Conservation Ethics

This chapter introduces topical issues in the ethical debate on speciesism. It does so against a background of the history of the debate and with an emphasis on concerns that arise at the intersection of speciesism and science. The term speciesism was coined in the 1970s by Richard Rider and popularized by Peter Singer, who defined speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of (...) other species.” Critiques of speciesism are undergirded by the principle that comparable interests should be given equal consideration, regardless of species-membership. To what extent the interests of humans and non-humans are comparable, however, has been a matter of contention and is partly beholden to empirical findings. Diverging opinions on this matter have given rise to a variety of more and less species-egalitarian views, often paired with rivalling accounts of “moral status”. A minority of ethicists have explicitly defended speciesism or some version thereof, including Bernard Williams and, more recently, Shelly Kagan. Apart from the back-and-forths between critics and defenders, the speciesism debate has transformed over the last decade, in three respects. First, discourse on animal ethics has witnessed a “political turn”, moving away from analyses of moral status and towards discussions of human-animal relations in interspecies societies. Secondly, apart from anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging humans over non-humans, there has been an increasing interest in non-anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging some non-human species over others. Thirdly, speciesism has been endorsed as a prominent topic in the new, activist-leaning research field of Critical Animal Studies, and has recently garnered substantial attention from psychologists. As these disciplinary changes and conceptual refinements suggest, half a century after its coinage, speciesism continues to be an important scholarly and ethical concept whose history is still in the making. (shrink)

Moral hazard occurs when the presence or promise of a new technology or policy reduces incentives for responsible behaviour, because the consequences of risky behaviour are perceived to be reduced, transferred, or mitigated. Moral hazard risk has been widely empirically investigated in the case of geoengineering for climate change, but other novel technologies have not been subject to such scrutiny. Ever since de-extinction was announced to the public as a viable possibility with modern biotechnology, a series of commentators have argued (...) that the promise of de-extinction will create a moral hazard. The thought is that extinction has been perceived as permanent. Any change in this belief, such as the idea that species can be brought back, potentially undermines the motivation for current conservation efforts. This is an empirical claim that we investigate. Our study assesses the public's support for conservation in scenarios that promise the use of de-extinction to address actions that are likely to cause extinction. We did not find that people were more likely to accept the extinction of a species if its de-extinction was promised in the future. We did, however, find an association between extinction acceptance and judgments that de-extinction could successfully resurrect species. The findings of this study represent a crucial step in assessing the risks novel biotechnology creates. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers' attention has been draw to science done in response to ongoing crises, such as natural disasters, pandemics, or climate change. In this paper, I argue that extant accounts of crisis science, which understand it as merely faster science, are reductive and oversimplified. Instead, I characterize crisis science as a qualitatively distinct phase of science that incorporates a variety of temporal and causal scales and addresses unique communicative challenges. This fuller account of the phenomenon is then detailed with respect (...) to what some contend is the archetypal crisis science, conservation biology. (shrink)

The overarching issue addressed in Catia Faria’s Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature is ‘the problem of wild animal suffering in nature: Ought we to prevent,...

There have recently been calls to incorporate empathy and compassion into human relationships with nature. A new, emotionally grounded moral framework has also been proposed for nature conservation. “Compassionate conservation” holds that animals should be treated as individuals and should not be harmed even in the context of conservation. However, according to many conservation biologists, empirical research does not support the ideas of compassionate conservation—which, in their view, are not ultimately very compassionate. On the contrary, numerous biologists consider compassionate conservation (...) to be harmful to both biodiversity and animal welfare. For example, Don A. Driscoll and Maggie J. Watson argue that “the outcome of applying a compassionate conservation priority is likely to be increased land degradation, species extinctions, biotic homogenization, and in many cases, increased animal suffering.” The debate represents a new manifestation of a long-standing tension between conservation biology and the animal rights movement, in which the former prioritizes the status of endangered species and their habitats, while the latter emphasizes the welfare of individual animals. In the future, conflicts can be expected to intensify as human impacts on ecosystems grow and our understanding of animals’ cognitive and emotional capacities deepens. (shrink)

Human nature is a puzzling matter that must be analysed through a holistic lens. In this essay, I foray into anthropology's biosocial dimensions to underscore that human relations span from microorganisms to global systems. I argue that the future of social-cultural anthropology depends on the integration of evolutionary theory for its advancement. Ultimately, since the likelihood of novel zoonoses' emergence, digital ethnography could offer remarkable opportunities for ethical and responsible inquiries.

