Respect for Nature

STUDIES IN MORAL, POLITICAL,

AND LEGAL PHILOSOPHY

RESPECT FOR

NATURE

General Editor: Marshall Cohen

A Theory of Environmental Ethics

Paul W, Taylor

PRINCETON UNIVERSTTY PRESS PRTNCETON, NEW TERSEY

CONTENTS AcxNowLEDGMENTS

OrsE. EtvvrnoNMENTAL Ernrcs AND HuuaN

Ernrcs

3

1. lntroduction

2. Moral Agents and Moral Subjects 3. Formal Conditions for Valid Moral Principles 4. Material Conditions for Valid Moral Principles: The Content of Human Ethics 5. The Structural Summetry betzueen Human Ethics and

Erutironmental Ethics

Two. Tnn Arrrrupn or RrsrEcr

FoR

47 53

Nerunr

1. lntroduction

2. The Concept of the Good ol a Being 3. The Concept of lnherent Worth 4, Haaing and Expressing the Attitude of Respect for Nature

Respect

for Nature

as

25

41

6. Biology and Ethics 7. A Nofe on the Ethics of the Bioculture

5.

3 14

an Ultimate Attitude

59 59 60 71,

80 90

TunEn. THr BrocENTRrc Ourroox orv Narunn 1. The Biocentric Outlook and the Attitude of Respect for

99

2. Humans as Members of the Earth's Community of Life 3. The Natural World as a System af Interdependence 4. Indiaidual Organisms as Telealogical Centers of Life 5. The Denial of Human Superiority 6. The Argument for the Biocentric Outlook

101

Nature

99

vll

116 119 129 156

CO

NTE NT

S

Foun. Tnr ErHrcAL Sysrnivr 1. The Basic Rules of Conduct 2. Priority Principles 3. The Basic Standards of Virtue

198

Ftvp. Do

279

ANITUALS AND

169 169

192

PraNrs Havr Rrcnrs?

1,. Legal Rights and Moral Rights

219

2. Analysis of the Assertion of Moral Rights 3. The Defeasibility of Rights 4. ls lt Logically Conceiaable for Animals andlor

226 241

5.

Plants to

Haae Moral Rights? A Modified Concept of Moral Rights

Stx. CoururINc Crarus

AND Pnronr:ry

PnrNcrprrs

1. The General Problem of Competing Claims 2. Human Rights and the lnherent Worth of Nonhumans 3. Fiae Priority Principles for the Fair Resolution of

4. 5.

245 251

Conflicting Claims a. The Principle of Self-Defense b. The Principle of Proportionality c. The Principle of Minimum Wrong d. The Principle of Distributive Justice e. The Principle of Restitutive ]ustice The Ethical ldeal of Harmony between Human Ciailization and N ature The Normatiae Function of the Ethical ldeal

256 256 260 263 264 269 280 291,

304 307 310

BrruocnAPHY

315

INnrx

325

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the faculty and administration of Brooklyn College and the City University of New York for permitting me to take a sabbatical leave of absence during the spring semester of 1982. This gave me the opportunity to bring to completion a first version of the book, which I had been working on since 1977. To Tom Regan my thanks are also due. When he was Visiting Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College in the Fall of 1982, he kindly read the last chapter of the book and made extensive comments on it. I benefited greatly from this, as well as from discussions with him concerning various matters related to other parts of the book. The entire manuscript has been read and critically evaluated by Professors Michael Ruse, Mary Anne Warren, and C. G. Beer. Their detailed criticisms and suggestions were very helpful to me, and the book was much improved as a result. I am of course fully responsible for whatever errors and confusions remain. I am grateful to Professor Eugene C. Hargrove, Editor-inChief of Enaironmental Ethics, for permission to use material from two of my articles: "The Ethics of Respect for Nature," vol. 3, no. 3, Fall 1981, pp.797-218; and "Are Humans Superior to Animals and Plants?" vol. 6, no.2, Summer 1984, pp. 749-1,60. Finally, I would especially like to thank the Editor-inChief of Princeton University Press, Sanford G. Thatcher, for his careful, patient, and expert guidance in directing the manuscript through all its successive stages of development and revision. Brooklyn College, City University of New York September 1985 lx

