence of predators. There is evidence that aboriginal humans often practiced population control. During the aberrant period we call “civilization” we lost our bearings in that respect and the resultant population bloom now contributes to the modern crisis. If we precipitate an ecological cataclysm and it results in the extinction of our species, the story will seem to argue against the idea of a distinction in kind.