The use of genetic engineering is increasingly discussed for nature conservation. At the same time, recent animal ethics approaches debate whether humans should genetically engineer wild animals to improve their welfare. This paper examines if obligations towards wild sentient animals require humans to genetically engineering wild animals, while arguing that there is no moral need to do so. The focus is on arguments from animal ethics, but they are linked to conservation ethics, highlighting the often neglected overlap between the two (...) fields. The paper emphasizes that a) the benefits of genetic engineering are overestimated and at the same time harms from its development and use underestimated, b) the assumption that genetic engineering is an appropriate ‘last resort’ tool is wrong, c) many arguments in favor of genetic engineering are based on an inadequate understanding of ecology and biotechnological processes, and d) the debate downplays the importance of self-determination for wild animals. (shrink)

Jay Odenbaugh contends that while killing barred owls to protect northern spotted owls is ideally impermissible, non-ideal circumstances justify lethal removal to protect old-growth forests partly...

In this Comment, we critique the growing “AI welfare” movement and propose a novel guideline, the Precarity Guideline, to determine care entitlement. In contrast to approaches that emphasize potential for suffering, the Precarity Guideline is grounded in empirically identifiable features. The severity of ongoing humanitarian crises, biodiversity loss, and climate change provides additional reasons to prioritize the needs of living beings over machine learning algorithms as candidates for care.

This paper examines the role of interspecies communication in the pursuit of coexistence with wolves returning to the Netherlands. Low-conflict coexistence with wolves in densely populated countries calls for an abandonment of the traditional culture-nature dichotomy. Moreover, it requires that humans learn to understand the wolf’s needs and ways perceiving the world, and engage in a ‘negotiation process’ with wolves about how to share the landscape. However, the mere knowledge of how other beings perceive the world does not suffice; it (...) might even lead to a more controlling human attitude towards wildlife. Sharing landscapes with resurging wolves in a more ‘meaningful’ or ‘convivial’ way, requires a willingness to co-adapt and recognize wolves as beings with agency and a legitimate claim to space. A mutual learning process is needed, in which humans and nonhumans both can learn how to thrive, and how to avoid unnecessary conflicts in a shared landscape. (shrink)

This paper addresses the stalemate on the question whether biodiversity has intrinsic value. I distinguish between a “weak” conception and two “strong” conceptions of intrinsic value in the environmental ethics literature. The strong conceptions of intrinsic value are connected, respectively, to moral standing and to a strongly objectivist account of value. Neither of these forms of value likely applies to biodiversity. However, the weak conception of intrinsic value is neutral about both moral standing and the nature of value and plausibly (...) applies to biodiversity. In addition, weak intrinsic value avoids common objections to the claim that biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. I develop a cumulative argument showing that environmentalists should presume that biodiversity has intrinsic value in the weak sense. (shrink)

In ‘Should We Kill One Owl to Save Another?’ Jay Odenbaugh argues that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should begin to execute their Final Barred Owl Management Strategy (FBOMS). Per FBOMS, up t...

This paper illustrates a theoretical gap that arises in the relationship between theorizing global justice and local biodiversity conservation practices: the ‘global duties – local burdens problem’. This problem arises if one’s account of just-burden sharing (who is attributed the responsibility to carry the burdens of biodiversity protection) and the geographic realities (who would be burdened by conservation measures in practice) do not match up. That involves two difficulties: (1) a conceptual problem arising from the incongruity between the currency of (...) justice in the global-abstract and the local-particular; and (2) a moral concern about the cultural costs at stake. (shrink)

The subject of interspecies justice has been gaining increasing attention, but accounts of the respective responsibilities for realising interspecies justice have largely been lacking by comparison. That is, who holds which duties and what do these duties require in different contexts? Against the background of this broader research area, this paper makes some headway on this theoretical desideratum by elaborating on the different levels of burden sharing for distributive interspecies justice within the context of just habitat conservation. This paper thereby (...) builds on an account of interspecies justice concerning the just distribution of ecological space in order to elaborate on two principal scenarios of burden sharing which are not mutually exclusive but layered: (1) the burdens of maintaining interspecies justice once distributive justice is achieved; and (2) the burdens of lessening and ultimately eliminating interspecies injustices. Based on three different circumstances of scarcity and two sustainability requirements, two kinds of burdens and respective responsibilities are distinguished in this context: conservation and transition costs. (shrink)

This article explores how time-related metaphors frame advanced cryopreservation technologies in environmental conservation. Cryopreservation “stops” or “freezes” biological time and “buys time” desperately needed to preserve species and ecosystems. We advance a framing of these technologies as logistical, highlighting how they create opportunities to shift materials, knowledge, and decision-making power through space and time. As logistical technologies, advanced cryopreservation techniques require active planning in the present rather than deferring responsibility and accountability to the future.