+

ONE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS 7. lntroduction Environmental ethics is concerned with the moral relations that hold between humans and the natural world. The ethical principles governing those relations determine our du-

ties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth's natural environment and all the animals and plants that inhabit it. I shall use the term "the natural world" to refer to the entire set of natural ecosystems on our planet, along with the populations of animals and plants that make up the biotic communities of those ecosystems. The idea of a natural ecosystem as it is to be understood in this book means any collection of ecologically interrelated living things that, without human intrusion or control, maint'ain their existence as species-populations over time, each population occupying its own environmental niche and each shaped by the evolutionary processes of genetic variation and natural selection. Two types of natural ecosystems may be distinguished. First, there are those that have never been exploited by humans and have not undergone any major changes as the effect of human culture and technology. Examples are remote expanses of northern tundra, mountain forests, savannah grasslands, cactus deserts, and the marshlands of river estuaries. Insofar as such ecosystems are left undisturbed by humans, they remain in pristine condition and their biotic communities exist in a

Xi

* IE

l

[. L,

tF T

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS

genuinely wild state. Some of them are preserved in their natural condition because they have been intentionally set aside as wilderness areas by humans. The second type of natural ecosystem, like the first, includes a biotic community of wild animals and plants that now maintains its existence without being interfered with by human activities. But unlike ecosystems of the first type, these are found in areas that were at one time worked by human labor (such as farming and mining) or have undergone modification in the past as the result of certain human practices (such as sheep grazingor woodcutting). Such an ecosystem may now have returned to a natural condition simply because it has been left alone for a long period of time. On the other hand, it may have resulted from intentional human efforts aimed at restoring it to approximately the condition it was in before it was changed by humans. For both types of ecosystems, what makes them "natural" in the sense meant here is the fact that the biological and environmental factors determining the structure of relationships holding among their constituent species-populations take place without human intervention. I shall analyze in this study how the order of living things in a natural ecosystem is explained as the outcome of certain evolutionary processes and environmental conditions. When that explanation does not make reference to human purposes or to the effects of human actions, the ecosystem in question is here designated a "natural" one. Doubts might be raised as to whether any Benuinely natural ecosystems now exist on our planet. The impact of human civilization in the contemporary world appears inescapable. Certainly it is the case that wild biotic communities are rapidly disappearing, to say nothing of the accelerating rate of extinction of whole species. Directly correlated with these phenomena is the sharp decline in the number and variety of natural ecosystems. The effects of human culture and technology on the planetary biosphere are becoming ubiquitous. Due to the emergence of large-scale industrial-

ization in the past century, the recent rise in the growth rate of human population, and the expansion of economies that stimulate and depend on high levels of consumption, our human presence is now felt throughout the Earth. It is not only where we have taken over land areas to grow our food

crops and to build our towns and cities that ecological changes have been brought abou! the physical, chemical, and biological concomitants of modern civilization can be found everywhere. Unless these dominant trends of our age are brought under control, we will see the natural environment of our planet turned into a vast artifact. A massive transformation has already begun not only of the entire land surface of the Earth but also of the open oceans and the very atmosphere itself. Nevertheless, there still remain at present areas that are ecologically natural to some degree. At least in comparison with those environments that are now deliberately controlled and manipulated by humans or those that are undergoing extensive changes due to human influences, these areas have escaped severe ecological damage and their biotic communities still exist in a relatively wild state. What we must recognize is that no sharp line can be drawn between natural ecosystems and those that are not natural. Perhaps the most appropriate method for making the distinction is to think of natural ecosystems as belonging at one end of a continuum that extends from ecosystems similar in all essential respects to those in existence before humans appeared on Earth, through a gradation of degrees of increasing human influence, to the opposite end of the spectrum, where ecosystems are completely regulated and even produced by humans. Examples of the Iatter are farms , golf courses, landscaped parks, gardens, and the plantation forests of timber companies. We might call these "artificial ecosystems," since they are instruments created and used by humans for human ends. In some artificial ecosystems the very organisms themselves are a human product. Many varieties of plants have

il ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS been created by hybridization, and through carefully manipulated breeding programs new subspecies of animals have been developed. Recently the emergence of genetic engineering enables humans to create species, greatly enlarging the power to use living things for human benefit. By way of contrast with artificial ecosystems, the biota of natural ones are made up of organisms that have evolved independently of human interference in the course of nature. To the extent that an ecosystem belongs to the "natural" end of the continuum, its constituent species-populations, their patterns of ecological interdependence, and the range of habitats they occupy are all changing-sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly. These changes take place without

human intervention. According to biologists' current understanding of evolutionary ecology and population genetics, the structure of relationships among species-populations in a natural ecosystem, as well as the size, growth rate, age distribution, and other characteristics of each population are determined by the workings of natural selection at the level of individual organisms. This process, which has been true of natural ecosystems throughout the history of life on our planet, is explained by reference to two factors: changes in environmental conditions and genetic variation. Together these affect the reproductive success of individuals and thereby shape the order of the ecosystem as a whole. If we start with genetic variation and assume a constant environment, the explanatory scheme can be summarized thus: gene mutation (genotypic variation) J

new physical traits of individuals (phenotypic variation) J

increased or decreased competitive ability in the given

environment (augmented or diminished powers of adaptation)

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS T

increase or decrease in survival of genes in future in-

dividuals (greater or lesser reproductive success) T

changes in the species-population

(the new traits found in larger or smaller numbers of individuals in the given population) J

changes in the distribution and size of species-populations throughout the ecosystem.

Another mode of biological explanation of evolutionary processes in ecosystems, which supplements the foregoing, starts with environmental changes and assumes no ge-

netic variation initially. Here the pattern may be represented thus: change in environmental conditions J

increased competitive ability of some individuals and decreased competitive ability of others J

increased reproductive success of some and less reproductive success of others J

grow others decline, and a new pattern of ecological niches develops in the system.

some populations

In each mode of explanation the decisive factor determin-

ing the outcome is the fitness of individual

organisms,

where "fitness" is measured by an organism's ability to reproduce its own genes in future individuals. This is what it means to say that the changes among species-populations in an ecosystem, as well as the makeup of its biotic community at any given time, are finally the result of the workings of natural selection on the individual level.l I That natural selection functions on the individual level and is the basic determinant of population structures in ecosystems is fully argued in

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS

One point of philosophical importance in this way of looking at ecosystems and their biota is that what has been called "the balance of nature" can no longer be assumed as a kind of basic norm built into the order of the natural

world. "The balance of nature," as it was conceived in the nineteenth century both before and after Darwin, was taken to be evidence of overall design in the realm of living things. According to this idea the species-populations of each biotic community, and ultimately all species encompassed by the Earth's biosphere, were understood as forming an integrated order of harmonious relationships among themselves. The steady equilibrium of this system as a whole worked to the mutual benefit of living things. A biotic community was itself conceived of as a kind of supraorganism whose well-being is preserved by harmony among its parts, much as the well-being of an individual living thing is furthered when all its organs and tissues are performing their various biological functions in the proper manner. Given the way modern biology looks at ecosystems and their componeni biota, howeve! this organicisi or holistic conception of the order of life on Earth is not necessary for establishing any scientific explanation. Nor is it a useful paradigm for interpreting data or directing research. Whatever elements of equilibrium and stability may hold among the species-populations of an ecosystem at a particular time, these must be seen as general features resulting from natural selection as it occurs among individuals competing in their attempts to survive and reproduce. Whether humans ought to maintain or strengthen the stability and equilibGeorge C. Williams, Adaptation and Naturul Selection: A Critique of Some Current Euolutionary Thought (Princeton, N.f.: Princeton University Press, 19661. For the analysis of biological explanation in evolutionary ecology, I am indebted to two unpublished papers by Professor fames P. Collins of the Department of Zoology at Arizona State University: "A Review of

Some_Historical Aspects of the Development of Evolutionary Ecology" and "Evolutionary Ecology and the Changing Role of Natural Selection-in Ecological Theory."

