A biocentrist strikes back

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 361-376

  Sterba, James P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

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EID: 6244253740     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics19982044     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. See William French, "Against Biospherical Egalitarianism," Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): pp. 39-57.
2. Kristin Shrader-Frechette, "Individualism, Holism and Environmental Ethics," Ethics and the Environment 1 (1996): 55-69; Ned Hettinger and Bill Troop, "Refocusing Ecocentrism: Deemphasizing Stability and Defending Wildness," Environmental Ethics, forthcoming.
3. Kristin Shrader-Frechette, "Individualism, Holism and Environmental Ethics," Ethics and the Environment 1 (1996): 55-69; Ned Hettinger and Bill Troop, "Refocusing Ecocentrism: Deemphasizing Stability and Defending Wildness," Environmental Ethics, forthcoming.
4. Frederik Kaufman, "Machines, Sentience and the Scope of Morality," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 57-70.
5. Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: An Outline of an Ecosophy, trans. David Rothenberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 167-68.
6. Ibid., p. 170.
7. Paul Taylor, Respect for Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 155.
8. Ibid., pp. 276-77.
9. "From Biocentric Individualism to Biocentric Pluralism," Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 191-207; "Reconciling Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric Environmental Ethics," Environmental Values 3 (1994): 229-44.
10. "From Biocentric Individualism to Biocentric Pluralism," Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 191-207; "Reconciling Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric Environmental Ethics," Environmental Values 3 (1994): 229-44.
11. Strictly speaking, not to treat humans as superior overall to other living beings is to treat them as either equal overall, or inferior overall, to other living beings, but I am using equal overall to include both of these possibilities since neitherpossibility involves the domination of nonhuman nature, and, moreover, the latter possibility is an unlikely course of action for humans to take.
12. The relevant actions here can be prohibited either by the principle of nondefense or by the principle of nonaggression which 1 discuss subsequently.
13. By human ethics, I simply mean those forms of ethics that assume, without argument, that only human beings count morally.
14. For a detailed discussion of this argument, see my article "From Liberty to Welfare," Ethics 104 (1994): 64-98.
15. The difference between a standard of a decent life and a standard of a healthy life is, however, only one of degree. A standard of a decent life emphasizes the cultural and social dimensions of basic needs while a standard of a healthy life emphasizes their physical and biological dimensions.
16. Moreover, this kind of fuzziness in the application of the distinction between basic and nonbasic needs is characteristic of the application of virtually all ourclassificatory concepts, and so is not an objection to its usefulness.
17. It is important to recognize here that we also have a strong obligation to prevent lifeboat cases from arising in the first place.
18. This is true not only of humans but also of other nonhuman species with which we are familar who are also capable of altruistic forbearance. I have added the qualification "normally" here because we know that, for example, that humans sometimes enter into a relationship of reciprocal altruism with the members of other species such as dogs and horses.
19. With respect to humans who lack the capacity for reciprocal altruism, the compassion of fellow humans and the difficulty of distinguishing them from other humans who have that capacity provide sufficient grounds for extending to them the same protections as are given to other humans. I owe this point to Mary Russo.
20. It should be pointed out that the principle of (aggression for) preservation must be implemented in a way that causes the least harm possible, which means that, other things being equal, basic needs should be met by aggressing against nonsentient living beings rather than against sentient living beings so as to avoid the pain and suffering that would otherwise be inflicted on sentient beings.
21. It should also be pointed out that the principle of (aggression for) preservation does not support an unlimited right of procreation. In fact, the theory of justice presupposed here gives priority to the basic needs of existing beings over the basic needs of future possible beings, and this priority should effectively limit (human) procreation. Nor does the principle of (aggression for) preservation allow humans to aggress against the basic needs of animals and plants even to meet their own basic needs when those needs could effectively be met by utilizing available human surplus resources.
22. Of course, libertarians have claimed that we can recognize that people have equal basic rights while, in fact, failing to meet, but not aggressing against, the basic needs of other human beings. However, I have argued in "From Liberty to Welfare" that this claim is mistaken.
23. It should be pointed out that although the principle of nonaggression prohibits aggressing against basic needs to serve nonbasic needs, the principle of defense permits defense of nonbasic needs against aggression of others. Thus, while one cannot legitimately aggress against others to meet nonbasic needs, one can legitimately defend nonbasic needs against the aggression of others.
24. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949).
25. J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), p. 58.
26. Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), p. 288.
27. Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and David Ehrenfeld, Ecosystem Health and Ecological Theories," in Robert Costanza, Bryant Norton, and Benjamin Haskell, eds., Ecosystem Health (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992); R. P. McIntosh, The Background of Ecology: Concepts and Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
28. Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and David Ehrenfeld, Ecosystem Health and Ecological Theories," in Robert Costanza, Bryant Norton, and Benjamin Haskell, eds., Ecosystem Health (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992); R. P. McIntosh, The Background of Ecology: Concepts and Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
29. Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and David Ehrenfeld, Ecosystem Health and Ecological Theories," in Robert Costanza, Bryant Norton, and Benjamin Haskell, eds., Ecosystem Health (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992); R. P. McIntosh, The Background of Ecology: Concepts and Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
30. Margaret Bryan Davis, "Climatic Instability, Time Lags, and Community Disequilibrium," in Hared Diamond and Ted J. Case, eds., Community Ecology (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 269.
31. Donald Worster, "The Ecology of Order and Chaos," Environmental History Review 14 (1990): 13.
32. For the purposes of this paper, by moral agent I simply mean "agents that are capable of understanding and acting on principles like my environmental principles."
33. J. Baird Callicott, "Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold's Land Ethic?" Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 369.
34. Ibid., p. 372.
35. To some extent, it was the difficulty ecologists had in specifying when ecosystems were in equilibrium that led them to endorse the ecology of disequilibrium.
36. There is no opposing sense of "instrumental value" here.
37. Taylor, Respect for Nature, pp. 68-71 and p. 17.
38. One might wonder whether, on Taylor's view, the theist's belief that human goodness has its source and exemplar in the goodness of God renders it impossible for the theist to reasonably hold that humans have a good of their own. Exploring this issue, however, would take us to far afield. Moreover, I hope to provide a characterization of what has intrinsic value that makes it easier to resolve this issue.
39. Laurence Johnson, A Morally Deep World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 6. Johnson adapts this definition from Kenneth Sayre, Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Humanities, 1996). See also Lawrence Johnson, "Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and Ecosystems," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 147-57.
40. Laurence Johnson, A Morally Deep World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 6. Johnson adapts this definition from Kenneth Sayre, Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Humanities, 1996). See also Lawrence Johnson, "Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and Ecosystems," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 147-57.
41. Laurence Johnson, A Morally Deep World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 6. Johnson adapts this definition from Kenneth Sayre, Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Humanities, 1996). See also Lawrence Johnson, "Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and Ecosystems," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 147-57.
42. Gary Varner, "Biological Functions and Biological Interests," Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (1990): 251-70.
43. Nicholas Agar, "Valuing Species and Valuing Individuals, Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 397-415.
44. For this earlier argument, see "From Biocentric Individualism to Biocentric Pluralism."
45. I am not objecting here to all attempts to derive, or better ground "values" on "facts" but just to the arbitrariness that seems to characterize the one under consideration. For a discussion of what good derivations or groundings of values would look like, see Kurt Baier, The Rational and the Moral Order (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), chap. 1.
46. One notable exception to the requirement of independence are some species and subspecies of domesticated animals who have been made into beings who are dependent for their survival on humans. I contend that because of their historic interaction with these domesticated animals, humans have acquired a positive obligation to care for these animals provided certain mutually beneficial arrangements can be maintained. Such domestic animals also have intrinsic value (i.e., their good ought to constrain how others use them), but the reasons for their having this value derive from the way that they have been deprived of their independence by humans.
47. Moreover, to recognize a positive obligation to preserve living things, such as hearts and kidneys, also puts one in conflict with one's own good if it is the case that one's own heart or kidney is diseased or the good of other living beings if their hearts or kidneys are diseased. However, this line of thought only shows that granting such a positive obligation leads to a reducio ad absurdum of the biocentrist's position. The qualification "as such" is added to allow for the possibility that one may have a obligation to preserve a particular heart or kidney if one should happen to have a obligation to preserve the person whose heart or kidney it is.
48. In the case of some species and subspecies of domesticated animals, however, there is a conditional obligation to provide positive support. See n. 41.
49. It would be interesting to explore how this moral framework applies to disputed moral problems like abortion and euthanasia. My hope is that all disputants would find this moral framework acceptable and that the framework will also provide additional resources for resolving these problems.
50. For further discussion, see Johnson, A Morally Deep World, p. 76.
51. Even the requirement that those who can be benefited or harmed in a nonderivative way must have a certain independence to their lives or a good of their own is, on my account, derived from what we can reasonably expect of moral agents.
52. For further discussion of these two fundamental characterizations of morality (1a) and (1b), see "From Liberty to Welfare."