Existing predominant approaches within virtue ethics (VE) assume humans as the typical agent and virtues as dispositions that pertain primarily to human–human interpersonal relationships. Similarly, the main accounts in the more specific area of environmental virtue ethics (EVE) tend to support weak anthropocentric positions, in which virtues are understood as excellent dispositions of human agents. In addition, however, several EVE authors have also considered virtues that benefit non-human beings and entities (e.g., environmental or ecological virtues). The latter correspond to excellent (...) character dispositions that would extend moral consideration and care for the benefit of non-human beings, entities, or entire ecosystems. In this direction, a few authors have argued that EVE could be considered non-anthropocentric insofar as it could: (a) promote non-human ends, well-being, and the flourishing of non-human beings and entities; (b) involve significant relations to non-humans. Drawing from different traditions, including ecofeminism and care ethics, we argue for a broader notion of self and a decentered notion of virtues. The broader notion of selfhood corresponds to the “ecological self”, one that can be enacted by both human and non-human beings, is embedded in a network of relations, and recognizes the more-than-human world as fundamental and yet indispensable otherness. We suggest that this broader notion of agency allows for an expansive understanding of virtues that includes a-moral functional ecological virtues, which can be exercised not only by humans but also by certain non-human beings. This alternative understanding of selfhood and ecological virtues within EVE could have several theoretical and practical implications, some of which may enable different types of agencies and transform collective action. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain why people seeking to flourish together fairly in the im- perfect world we share today ought to support a universal carbon tax with no exception for international aviation. The argument proceeds in four steps. First, I provide a free-standing analysis of emissions behavior at the individual moral level. Second, I offer a picture of ideal and non-ideal coordination based mostly on Kantian social contract theory. Third, I argue that in a non-ideal context, moral signals about (...) right relation offer a coordinating fulcrum around which meaningful if only partly coordinated action is possible. Fourth, I apply these conclusions to the case of aviation exceptionalism, focusing especially on instances of incomplete, overlapping, partly coordinated climate actions. I conclude that these arguments together amount to a case for reversing the Chicago Convention and applying a universal carbon tax that does not exclude international flights, ending aviation exceptionalism. (shrink)

This book further develops the interventionist literature on wild animal suffering using different theoretical frameworks, including some that have never previously been used to ground our positive duties to wild animals.------------Though we’ve always known that the wild is a nasty place where predators lethally attack prey, only recently have most animal ethicists come to realize that most wild animals fail to flourish. In fact, what we know about wild animal reproduction suggests that the majority of sentient beings born into the (...) world may not even live lives worth living. It’s not unreasonable for one to initially respond to the above with a sense of depressed resignation, but a growing number of ethicists believe that we both can and should intervene. The purpose of this book is to further develop the interventionist literature by bringing together philosophers who agree that we have significant duties to help wild animals, but who use different theoretical frameworks, or who disagree about the details, e.g., about the reasons that ground our obligations to help wild animals, about how those obligations should be classified, about the content of our obligations, about the means we should use to fulfill our obligations, etc.------------This book will be an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers and students of animal ethics, animal welfare, environmental ethics, philosophy, and sustainability. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment. (shrink)

Compassionate conservation is an ethical framework proposed to instill greater compassion for individual animals in conservation science and practice. In addition to highlighting compassion as a virtue, compassionate conservationists propose four ethical principles (first do no harm, individuals matter, inclusivity, and peaceful coexistence) to capture what it means to act compassionately in conservation. In this paper I argue for a revision of this framework. I begin by showing how compassionate conservationists also implicitly promote the virtue of respect, which better accounts (...) for the principles individuals matter and inclusivity, yet entails a further principle: respect for autonomy. I further suggest that, to reflect genuine compassion for wild animals, the principles first, do no harm and peaceful coexistence should be replaced by empathy, understanding, and minimize harm. In the second half of the paper, I discuss the implications of this revised framework. I argue that, due to the prevalence of suffering even in well-conserved ecosystems, compassion and respect motivate a more active management of natural environments in order to reduce the harms (natural and anthropogenic) that wild animals face. This reveals a greater need for discussions on how to balance the flourishing of wild animals against the preservation of biodiversity, as well as a need to identify new approaches to conservation which better promote both ends. (shrink)

This work used the cosmological neuroscientific concept of Soul of Multiverse for placing the problem of wildlife and biodiversity protection into a new philosophical environment where religious, scientific and philosophical approaches are in harmony. It resulted in the thought that the obligation of protecting wildlife and biodiversity on Earth, just as the sanctity of caring for all human lives, originated in cosmic laws set in the divine blueprints of the Soul of Multiverse. These laws seem to relay that in the (...) 21st century the time has come on Earth to stop killing animals for food, to stop overhunting and overfishing, to stop industrial activities responsible for deforestation, desertification, air pollution and climate change, and to run animal experiments for science and medicine only in the extremely limited, most justified cases and only until new technologies make them no longer necessary. The conclusion was that to achieve these goals, new global governing mechanisms are needed. Specifically, the establishment of a Government of Earth, the next step of the political process that started with the United Nations in the first place, may be necessary to solve the global problems of wildlife and biodiversity protection since meaningful solutions for global problems require global governing mechanisms. (shrink)

