Question I know I feel very strongly about the importance of conserving biodiversity, but I really can't pin down why it is so important to me, or how to make the argument to convince others that it is important. Can philosophy help?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005

Comments

Philosophy might help in sifting through the possible reasons for conserving biodiversity--not just diversity of species, but also of types of ecosystems and also, perhaps, of genetic diversity within a species. And what is worrying about our current situation, by the way, is not simply that species are going extinct (this has always happened), but that diversity is disappearing at an alarming rate and on an alarming scale--one that is perhaps comparable to the five or so mass extinctions that have taken place over the past 440 million years. And we seem to be causing it!

There are surely a number of very good instrumental reasons for preserving biodiversity. First, in biodiversity lies a treasure chest of potential medicines, foods, and other things that might be useful to us. Second, we don't want to lose clues to a more complete understanding of the workings and history of the Earth. Third, for many of us, even non-religious types, the diversity of life is a deep and awesome source of aesthetic and even quasi-spiritual fulfillment.

These considerations seem to me strongly to support the consesrvation of biodiversity other things being equal. But note that they don't support conservation at all costs--the survival or mere flourishing of humans will presumably outweigh the preservation of the last, say, tidal shore beggar's tick, whose benefit to us we might justifiably estimate to be minimal. Moreover, these considerations are instrumental or anthropocentric because the value they give to biodiversity derives entirely from the benefits it brings to us.

What's philosophically interesting is whether biodiversity has non-instrumental or intrinsic value: that is, whether it's to be valued independently of some benefit that it might bring to us, humans. This question is separate from the question of animal rights. We might well believe that the interests of individual non-human animals should be given moral weight--that we should abolish factory farming and animal experimentation, for example--without believing that there is some extra weight to be given to rare animals, or to life-forms that promote diversity, or to "holistic" entities like species-as-such, or biotic communitites (to use Aldo Leopold's term), or whole ecosystems, or Gaia/Mother Earth. Whether such entities have intrinsic value is one of the central questions of contemporary environmental philosophy, and it runs through a great variety of ancient and contemporary philosophical and religious traditions.

I've always wanted to believe that holistic entities have intrinsic value, but have never been able to. For one thing, notions of ecological stability and balance, of an ecosystem, and even of a species (not to mention the Gaia Hypothesis) are scientifically problematic to say the least. But even waving this, I can't see a compelling reason why such entities should have intrinsic value. That's why I myself fall back on the instrumental reasons in support of the ways I'm inclined to act. But other, perhaps more visionary people don't.

Question I know I feel very strongly about the importance of conserving biodiversity, but I really can't pin down why it is so important to me, or how to make the argument to convince others that it is important. Can philosophy help? Accepted:November 3, 2005

Question I know I feel very strongly about the importance of conserving biodiversity, but I really can't pin down why it is so important to me, or how to make the argument to convince others that it is important. Can philosophy help?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005