Value and Nature

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Value and Nature

• Extending Ethics to the Environment

2
Nature includes

• Animals
• Plants
• Ecosystems
• Species
• Humans?
• The Issue Why are these things valuable?
• Why should we care about them?

3
The Moral Community
Beings outside the moral community.
X
X
Beings inside the moral community
X
X
X
X
X
When we think about what is morally right, the
beings inside the moral community must be taken
into consideration. (They are morally
considrable.)
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The Moral Community
Beings outside the moral community.
X
Morally valuable beings.
X
X
Morally responsible beings.
X
X
X
X
X
When we think about what is morally right, the
beings inside the moral Community must be taken
into consideration. (They are morally
considrable.)
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Two types of value

• Intrinsic value The value a thing has in itself.
  
• Extrinsic (instrumental) value The value a thing
  has because it is useful or valuable to a thing
  of intrinsic value.

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The Moral Community
Not valuable In themselves.
X
X
Intrinsically valuable. (That is valuable in
themselves)
X
X
X
X
X
Discussion What kinds of beings do you think
are valuable in themselves?
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Traditional Ethics on Value

• Anthropocentrism Humans are intrinsically
  valuable (members of the moral community). Other
  things in the environment are valuable because
  they are important to humans.
• Traditional ethics has often taken this
  approach.

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The Moral CommunityThe Anthropocentric View
Non-humans.
X
X
Humans
X
X
X
X
X
Humans are intrinsically valuable. Other beings
are extrinsically valuable or valuable because of
their value to humans.
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Some Anthropocentric Theories of Ethics

• Natural Rights Human beings have inherent
  rights. Human rights must be protected (by law,
  etc.) Other things do not have rights.
• Kantianism Human beings have inherent worth
  (because they are rational). Other animals and
  plants do not have inherent worth, since they are
  not rational.
• (Anthropocentric) Utilitarianism The morally
  right policies maximize the amount of (human)
  happiness in the world.
• (Anthropocentric) Religious ethics God made
  humans in his images, and everything else is made
  for humans. (That is, everything else is valuable
  if it is valuable to humans, otherwise not.)
• Discussion But why should humans have value,
  rights, etc., that other things do not? What
  makes animals, trees, and ecosystems valuable?

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Questioning the Anthropocentric Approach to Value
in Nature

• Key questions
• Are humans the only things in the world that are
  valuable in themselves?
• Is everything else only valuable because it is
  valuable to humans?
• Why should humans be placed inside the circle and
  other beings on the outside?
• What would we call it if we placed only people of
  one race inside the circle just because of their
  race?
• Is it any different if we place only beings in
  one species inside the circle just because of
  their species?
• Is there a relevant different between humans and
  nonhumans that makes the former intrinsically
  valuable and the latter not?

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Non-Anthropocentric Approaches to Ethics

• Sentientism All beings that have the capacity to
  feel pleasure and pain (Singer)/the ability to
  experience life as a subject (Regan) are
  intrinsically valuable, and must be considered
  for their own good, not just human good. Thus
  higher animals have moral considerability/
  inherent worth.

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The Moral CommunityThe Sentientist View
Non-sentient beings.
X
X
Sentient beings
X
X
X
X
X
Beings that are sentient (those with a
devleoped psychological capacitites which enable
them to feel pleasure and pain and/or to
experience life as subjects) have intrinsic
value. They are morally considerable.
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A Sentientist Rights Argument

• What makes humans valuable is that we are
  conscious of ourselves and value our own lives
  and well-being, regardless of how others value
  them.
• Some other animals (e.g. mammals and others) are
  also conscious of themselves and value their own
  lives and well being, regardless of how we value
  them.
• Thus if humans have value in themselves, these
  other animals do as well, and should be
  recognized to have similar rights.
• Key Question What makes our lives and persons
  more valuable than those of other animals, if
  each values its life?

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A Sentientist Utilitarian Argument

• According to Utilitarianism pleasure (happiness)
  is good, and pain is bad, and we should maximize
  pleasure in the world.
• If this is so, we should weigh all pleasure and
  pain?
• Thus we should take into consideration the
  pleasure and pain of any being that can
  experience pleasure and pain when we decide what
  is moral.
• Question What makes human pleasure and pain any
  more important than the pleasure and pain of
  other animals?

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• Sentientism is sometimes called the animal
  rights view.
• What implications would this view have?
• How would a sentientist believe we should live?

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Non-Anthropocentric Approaches to Ethics

• Sentientism All beings that have the capacity to
  feel pleasure and pain (Singer)/the ability to
  experience life as a subject (Regan) are
  intrinsically valuable, and must be considered
  for their own good, not just human good. Thus
  higher animals have moral considerability/
  inherent worth.
• Biocentrism All living beings are instrisically
  valuable they are valuable in themselves, with
  their own benefits or harms, since they are
  systems with goals (teleological systems). The
  benefits and harms of all living things be
  considered morally. (Schwietzer)

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The Moral CommunityThe Biocentric View
Non-living things.
X
X
All living things.
X
X
X
X
X
All living beings are teleological systems, and
can thus be benefited or harmed. All benefit or
harm must be taken into consideration in moral
deliberation.
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Albert Schwietzer (1875-1965)

• I am life which wills to live, in the midst of
  life which wills to live. As in my own
  will-to-live there is a longing for wider life
  and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and
  pain so is it also in the will-to-live all
  around me, whether it can express itself before
  me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is
  everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a
  thinking being, I must regard life other than my
  own with equal reverence, for I shall know that
  it longs for fullness and development as deeply
  as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is
  what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And
  this holds true whether I regard it physically or
  spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the
  saving or helping of life, the enabling of
  whatever life I can to attain its highest
  development. 

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• In me the will-to-live has come to know about
  other wills-to-live. There is in it a yearning to
  arrive at unity with itself, to become universal.
  I can do nothing but hold to the fact that the
  will-to-live in me manifests itself as
  will-to-live which desires to become one with
  other will-to-live. 
• Ethics consist in my experiencing the compulsion
  to show to all will-to-live the same reverence as
  I do my own. A man is truly ethical only when he
  obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is
  able to assist, and shrinks from injuring
  anything that lives. If I save an insect from a
  puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the
  division of life against itself has ended.
  Whenever my life devotes itself in any way to
  life, my finite will-to-live experiences union
  with the infinite will in which all life is one. 

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Discussion

• Do you see any ways in which Schweitzers view is
  similar to any of the religious views we have
  considered?
• How do you think a biocentrist would live?

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The Moral CommunityThe Anthropocentric View
Non-humans.
X
X
Humans
X
X
X
X
X
Humans are intrinsically valuable. Other beings
are extrinsically valuable or valuable because of
their value to humans.
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The Moral CommunityThe Sentientist View
Non-sentient beings.
X
X
Sentient beings
X
X
X
X
X
Beings that are sentient (those with a
devleoped psychological capacitites which enable
them to feel pleasure and pain and/or to
experience life as subjects) have intrinsic
value. They are morally considerable.
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The Moral CommunityThe Biocentric View
Non-living things.
X
X
All living things.
X
X
X
X
X
All living beings are teleological systems, and
can thus be benefited or harmed. All benefit or
harm must be taken into consideration in moral
deliberation.
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Key Questions

• What beings are valuable in themselves?
• Why?