Biocentric Ethics

Exam 3

Authors

Easterbrook, Taylor, Desjardins

Easterbrooks, A moment on Earth

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Easterbrooks Strategy

-Environmental ethics from the ground up

-Looks how different lives of animals are. Taylor calls them "Personalities"

What is Easterbrooks quote?

“If you would know the power of life over matter, know these things”

What does he say is the reason for these different lives?

Perhaps the sea turtle is a genetic anomaly, deterministically driven. Perhaps the journey has meaning

• Perhaps the turtle is willing to swim the ocean in order to experience the tastes that accompanied its awakening to life. Perhaps it is driven for the longing of life over matter

Taylor, The Ethics of Respect for Nature

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He is similar to who?

Sagoff

What view does Taylor not support

Anthropocentric view

Anthropocentric view

Human actions are right or wrong by virtue of how they relate to human well-being or norms pertaining to human rights

• It is the food of individual organism, having inherent world, that determines moral relations

What view does Taylor support?

Life-centered (biocentric) views

Life-centered (biocentric) views:

Prima facie moral obligations are owed to wild plants and animals as members of the earth’s biotic community

What does he support?

Not individuals for morality, but nature as a whole ***we want this view,not anthropocentric

Prima facie

Can be overridden

In life-centered views, what is the good of an individual determined by?

The good of individual organisms, considered as entities having inherent worth, determines our moral relations with the Earth’s wild communities of life. It contrasts with anthropocentric views

In life-centered views, what are we bound to?

We are morally bound other things are being equal to protect and promote their good for their sake

In life-centered views, what are these obligations bound to?

Such obligations  are due those living things out of recognition of their inherent worth

Who are the duties to?

Duties to natural ecosystems, endangered species, avoid pollution

What does Life-centered views lead to?

A profound reordering of the moral universe

What is the reordering?

We would look at the whole earth’s biosphere in a  new light where our duties to respect the world of nature would be seen as making prima facie claims upon us to balance against our duties to respect the whole

What reasons are there for adopting biocentric moral attitudes?

Goodness and inherent Worth

• There’s different goods in each of the beings

What are the reasons?

The Good of living nonhuman consists in the full development of biological powers

The Good of a population consists in its maintaining itself across generations

Goodness does not require sentience

Sentience

the capacity for subjective experience, specifically the ability to feel, perceive, and experience sensations like pain, pleasure, and emotions

Ex. Plants are not a conscious being

Inherent worth

beings to which moral duties, obligations, and responsibilities are owed

Intrinsic Value

not merely useful for other purposes, not to be objectified

What does Taylor say about ethical views?

Ethical views are not proven. Not all components of the view are such that empirical support is feasible

• We can’t prove biocentric. Can’t support it scientifically

Biocentric attitude is what?

a belief system that is internally coherent and consistent with scientific truths

What are the 4 scientific truths?

Humans are members of earth’s community of life (no more, no less than others)

Earth’s natural ecosystems are seen as a complex web of interconnected elements

Each individual organism is a teleological center of life, pursuing its own good

The claim that humans are superior regarding inherent worth is baseless

What does Taylor say about human beings

Human beings are fundamentally an animal species, experiencing the same kind of genetic changes through natural selection that other species experience

• The extinction of humans confronts the modern world. Most living things would benefit from our extinction, as ecosystems would quickly return to a more balanced state

What does Taylor say abotu ecosystems?

Ecosystems are dynamic, relatively stable structures: food chains, predator-prey relations, plant succession

• Knowledge of these connections is a means of fulfilling the aims we set in adopting the biocentric attitudes. (Similar to a food web)

What does Taylor say we do that highlights nature’s uniqueness?

Our increasing knowledge and understanding of organisms and their species-specific nature highlights their uniqueness

Organisms have unique "personalities"

We can recognize objects/events that benefit organisms, harm the organism, or neither in terms of survivability and health

This is to view entities as teleological centers of life

Desjardins Chapter 6

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But what is wrong with causing the extinction of millions of insects?

• Presuming they do not feel pain, are not conscious, nor are subjects-of-a-life

What does Dj say an environmental philosophy a shift from?

More systematic environmental philosophy is often a shift from a narrow focus on moral standing or rights and responsibilities to a more general discussion of value

What does DJ say about this shift?

Shift toward a different view of the environment will require a different view of ourselves

The self is identical to a person’s most fundamental and enduring dispositions, attitudes, values, and beliefs

If our fundamental attitudes include a reverence for life, the question of why should I revere life does not morally arrive

Example of this?

Should brown people be allowed to vote? Or why do I care about my parents? There are certain attitudes in which certain questions would not arise. You ask this if you haven’t found a solution

Biocentric resolves many of the questions

Taylor’s Respect for Nature (the Biocentric attitude)-

Actions are right and character traits are morally good in virtue of their expressing or embodying a certain ultimate moral attitude, which I call for a respect for nature.

Biocentric ethics

A theory that posits intrinsic value to all living things

• Life itself is sufficient for moral considerability

But is human life really as valuable as the HIV virus? Or bacteria?

We recognize that life itself music be sacrificed as food

What about a doctor who kills a virus? Farmer who cuts down a tree?

Is my doctor doing something wrong when prescribing me medication? How about the conflict when you want to cut the grass but it doesn’t want to get cut?

What is said in response to this?

No principle or rule for how to resolve conflicts- we much make decisions responsibly and consciously, we cannot escape them

Practical implications form Taylor’s Respect for Nature: What are the duties?

Nonmaleficence- do not harm

Noninterference- do not interfere with freedom

Fidelity-do not deceive or betray animals (e.g. trapping fishing)

Restitutive Justice- make restitution for any harms done in violation

What does DJ sya in response to this?

Dj says if we adopt the biocentric perspective that Taylor says, then we adopt these implications

WHat does Dj say if the duties conflict with human interests?

When these duties conflict with human interests we cannot merely privilege humans

• We need something else

If we adopt the biocentric views …

If we adopt the biocentric views, this is how we should resolve conflict

• Basic needs- those to keep living= Shelter, clothing, food, community. So long basic needs are met, you are free to act in a way only if you need to make a basic need

An example of this?

Bet with a bear and it will kill you- you can kill the bear. If you are starving in nature- you can kill the bear

• Self defense justifies favoring human interest

Otherwise…

Otherwise we shield apply proportionality- it prohibited to act when basic interest of nonhumans conflict with nonbasic human interest

-E.g. killing alligators to make fashionable shoes

Minimum wrong

When nonvascular interests conflict we should satisfy human interests

Distributive justice

Fairness concerns resolve conflicts between basic interests

Retributive justice

When conflict resolution fails to meet minimum wrong and fairness