Introduction to Wildlife & Fisheries Conservation
WFSC 304
Lecture 7: Environmental Ethics
Conservation ethics as flowing from environmental ethics; June 21 presentations
Ethics of biodiversity conservation
Refer to Primack and the CSF video for the framework for Ecosystem valuation.
Basically, there are Use (direct and indirect), Non-use (bequest, existence) and
option values. Last time I focused on Use values. Now we will reflect on non-use
values. Option value could be considered Use in the sense it is expected to be
useful later—“keep options alive” (literally).
Intrinsic or inherent value - independent of its usefulness to people
Spiritual value – reverence for the beauty and majesty of nature
Bequest pride – desire to pass a clean and diverse and beautiful world for posterity
Religious value – the creator’s gift, animism, empathy for equal beings
Ethical Value of Biological Diversity
Key arguments from Primack:
 Each species has a right to exist – “intrinsic value”
 All species are interdependent
 People have a responsibility to act as stewards of the Earth
 People have a duty to their neighbors
 People have a responsibility to future generations
 Respect for human life and human diversity is compatible with a respect for
biological diversity – “environmental justice”
“To many people, ethical arguments provide the most convincing reasons for
conservation” (Primack 2010, p. 115)
Conservation biologists need to be sensitive to the public perception that they
care more about birds, turtles, or nature in general than they do about people
Inherent or Intrinsic Value
Endangered Species Act
States that the justification for their protecting endangered species is their
“aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value”
Linkages between environmental ethics, conservation, and social and economic
justice have been incorporated into “The Earth Charter” (World Resources
Institute, 2003) – written by many world leaders
Modern western societies have often not embraced these views
Environmental Ethics - new field of philosophy – ethical value of the natural world
Spiritual Values
•Virtually all major religions include statements about stewardship with the
natural world
•See Primack Box. 6.2 (p. 122-123)
Judeo-Christian Perspective - from Primack (2010)
•In Genesis, God instructs Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the
Earth and subdue it; have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the
Earth”
•Genesis describes the creation of the Earth‟s biological diversity as a divine act,
after which “God saw that it was good” and “blessed them.”
•Moses, Isaiah, St. John the Baptist, St. Francis of Assisi, and even Jesus, all sought
out the solitude of wilderness to obtain spiritual strength and receive guidance of
God.
Korngold (2007):
“Nature, which was once at the heart of Judaism, has
been all but banished from our teachings”
“Thousands of years ago, Jewish leaders tried to
remove nature from Judaism. What were they so
afraid of? That if people continued to worship on
mountaintops they would not need the priests or
large ornate temples?”
“the high priests wanted to consolidate their power,
so they built a huge temple in Jerusalem and taught
that God wanted to be worshipped only within its
walls.”
“So the priests ordered the destruction of the altars
on the high places and herded us all indoors.”
Islam (from Groom et al. 2006)
• Teaches that human beings have a privileged place in nature …..all other natural
beings were created to serve humanity.
• In the 1980‟s a group of Saudi scholars scoured the Koran for environmentally
relevant passages and drafted the Islamic Principles for the Conservation of the
Natural World
• This document articulates an Islamic version of stewardship - “He (man) is only a
manager of the earth and not a proprietor, a beneficiary not a disposer or
ordainer.”
• They also emphasized a just distribution of “natural resources” not only among
members of the present generation, but among members of future generations.
• See also Islam and Ecology (Foltz et al. 2003)
Hinduism – from Groom et al. (2006)
• Emerson and Thoreau were influenced by subtle philosophical doctrines of
Hinduism
• Hinduism unambiguously invites human beings to identify with other forms of
life, for all life-forms share the same essence
• The suffering of one life-form is the suffering of all others; to harm other beings
is to harm oneself
• Inspired one of the most successful conservation movements in the world, the
Chipko movement, has managed to rescue many of India‟s Himalayan forests from
commercial exploitation
• For more information see Hinduism and Ecology (Chappel & Tucker 2000)
Buddhism - from Groom et al. (2006)
• Buddhism provides all the essential elements for a relationship to the natural
world characterized by respect, care, and compassion.