A family heirloom. An endangered species. An ancient piece of pottery. A threatened language. These things differ in myriad ways, but they are tied together by a common thread: they are all examples of things that call out to be saved. The world is brimming with things worth saving, and we have limited time and resources. How do we decide what to save? Why do we make these choices? Philosopher Erich Hatala Matthes explores these questions as they surface in radically (...) diverse contexts--from museums to TikTok, and from National Parks to the corner of your attic. Matthes illustrates the deep relationship between the things we might save and our sense of self. If our cares and concerns are a fundamental part of our identity, then what we care for and preserve will play a significant role in shaping and maintaining our understanding of who we are. In a world in which everything that we care about is subject to powerful forces of change--from climate disturbance and armed conflict, to social transformation and the wear and tear of time--the terms on which we confront change will be key to whether and how we can save the things we care about in the ways that really matter to us. Will change be foisted upon us? Or is there a role for us to play in rejecting, influencing, or managing change? As he explores these questions, Matthes tackles related themes such as authenticity, agency, and appropriation: Who exactly should be responsible for saving things, and on whose behalf should such efforts be pursued? These are all essential elements to a fuller understanding of what to save and why. (shrink)

Informed by his experiences as a hunter, forester, wildlife manager, ecologist, conservationist, and professor, Aldo Leopold developed a view he called the land ethic. In a classic essay, published posthumously in A Sand County Almanac, Leopold advocated for an expansion of our ethical obligations beyond the purely human to include what he variously termed the “land community” or the “biotic community”—communities of interdependent humans, nonhuman animals, plants, soils, and waters, understood collectively. This philosophy has been extremely influential in environmental ethics (...) as well as conservation biology and related fields. Using an approach grounded in environmental ethics and the history and philosophy of science, Roberta L. Millstein reexamines Leopold’s land ethic in light of contemporary ecology. Despite the enormous influence of the land ethic, it has sometimes been dismissed as either empirically out of date or ethically flawed. Millstein argues that these dismissals are based on problematic readings of Leopold’s ideas. In this book, she provides new interpretations of the central concepts underlying the land ethic: interdependence, land community, and land health. She also offers a fresh take on of his argument for extending our ethics to include land communities as well as Leopold-inspired guidelines for how the land ethic can steer conservation and restoration policy. (shrink)

This is just the list of references for _The Land Is Our Community_.

This is a chapter in _The Land Is Our Community_. This chapter begins with an overview of Aldo Leopold’s conception of interdependence, a central concept for his land ethic. This characterization prompts a series of questions: Are humans included in communities of interdependent parts? (Yes). Does interdependence consist only of “positive” causal interactions, or are “negative” interactions included as well? (Both are included). What makes an interaction “positive” or “negative”? (It’s complicated, variable, and context-dependent). What entities are involved in causal (...) interactions, and what do the interactions affect? (There are direct and indirect interactions between organisms, populations, and abiotic features). The answers to these questions lead to some interim suggestions for how we should understand interdependence; these are further refined in response to possible objections. The overall goal is to produce a defensible conception of interdependence that is as Leopoldian as possible (that is, that draws on his known views on interdependence, seeking to make explicit what is sometimes implicit) while keeping it conceptually coherent and consistent with contemporary ecological findings. The chapter concludes with a proposal for the concept of interdependence for the land ethic that, given Leopold’s influence, should also be relevant for related areas such as conservation biology, forestry, wildlife management, and restoration ecology. (shrink)

This is a chapter in the book _The Land Is Our Community_. This chapter begins with a brief overview of Aldo Leopold’s life and his influence. It then makes the case for why Leopold’s land ethic should be reinterpreted, including a discussion of the ways in which some existing interpretations are problematic and should be rejected. An overview of the book is provided, including short chapter summaries. Leopold’s writings melded his scientific knowledge, his hands-on practical experience, his breadth of expertise (...) across conservation subfields, and his respect for the natural world. In his posthumously published A Sand County Almanac (ASCA) as a whole and in the essay “The Land Ethic” in particular, he sought to inspire not only action but reflection, recognizing that values drive actions and that facts alone would not be sufficient for conservation. But ASCA did not come out of nowhere; it came from a lifetime of his own reflections that resulted in hundreds of written works produced for a variety of audiences: scientific, practical, and political. Too often Leopold has been read as though he were a philosopher writing to other philosophers, with the consequence that some of Leopold’s prose that was meant to be emotionally evocative was instead interpreted by philosophers in a strictly literal fashion. (shrink)

