Population growth and the preservation of wilderness: Interspecific conflict resolution in environmental ethics

Journal of Social Philosophy

Volumn 31, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 414-428

  Schönfeld, Martin ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 3543037281     PISSN: 00472786     EISSN: 14679833     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0047-2786.00062     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (22)

1. See Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations", in William Blackstone, ed., Philosophy and Environmental Crisis (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1974), 43-68.
2. See Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (New York: New York Review, 1990), 7-25 (originally published 1975).
3. Compare also his "A Utilitarian Defense of Animal Liberation", in Louis P. Pojman, ed., Environmental Ethics (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998), 39-45.
4. See Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 25-33;
5. Numerous environmental philosophers have proposed the acceptance not only of higher-developed animals, but also of organisms in general as objects of direct moral concern. A well-known argument in support of this stance has been advanced by Paul W. Taylor in his "The Ethics of Respect for Nature", Environmental Ethics 3(1981):197-218.
6. Because organisms can be conceived as teleological centers of life, as directively organized systems that have a good of their own, they are valuable in their own right and deserving of respect. For a fully developed version of the argument, see Taylor's Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), chaps. 2 and 3.
7. For an egalitarian conception of the rights of living beings in general, see Taylor, "Are Humans Superior to Animals and Plants?" Environmental Ethics 6(1984):149-60.
8. For an egalitarian conception of the rights of humans and animals, see Regan, "The Radical Egalitarian Case for Animal Rights", 50.
9. This flaw in the egalitarian position was first suggested by Donald Van De Veer. See his "Interspecific Justice and Intrinsic Value", Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy 3(1995), 11-17 .
10. See Martin Schönfeld, "Who or What Has Moral Standing?" American Philosophical Quarterly 29(1992):353-61, esp. 357-58.
11. In Respect for Nature, 129-32, Taylor argues against the alleged superiority of humans on the basis that many nonhuman species have capacities that humans lack: "there is the flight of the birds, the speed of a cheetah, the power of photosynthesis in the leaves of plants, the craftsmanship of spiders spinning their webs, the agility of a monkey in the tree tops. Why are not these to be taken as signs of their superiority over us?"
12. For a detailed criticism of this argument, see Schönfeld, "Who or What Has Moral Standing?" 357-58.
13. For a summary and appraisal of this debate, compare Louis P. Pojman, Global Environmental Ethics (London and Toronto: Mayfield, 1999), 186-96.
14. See Singer, Animal Liberation, 6.
15. See Donald Van De Veer, "Interspecific Justice", in D. Van De Veer and Christine Pierce, eds., The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, 2nd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1998), 109-23.
16. The article first appeared in Inquiry 22(1979):55-70.
17. See Van De Veer, "Interspecific Justice", 119.
18. See the website of the United Nations Population Information Network (UN POPIN) at . Tanzania's population density is low compared with that of such heavily urbanized nations as the Netherlands, which has an average of 1, 198 people per square kilometer. Tanzania's economy is primarily agricultural, and 79 percent of the citizens live in rural areas.
19. See Juha Räikkä, "Problems in Population Theory", Journal of Social Philosophy 31. 4, 406.
20. See Dennis A. Ahlburg, "Population Growth and Poverty", in R. Cassen et al., Population and Development: Old Debates, New Conclusions (New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction, 1994), 124-47.
21. Martin Golding, in his "Limited Obligations to Future Generations", in Pojman, Environmental Ethics, 284, suggests that one ought to exclude our most immediate descendants (our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren) from the notion of future obligations. For our purposes, it is unnecessary to stipulate that a future generation qualifies as such only if the lifespan of its members does not overlap with ours; it is sufficient to assume that a future generation is a generation not yet born at present.
22. Data about the UN survey, the connections between fertility and prosperity, the cost of a global population control effort, and the comparison of Korea and the Philippines are from Malcom Potts, "The Unmet Need for Family Planning", Scientific American 282. 1(January 2000):90-93.