• Buddhists believe that all living beings are in the same predicament: We are
driven by desire to a life of continuous frustration, and all can be liberated if all can
attain enlightenment. Thus Buddhists can regard other living beings as companions
on the path to Buddhahood and nirvana
• For more information see Buddhism and Ecology (Tucker and Williams, 1997,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
E.O. Wilson and Evangelicals
The Creation (Wilson 2006) – An Appeal to Save Life on Earth - a letter to a
southern Baptist minister
“I'm not an atheist but religion should be eliminated. “
—Melinda Walsh, Sacramento News and Review
Wilson, argues life and the biological diversity on the planet is God’s creation,
humans are a part of that Creation and nature is essential to the survival of
humans. In this sense he argues for “enlightened self-interest”.
Such enlightenment should not only preserve biodiversity but developing our
knowledge will make us better and happier people (from Primack 2010)




Protecting our life support and economy
Aesthetic and recreational enjoyment
Artistic and literary expression
Historical understanding
o Walking the landscapes that our ancestors walked, we gain insight
into how they experienced the world (heritage)
o Our fast-paced existence makes this much more difficult – “stop and
smell the roses”
 Religious inspiration
 Scientific knowledge
Secular morality
Environmental ethics holds
that an individual has an
expanding set of moral
obligations, extending
outward beyond the self to
progressively more inclusive
levels
Community
Nation
Error in figure corrected
here, there is no moral
reason to differentially
prioritize responsibility to
other life by race or religious
group. My community does
not consider race or religion.
From Science 322: p. 1611, 12 Dec
2008
Soulful Value
“A walk through an arboretum
enabled people to perform better on
a standard working memory task …in
comparison to the stimuli of a stroll
through a downtown landscape.”
Scientific and Educational Value
• Galapagos (Darwin’s) finches inspiration for evolution, natural
selection and Darwin’s “Origin of
Species”
• Inspiration to fly from birds and
other biomimicry as discussed
Scientific Value - Three of “the
Central Mysteries”
1. How life originated?
2. How did we get this diversity of
life found on Earth?
3. How did humans evolve?
(my only Science paper; link)
Deep Ecology
• Begins with the premise that all species have value in themselves, and humans
have no right to reduce this richness.
• The philosophy includes an obligation to work to implement the needed changes
through a commitment to personal lifestyle changes and political activism.
• Urges all concerned people to escape from their narrow, everyday concerns and
to act and live “as if nature mattered.”
• See Primack Table 6.1 above
Discovering Radical Environmentalism in our Own Backyard – from Natural Rights
to Rights of Nature. Essay by Roderick Frazier Nash, U of California, Santa Barbara
(see http://www.politikunsw.com/the-rights-of-nature-8203bringing-the-nonhuman-into-global-environmental-governance-elise-moo.html)
• Natural rights liberalism is the most potent concept in the history of American
thought
• In 1215 the Magna Carta challenged the exclusivity of the royal definition of
rights
• The message was straightforward: we are members of this society and we want
rights too
• By 1776 England’s American colonies had expanded this meaning – “all men” had
rights and they were willing to fight for them
• Yet, “red men, black men, and female men” were not regarded as full members
of the moral community
• In the early 1830’s a huge paradigm change – the abolition of slavery – began
and by 1865 all slaves were legally free
• Today we see in the environmental movement remarkable growth – the radical
idea that nature has rights that humans should respect
• Appeals to the end of “Earth slavery” (e.g., rooted in deep ecology, Earth First,
Greenpeace)
•The Endangered Species Act of 1973, national parks, and wilderness acts gives
legal protection to non-human existence rights
•It is plausible that American morality can expand further