Animals

Should we as humans actively try to maintain the existence of other species (like we do now due to their cuteness/rarity)?

Comments

Hm; who would think we shouldn't, all else being equal? Although I suppose some might question whether "all else is equal." After all, "maintaining" has various costs (devotion of time, money, resources etc) that might better be spent elsewhere (for example, helping suffering human beings). But then again, not too many people think that we should each devote all of our resources to helping other human beings. (If you did then you probably should not be doing almost anything you are doing -- including spending time on the computer asking philosophers questions -- because that time could have been more directly spent helping someone in immediate need!) So as long as one agrees we are not obligated to spend all/most of our time helping other human beings in need then I suppose there are many things it is perfectly all right to do, including maintaining other species just because we like them. (One very useful resource here might be Peter Singer's recent book, The Life You Can Save, which focuses deeply on the question whether it really is okay for us to spend so LITTLE of our resources helping other people .....)

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