The value of a species is not merely the sum of the values of the individual members of the species. I feel a moral obligation to protect and not excessively harm the environment without necessarily feeling a moral obligation to prevent each gazelle from being eaten by a lion. There is value in nature that includes the predator-prey cycle. The moral obligation to animals comes from their worth as animals, not from a utilitarian calculation to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Animals living as animals in the wild (which is very different than animals living in a farm or as pets) will experience pleasure and pain; but even the ones too low on the complexity scale to feel pleasure and pain have value and should have a place to exist. I don’t know if an Orange Roughy feels pain or pleasure or not; but either way it doesn’t change my belief that we should stop eating them to avoid the extinction of the species.
The non-hypothetical, practical issue at hand is not do we make the world a better place for some particular species, but do we stop making it a worse one? Is it worth extinguishing a species so a few people can have a marginally tastier or more high status dinner? (whales, sharks, Patagonian Toothfish, etc.) Is it worth destroying a few dozen acres of forest containing the last habitat of a microscopic species we’ve never noticed so a few humans can play golf a little more frequently? I answer No, it isn’t. It is possible for the costs of an action to non-human species to outweigh the benefits gained by humans of taking that action.
The value of a species is not merely the sum of the values of the individual members of the species. I feel a moral obligation to protect and not excessively harm the environment without necessarily feeling a moral obligation to prevent each gazelle from being eaten by a lion. There is value in nature that includes the predator-prey cycle. The moral obligation to animals comes from their worth as animals, not from a utilitarian calculation to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Animals living as animals in the wild (which is very different than animals living in a farm or as pets) will experience pleasure and pain; but even the ones too low on the complexity scale to feel pleasure and pain have value and should have a place to exist. I don’t know if an Orange Roughy feels pain or pleasure or not; but either way it doesn’t change my belief that we should stop eating them to avoid the extinction of the species.
The non-hypothetical, practical issue at hand is not do we make the world a better place for some particular species, but do we stop making it a worse one? Is it worth extinguishing a species so a few people can have a marginally tastier or more high status dinner? (whales, sharks, Patagonian Toothfish, etc.) Is it worth destroying a few dozen acres of forest containing the last habitat of a microscopic species we’ve never noticed so a few humans can play golf a little more frequently? I answer No, it isn’t. It is possible for the costs of an action to non-human species to outweigh the benefits gained by humans of taking that action.
Why?
What worth?
Where does this belief come from?