This is a chapter in _The Land Is Our Community_. If the arguments of previous chapters have been successful, then the land ethic is a defensible basis for our actions. But can it also be a guide for our environmental policies? Using Aldo Leopold’s own policy-related activities and his stated reflections on them to elaborate what he called the “Principle of Integration of Land Uses,” this chapter show how Leopold sought to bring together many different interests, values, and perspectives (and (...) their corresponding methods) to cooperate rather than compete—to find harmonious and balanced solutions to particular issues while accepting the common purpose that makes all other interests possible: namely, the health of the land. Subprinciples further spell out this Leopoldian policy process, which does not dictate any particular type of outcome. The two biggest challenges of implementing these subprinciples are elaborated and addressed: the challenge of balancing values and interests and the challenge of incorporating land health into policy. Other potential issues of concern are also addressed, such as the question of the extent to which humans should take an active role in maintaining “natural areas,” the extent to which Leopold was committed to setting aside “wilderness,” and whether the Leopold-inspired policy process is substantive enough to provide guidance. (shrink)

This is a chapter in _The Land Is Our Community_. Various life experiences convinced Aldo Leopold that most land he had seen was not healthy. Although he was still working on a land health concept at the time of his death, he had come to see land health—the topic of this chapter—as the capacity for the land’s self-renewal. Underlying that capacity, Leopold believed, was the complex web of food chains (made up of species interactions and resulting interdependencies) arranged in a (...) metaphorical land pyramid, with energy and nutrients flowing up the pyramid from the soil and eventually returning to the soil. Leopold hypothesized that, with longer food chains, land communities could persist—sustain biodiverse land communities for longer periods of time—because nutrients would be bound up in organisms rather than in the soil, where they were always at risk of loss through wind or water erosion. Leopold’s ideas are consonant with a number of contemporary approaches to debates over biodiversity and stability and suggest paths for further understanding and study. Leopold’s land health concept is both philosophically and scientifically significant: it shows how land communities can be morally considerable and provides a lens through which to assess whether land communities need protection, restoration, or other human interventions. (shrink)

This a chapter in the book _The Land Is Our Community_. This chapter reconstructs and defends Aldo Leopold’s main argument for the land ethic (and also some of his less central yet important arguments in favor of it). Leopold’s main argument for the land ethic is an argument from consistency; it rests upon seeing that most people already accept the basic principles on which a land ethic can be justified. That is, once we examine what justifies and grounds our human (...) ethics, and once we understand land communities properly (Chapter 3), we should see that the same principles justify and ground extending obligations to the land. Leopold thought that interdependence (Chapter 2) was the basic premise on which ethics in general rested, and he believed that, since interdependence manifests not just in human communities but also in land communities, our ethics should be extended to include land communities as well. Thus, consistency demands that we need to extend (expand) our ethics to include the land. By the same logic, we need to accept limitations on our actions to protect and benefit specific parts of the land community as well as the community as a whole, protecting and promoting the capacity of land communities for self-renewal, i.e., their health (Chapter 4). (shrink)

This is a chapter from the book _The Land Is Our Community_. Aldo Leopold’s conception of land (biotic) community, which included human and non-human animals as well as plants, soils, and waters (understood collectively), has been subject to various criticisms by environmental ethicists. This chapter shows that these criticisms do not accurately reflect Leopold’s conception of land community, which differed from other ecologists of his time by blending ideas from what today we would call ecological communities and ecosystems. In particular, (...) Leopold’s comprehensive approach invoked both species population interactions and matter/energy flows, as do some contemporary approaches. This characterization of land community, however, does not address the biggest challenge to Leopold’s community concept: namely, whether and how boundaries can be drawn—the “Who is in the community?” question. Yet, the challenge can be met: the boundary problem can be addressed in a Leopoldian manner by considering the relative strengths of both species population interactions and matter/energy flows. The ability to identify boundaries means that we can understand land communities as distinct biological wholes. We can pick out land communities (and meta–land communities, etc.) and see them as entities that persist and change over time, over a variety of time and spatial scales. This makes them candidates for direct moral obligation. (shrink)

This is just the index for _The Land Is Our Community_.

