It is by no means assured that the eaten human from the margin would have created more value than is lost by damaging a hypothetical endangered animal.
Since we’re equating ethical value and economic value here, there’s a simple way to test this: how much could you get paid to save the human vs. the wolf. Given that this is Norway and not some third world country, the human presumably has a decent amount of money he’d be willing to pay to save his life, not to mention his family and friends and the potential to take out a loan against future earnings. As for the wolf, you might be able to get something out of an animal-lover but not nearly as much as from the human.
In fact, someone who particularly values biodiversity the net value that would have been created by the human is almost certainly negative.
Except PhilGoetz is trying to use this argument to justify valuing biodiversity.
Since we’re equating ethical value and economic value here, there’s a simple way to test this: how much could you get paid to save the human vs. the wolf.
I’m not. That’s why I said I agree with your pre-edit point.
(Indirectly relevant: I am equating ethical value with personal utility which is something not everyone does.)
Since we’re equating ethical value and economic value here, there’s a simple way to test this: how much could you get paid to save the human vs. the wolf. Given that this is Norway and not some third world country, the human presumably has a decent amount of money he’d be willing to pay to save his life, not to mention his family and friends and the potential to take out a loan against future earnings. As for the wolf, you might be able to get something out of an animal-lover but not nearly as much as from the human.
Except PhilGoetz is trying to use this argument to justify valuing biodiversity.
I’m not. That’s why I said I agree with your pre-edit point.
(Indirectly relevant: I am equating ethical value with personal utility which is something not everyone does.)
My point was that even if we grant PhilGoetz’s equation of ethical and economic value, it still doesn’t imply what he wants it to.