Five Reasons to Doubt
That Biodiversity Saliently Matters
for Its Economic Value
Biosymposium 2015
6-7 January
(Version 09 January 2015)
Donald S. Maier
https://donaldsmaier.wordpress.com/
Outline: Five Reasons to Doubt
That Biodiversity Saliently Matters for Its Economic Value
0)
Introduction: Centrally a normative, not a scientific, question
1) 
BES claims: Derivation and content
2) 
Economic valuations and normative claims
3) 
Goodness and continued existence
4) 
The effect of markets on normatively important values
5) 
Why does nature, with its biodiversity, really matter?
Many BES claims derive from invalid reasoning
Many other BES claims are not substantive
Economic valuations are based on desire-given reasons
Desire-given reasons are not normatively important
That some thing is good does not entail
that we ought to promote its continued existence
Markets in a thing may corrupt, crowd out, or annul normatively important values
A true answer must capture what economics cannot:
Resilient demandingness and uniqueness of natural value
Nature (according to one plausible answer):
Embodies good integration (reflectively adapting rather than reflexively restructuring)
Gives prominence to the best qualities of important human projects
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1 BES claims: Derivation and content
Fallacy of composition
(elucidated with the help of Mojo el Magnífico):
P: Certain components of biodiversity are good
for providing service S.
C: Therefore, biodiversity is good
for providing service S.
Non-substantive claims:
Mojo (not biodiversity)
providing home ecosystem
lap-warming services
Claim: Biodiversity has a key role in ecosystem service delivery
For the purposes of their claim, the claimants specify:
“Biodiversity” is the right combinations of certain biotic and/or abiotic
components for producing ecosystem services.
We may utilize this specification to elucidate the claim:
Claim (elucidated): The combination of biotic and abiotic parts that produce
an ecosystem service has a key role in ecosystem service delivery.
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2 Economic valuations and normative valuations
Economic valuations are:
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Plutocratic
• 
Unconstrained by whether some thing is worthy of being desired/valued
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A thing may be economically valued on the basis of desires that are:
Maladaptive, perverse, even vile; or for no reason at all
Economic valuations evidence only that persons, in fact, desire or value,
e.g. slavery
Facts about actual (telic) desires (“desire-given” reasons)
Are NOT normatively important
Are radically contingent (on consumer demand/market conditions)
Pollination services for Costa Rican coffee
• 
Are good for Alaskan oil revenues and Rio Tinto
But have disastrous implications for nature and its biodiversity
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Implications of consistent economic reckoning
Mined area near Whitesville, WV (USA):
Realizing the value (in coal) of an
Appalachian mountaintop’s
economy-fueling natural capital
Cook Inlet beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas):
Incurring a trivial economic cost for realizing the
great economic benefit of utilizing the Inlet to
develop oil and gas
Rio Tinto/QMM mining area:
Maximizing the economic value
of a Malagasy littoral forest by
freeing up its treasure of ilmenite
to satisfy consumer demand for
cosmetics and white paint
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3 Goodness and continued existence
The normative fact that:
Some thing is good
does NOT entail
This thing’s continued existence is good
This means that:
Even if:
Some species, some state of biodiversity, or some state of nature were good
this supposed normative fact would NOT entail:
We ought to launch conservation projects that aim for the continued existence
of this species, state of biodiversity, or state of nature
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4 The effect of markets on normatively important values
Economic valuations and markets (real or imaginary) may
Crowd out, corrupt, enfeeble, or wholly annul
normatively important values
A market in votes: would corrode civic virtues and values
A market in Mercer Awards: would dissolve the good of bestowing a deserved honor
A hired friend: would not be a friend at all
Nor would someone be a friend when
“… viewed as a bucket of services, identifiable in advance, which define the benefits
against which one weighs the costs of friendship’s many inconveniences…”
The good of nature and biodiversity may similarly dissolve when
“… viewed as a bucket of services whose benefits outweigh the costs of securing a
place in the world’s bio-warehouse for a carefully selected collection of
service-providing bio-parts”
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5 Why does nature, with its biodiversity, really matter?
A true answer must capture two salient qualities of nature’s value:
Resilient demandingness
Shifting markets undermine, and so cannot underlie, this quality
Uniqueness (because independent of benefit or reciprocity)
Economic valuations rest on the pychological fact of persons possessing desires,
without regard for any particular quality of the desire or things desired
Nature (according to one answer):
Embodies good integration with the world in which we find ourselves
Readiness to reflectively adapt, rather than reflexively restructure
Renders in alto-rilievo important qualities of valuable human projects
If nature is centrally valuable for these reasons, then:
Projects that seek to restructure ecosystems into some preferred state
(including some state that is supposed to satisfy consumer demand for some service)
may corrupt or diminish nature’s central value
These projects do not conserve nature in any normatively important sense
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The Poet on
Managing Natural Capital to Provide Services
We Bring Democracy To The Fish
It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other.
For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them
into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries
that exclude predators. Our care will provide
for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition.
Of course all creatures need to feel useful.
At maturity the fish will discover their purposes.
– Donald Hall
(from White Apples and the Taste of Stone, 2007)
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