Los cuatro capítulos que constituyen los dos bloques temáticos de este libro se presuponen y complementan, estableciendo un diálogo fluido. El primer bloque se centra tanto en la pregunta amplia por lo que significa ser un animal racional entre animales, como por la pregunta sobre el lugar de privilegio desde el cual el animal racional humano ha transformado y destruido la naturaleza en nombre del progreso y la civilización. Entender el modo en que el ser humano se ha olvidado de (...) sí mismo como animal en el proceso histórico de dominación, negando e inhibiendo sus emociones, y el modo en que ha reducido al resto de los animales y a la naturaleza a un producto de sus deseos e intereses egoístas, es fundamental para mirar más allá de lo que creemos ser como especie y para reinterpretar nuestro lugar en el mundo. Ampliar nuestra visión ética a partir del mundo animal como un espejo en el cual nos reflejamos, devela la función de una nueva ética, así como de sentimientos y emociones que contribuyen a nuestro crecimiento moral en medio de la crisis. El segundo bloque retoma la crisis ecosocial desde una doble perspectiva inherente al devenir y función de las ciencias ambientales en particular, y al devenir social en general. Disrupciones, bloqueos, negación y empobrecimiento espiritual caracterizan a un todo social nihilista que avanza lentamente frente a la crisis. Aunque las ciencias ambientales develan en general la crisis material de nuestra época a través de un análisis objetivo de los diversos modos de daños que hemos ocasionado en la estabilidad del planeta, y aunque las ciencias del comportamiento y las ciencias humanas ofrecen criterios para una apropiación crítica de los modos en que nos relacionamos con nosotros mismos y con la naturaleza externa, una pérdida de sentido epistemológico y existencial generalizado, y arraigado en nuestra cultura neoliberal, retrasa las acciones necesarias para no agravar la crisis y permitir que nuevos valores morales, científicos, económicos, políticos y sociales emerjan. Desde ambos bloques dialogamos sobre la gravedad de la crisis, manteniendo un espacio para la esperanza porque coincidimos en que no podemos negar que sigue dependiendo de nosotros dejar que el miedo nos mueva ya sea de la parálisis a la acción liberadora, ya sea de la parálisis al caos y la destrucción. (shrink)

Why is destroying heritage pro tanto wrong? Why does heritage destruction require justification, unlike the destruction of rubbish? The property rights view answers: heritage belongs to people, communities and cultures. The reverence view answers: we are obliged to respect things with non-instrumental value. The moral rights view answers: our predecessors, contemporaries and successors have rights to have their cherishings respected and cultural and epistemic goods protected. The moral harm view answers: destroying heritage causes morally significant harm. I argue that these (...) views all fail to account for the basic obligation to not destroy heritage. I propose that heritage essentially gives us experiences of connections to historically significant things, and these experiences are aesthetically valuable and irreplaceable. Destroying heritage is pro tanto wrong because it leads to the premature and irreversible extinction of these precious and vulnerable experiences. My account makes sense of genuineness as an aesthetic property, vindicates the idea of purely aesthetic obligations, and entails that heritage can be of the present and future, not only the past. (shrink)

This chapter examines planetary engineering and human-made biospheres from the perspective of the concept of (un)naturalness using terraformed Mars as a case study. It has been suggested that in the future it may be possible to make Mars habitable for life from Earth. This hypothetical process is known as terraforming or planetary ecosynthesis. The possibility of establishing a biosphere on Mars, or some other celestial body, opens up an interesting case of a biosphere that is unnatural. Furthermore, the concept of (...) natural is central to many arguments in environmental ethics. For example, it has been suggested that the value of an ecosystem is dependent upon its history – it being natural of origin. Naturalness and unnaturalness discussions have centered around two questions. First, is naturalness morally relevant or should it otherwise affect decision-making? Second, how can naturalness be understood in different cases? This chapter addresses both questions in relation to terraforming Mars. First, it analyzes in what sense terraformed Mars and its biosphere would be unnatural. Second, it examines whether its unnaturalness undermines the value of the biosphere, and thus gives an important criterion for deciding whether humans should aim to terraform extraterrestrial environments or not. (shrink)

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...) little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of ‘culture’ and to become organized around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation. (shrink)

Though many of us have constructed our lives (or have had them constructed for us) such that it is easy to ignore or forget, human lives are entangled with other animals in many ways. Some interspecies relations would arguably exist in some form or another even under an ideal model of animal ethics. Others have an inescapably non-ideal character – these relationships exist as they do because things have gone wrong. In such circumstances we have reparative duties to animals we (...) have wronged because we have wronged them. Here I draw upon Christine Korsgaard’s “Fellow Creatures” (2018) and other nonideal approaches to animal ethics to critically assess the United States Fish & Wildlife Service practice of killing barred owls to protect endangered spotted owls in the old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. This is a difficult case to be sure, but one that can benefit from non-ideal moral assessment in terms of interspecies relational repair. I argue for increased spotted owl habitat preservation and forest restoration as an alternative to barred owl removal that better aligns with both nonideal relational animal ethics and stated US Fish & Wildlife Service values. (shrink)