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS rium of any of our planet's natural ecosystems as they happen to be structured at present is a question central to the concerns of environmental ethics. But to answer that question we can no longer simply appeal to the notion that the natural world has itself provided us with a guide to follow: preserve "the balance of nature" and so live in accordance with the design built into the very nature of things. As I shall point out later, we humans as moral agents must search for our own principles to guide us when we try to determine how to Iive in right relation to the natural world. This requires us to engage in ethical inquiry and not simply "read off" moral norms from a certain way of conceiving of the order of living things. It was necessary to discuss the foregoing points in order to clarify what a theory of environmental ethics, as it is to be conceived here, is designed to do. Put briefly, it is an attempt to establish the rational grounds for a system of moral principles by which human treatment of natural ecosystems and their wild communities of life ought to be guided. This overall aim requires systematic examination of a broad range of problems. As we read on, we shall see that when the full implications of a theory of environmental ethics are explored in depth, our subject of concern will encompass nothing less than the place of human civilization in the natural world. There are four basic, distinct areas of inquiry, each of which is presented here by means of a set of closely connected questions.

1. Is human conduct in relation to natural ecosystems properly subject to moral constraints, or are such constraints only applicable to the ways human beings treat one another? Are there any ethical principles that we should follow in our treatrnent of the natural environment? Does the fact that some of our actions affect the lives of wild animals and plants for better or worse have any ethical significance

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN BTHICS

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS

at all? Does such a fact in and of itself give us any reason, not necessarily a conclusive one, to perform or refrain from performing the actions in question? Do we have duties and obligations with regard to the natural world independent of our duties and obligations with regard to humans? 2. If the answer to any of the foregoing questions is yes, what are the moral constraints involved, and how do they differ from those that govern our actions in relation to other human beings? If we have duties toward nonhumans independent of our duties toward humans, on what ground do those duties rest? What standards of good character and what rules of right conduct apply in that ethical domain?

types of environmental ethics, human-centered (or anthropocentric) and life-centered (or biocentric). A human-centered theory of environmental ethics holds that our moral duties with respect to the natural world are all ultimately derived from the duties we owe to one another as human beings. It is because we should respect the human rights of everyone, or should protect and promote the well-being of

3. How would one iustify those standards and rules? Can a moral commitment to follow principles of environmental ethics be shown to rest on rational grounds? Can we establish that there are aalid principles of environmental ethics,

binding upon everyone alike? 4. Finally, how are ourobligations and responsibilities toward the natural world (supposing we have them) to be weighed against human values and interests? Do the duties of environmental ethics ever require us to act in ways that may be contrary to human ends, and if so, when (if ever) do those duties override the fulfillment of human ends?

Ary

* i

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systematic and thoroughgoing attempt to answer

these questions is what I shall call a theory of environmental ethics. The views set forth and defended in this book are one such attempt. I shall argue that, quite independently of the duties we owe to our fellow humans, we are morally required to do or refrain from doing certain acts insofar as those acts bring benefit or harm to wild living things in the natural world. I shall further argue that these moral requirements have to be weighed against certain things valued by humans. To fulfill the duties of environmental ethics does involve at times a sacrifice of at least some human interests. In order to understand how such a view can be rationally

humans, that we must place certain constraints on our treatment of the Earth's natural environment and its nonhuman inhabitants. A typical human-centered argument goes as follows. Future generations of people have as much right to live a physically secure and healthy life as those of the present generation. Each of us is therefore under an obligation not to allow the natural environment to deteriorate to such an extent that the survival and well-being of later human inhabitants of the Earth are feopardized. We also have a duty to conserve natural resources so that future generations will be able to enjoy their fair share of benefits derived from those resources. Even our present responsibility to protect endangered species of wildlife is linked to human values. Thus it is sometimes argued that a varied gene pool of plant and animal species is needed for developing new ways to protect humans from diseases, to get rid