PHIL 184 - Environmental Ethics Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from an Environmental Ethics lecture, including arguments for and against preserving species, and relevant case studies.

Instrumental Value

The value of a species or ecosystem due to its known use as a resource for humans.

Sober's Argument Against Suffering

Trees, mountains, and salt marshes do not suffer, questioning the suffering-based reason for preserving ecosystems.

Sober's Argument Against Ignorance

Not knowing the value of a species is not a reason to want one thing or another to happen to it.

Sober's Argument Against the Appeal to Nature

Environmentalists are typically interested in preserving what is natural, be it a species living in the wild or a wilderness ecosystem.

Stone's Argument on Needs and Wants of Natural Objects

Natural objects can communicate their wants (needs) to us, and in ways that are not terribly ambiguous.

Russow's Definition of a Species

A coherent ongoing natural kind expressed in organisms that interbreed because that kind is encoded in gene flow, the genes determining the organism's morphology and functions, the kind shaped by its environment.

Red Wolf Case Study

The red wolf faces threats from trapping, hunting, habitat destruction, and interbreeding with coyotes.

Baltimore Oriole and Bullock's Oriole Case Study

Extensive interbreeding led the American Ornithologists Union to declare that they were no longer two separate species.

Laboratory Rats Case Study

Strains of laboratory rats are killed once the need for a particular variety ceases, leading to the variety's extinction.

Striped Zebras Case Study

Zebras were threatened solely because they were hunted for their distinctive striped coats. Suppose too that we could remove this threat by selectively breeding zebras that are not striped, that look exactly like mules, although they are still pure zebras.

Feinberg's Justification for Protecting Species

We are required to protect species as part of our role as rational custodians of the planet we temporarily occupy.

Potential Benefits Justification for Protecting Species

We may become reluctant to risk the disappearance of a species that might be of practical use to us in the future.

Warning Sign Justification for Protecting Species

Vanishing species are of concern to us because their difficulties serve as a warning that we have altered the environment in a way that is potentially dangerous or undesirable for us.

Ecosystem Role Justification for Protecting Species

Each species occupies a unique niche in a rich but delicately balanced ecosystem.

Evolutionary Chain Justification for Protecting Species

Species are important as links in the evolutionary chain.

Intrinsic Value Justification for Protecting Species

Species have intrinsic value.

Aesthetic Value Justification for Protecting Species

Species have aesthetic value.

Russow's Final Proposal

Individual animals can have, to a greater or lesser degree, aesthetic value: they are valued for their simple beauty, for their awesomeness, for their intriguing adaptations, for their rarity, and for many other reasons. We have moral obligation to protect things of aesthetic value