We uncover a largely unnoticed and unaddressed problem in conservation research: arguments built within studies are sometimes defective in more fundamental and specific ways than appreciated, because they misrelate values and empirical matters. We call this the unraveled rope problem because just as strands of rope must be properly and intricately wound with each other so the rope supports its load, empirical aspects and value aspects of an argument must be related intricately and properly if the argument is to objectively (...) support its conclusion. By characterizing this problem with precision, our study differs from but complements existing studies of value issues in conservation science, in two ways. First, it focuses on key relationships between empirical issues and value issues, relations that have sometimes been obscured by focusing on these issues more independently of each other. Second, it focuses on these relationships within arguments and deploys a method of argument analysis and evaluation honed in other fields but under-utilized in conservation science. By combining our study's novel features, we detail six families of argument defect that exemplify the unraveled rope problem within existing literature. These defects sometimes manifest within basic research stages, rather than just in more applied downstream stages where roles for values are already obvious to many. As scientific reasoning and communication become increasingly important for addressing society's greatest environmental challenges, overcoming the unraveled rope problem will be essential to the success and integrity of conservation research. Therefore, we also outline potential solutions, preventative measures, and useful further work for conservation researchers. (shrink)

In this article, rewilding’s orientation towards the past is discussed. A response is given to the criticisms that condemn rewilding for its retrospectivity, either as nostalgically clinging to the past or escaping history. Instead, it is shown how rewilding can embrace nostalgia as part of a critical, (counter-)cultural vision aimed at the transformation of modern culture. Its main goal can be seen as threefold: first, it is aimed at providing a more nuanced assessment of rewilding’s contested stance towards the past (...) (and thereby, the future) through the lens of nostalgia. Second, it is demonstrated how, seen through this lens, cultural and ecological aspects of rewilding appear inextricably intertwined. Third, the concepts of ‘cultural rewilding’ and ‘recovery’ are introduced as valuable notions within rewilding. In sum, an appeal is provided for rewilders to embrace the past by dedicating attention towards cultural heritage, history, memory, and tradition. (shrink)

En esta entrevista, el preservador Olaff Durand narra su experiencia como miembro de una organización ecológica, la cual se ha caracterizado por los cuidados que se han realizado al medioambiente. Estas actividades las han venido haciendo siempre de manera presencial, aunque en tiempo de pandemia se ha recurrido a virtualidad. Sin embargo, la labor y los proyectos ecológicos que él relata demuestran que ha habido un trabajo constante de concientización y de educación ambiental para los ciudadanos. En fin, esta conversación (...) será de utilidad para futuros investigadores e interesados en la materia, ya que podrán conocer cuáles son y serán las medidas sociales que adoptan los integrantes de esta organización ecológica para contrarrestar cualquier forma de contaminación en este siglo XXI. (shrink)

Invasive alien species are frequently discussed in academic literature by practitioners, government agencies, and popular media, but what does it mean for a species to be alien and why it this seen as a bad thing? To answer these questions, I have analysed texts about invasive alien species in academic journals and in communication from government agencies. The almost totally unanimous answer to the first question was that a species is alien if and only if it is introduced to an (...) area outside its natural range by humans. I found three primary answers to the second question, namely that (1) alien species are more probable to behave invasively or that it is impossible to know for sure if an alien species will behave invasively, (2) being alien is bad in itself or at least that alien species have a lower value than native species and native environments, and (3) being moved by humans is unnatural and being unnatural has negative value. All three answers probably contribute to why being alien is considered a negative property in species but none of them seem like a satisfying answer to why being alien should be seen as a bad thing in a species. (shrink)

This review provides an overview of the ethics of extinctions with a focus on the Western analytical environmental ethics literature. It thereby gives special attention to the possible philosophical grounds for Michael Soulé’s assertion that the untimely ‘extinction of populations and species is bad’. Illustrating such debates in environmental ethics, the guiding question for this review concerns why – or when – anthropogenic extinctions are bad or wrong, which also includes the question of when that might not be the case (...) (i.e. which extinctions are even desirable). After providing an explanation of the disciplinary perspective taken (section “Introduction”), the concept of extinction and its history within that literature are introduced (section “Understanding extinction”). Then, in section “Why (or when) might anthropogenic extinctions be morally problematic?”, different reasons for why anthropogenic extinctions might be morally problematic are presented based on the loss of species’ value, harm to nonhuman individuals, the loss of valuable biological variety and duties to future generations. This section concludes by also considering cases where anthropogenic extinctions might be justified. Section “How to respond to extinctions?” then addresses a selection of topics concerning risks and de-extinction technologies. Finally, the section on “Extinction studies” introduces other viewpoints on the ethics of extinction from the extinction studies literature, followed by the “Conclusion”. (shrink)

Biological conservation practices and approaches take many forms. Conservation projects do not only differ in their aims and methods, but also concerning their conceptual and normative background assumptions and their underlying motivations and objectives. We draw on philosophical distinctions from the ethics of conservation to explain variances of different positions on conservation projects along six dimensions: (1) conservation ideals, (2) intervention intuitions, (3) the moral considerability of nonhuman beings, (4) environmental values, (5) views on nature and (6) human roles in (...) nature. The result is a map of the moral landscape of biological conservation, on which these six dimensions are layered. This map functions as a heuristic tool to understand conceptual and normative foundations of specific conservation projects, which we will illustrate with four paradigmatic examples: the Pisavaara Strict Nature Reserve, Predator Free New Zealand, the Oostvaardersplassen Nature Reserve and the Great Green Wall Project. With this map as a heuristic tool, we aim to conceptually illuminate disagreement and clarify misunderstandings between representatives of different environmental protection strategies and to show that the same project can be supported (or criticised) on different grounds. (shrink)

Our topic is food that is "local, ethical, and sustainable." We defend a surprising claim about such a conception (at least, on certain ways of specifying its three central components): namely, that it may lend support to some varieties of “conscientious carnivorism.” We focus on an especially illustrative instance of (potentially) moral meat-eating: the case of Cinta Senese, a once-endangered pig that holds a special place in the cultural and environmental landscape in Tuscany, Italy. In Tuscany, Cinta Senese constitute a (...) robustly local food product (in the genealogical sense of "local"), where plausibly they lead quite worthwhile lives (in a welfarist sense of "worthwhile"). Further, the recent revival of their dwindling populations seemingly represents a “sustainability success” (in a conservationist sense). Thus, we argue that locavores with welfarist and conservationist proclivities may actually find that they have considerable reason to support, rather than to oppose, this form of animal agriculture – as well as others relevantly like it. (shrink)

Katz denies that organisms created in a lab as part of a de-extinction attempt will be authentic members of the extinct species, on the basis that they will lack the original species’ defining biological and evolutionary history. Against Katz, I note that an evolutionary lineage is conferred on an organism through its inheriting genes from forebears already possessed of such a lineage, and that de-extinction amounts to a delayed, human-assisted reproductive process, in which genes are inherited from forebears long dead. (...) My conclusion is that de-extinct organisms can perfectly well have an ancient evolutionary history, contrary to what Katz claims. (shrink)

What if wilderness is bad for wildlife? This question motivates the philosophical investigation in Wilderness, Morality, and Value. Environmentalists aim to protect wilderness, and for good reasons, but wilderness entails unremittent, incalculable suffering for its non-human habitants. Given that it will become increasingly possible to augment nature in ways that ameliorates some of this suffering, the morality of wilderness preservation is itself in question. Joshua S. Duclos argues that the technological and ethical reality of the Anthropocene warrants a fundamental reassessment (...) of the value of wilderness. After exposing the moral ambiguity of wilderness preservation, he explores the value of wilderness itself by engaging with anthropocentricism and nonanthropocentrism; sentientism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism; and instrumental value and intrinsic value. Duclos argues that the value of wilderness is a narrow form of anthropocentric intrinsic value, one with a religio-spiritual dimension. By integrating scholarship from bioethics on the norms of engineering human nature with debates in environmental ethics concerning the prospect of engineering non-human nature, Wilderness, Morality, and Value sets the stage for wilderness ethics—or wilderness faith—in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

”Invasiva främmande arter” är ett uttryck som hörs allt oftare, såväl i medier som i diskussioner vid fikabordet. Vad är då en invasiv främmande art och varför väcker dessa arter så starka känslor? Varför är de ett problem? Hur blir man av med dem? Har de några positiva egenskaper? Det är några av de frågor vi tar upp i den här boken. Vi intresserar oss för växter, invasiva främmande växter. Även djurarter omfattas av de regleringar och definitioner vi beskriver, men (...) vårt fokus är alltså på växter. (shrink)

As a discipline distinct from ecology, conservation biology emerged in the 1980s as a rigorous science focused on protecting biodiversity. Two algorithmic breakthroughs in information processing made this possible: place-prioritization algorithms and geographical information systems. They provided defensible, data-driven methods for designing reserves to conserve biodiversity that obviated the need for largely intuitive and highly problematic appeals to ecological theory at the time. But the scientific basis of these achievements and whether they constitute genuine scientific progress has been criticized. We (...) counter by pointing out important inaccuracies about the science and rejecting the apparent theory-first focus. More broadly, the case study reveals significant limitations of the predominant epistemic-semantic conceptions of scientific progress and the considerable merits of pragmatic, practically-oriented accounts. (shrink)