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Chapter 7
The Challenge of
Environmentalism
Singer’s Utilitarian
Environmentalism
• Singer argues for the liberation of animals
by comparing the bias against animals:
– Which he calls “speciesism,” with biases
against blacks and women
• Animals have interests because they have
a capacity for suffering and enjoyment
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Regan’s Kantian Environmentalism
• Tom Regan proposed a Kantian
environmentalism
– What is fundamentally wrong with our
treatment of nonhuman animals is that it:
• Implies that they are simply resources for our use
• Problems with Singer’s and Regan’s views
– Biased
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Biocentrism
• Biocentrists need a good argument that
nonhuman living beings have moral status
• The possession by human beings of the
distinctive trait of rationality
• In human ethics, being powerful and being
morally right are not the same thing
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Principles of Conflict Resolution
• A Principle of Human Preservation
– Actions that are necessary for meeting one’s
basic needs or other human beings are:
• Permissible even when they require aggressing
against the needs of individual animals and plants
– Or even of whole species or ecosystems
• A Principle of Disproportionality
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Principles of Conflict Resolution
– Actions that meet nonbasic or luxury needs of
humans are prohibited when they:
• Aggress against the basic needs of individual
animals & plants or whole species or ecosystems
• A Principle of Human Defense
– Actions that defend oneself and other human
beings against harmful aggression are:
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Principles of Conflict Resolution
• Permissible even when they necessitate killing or
harming individual animals or plants:
– Or even destroying whole species or ecosystems
• A Principle of Rectification
– Compensation and reparation are required
when the other principles have been violated
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Individualism and Holism
• According to holists the good of a species,
or the good of an ecosystem:
– Or the good of the whole biotic community
can trump the good of individual living things
• According to individualists, the good of the
individual living thing must be respected
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An Objection From a Somewhat
Alien Perspective
• The moral defensibility of the Principles of
Human Preservation, Disproportionality:
– Human Defense, and Rectification
• These principles capture the moral requirements
we can reasonably require human beings to accept
• How do you distinguish basic from
nonbasic needs?
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Conclusion
• Traditional ethics has been challenged as
biased against nonhuman living beings
– Should endorse a version of biocentrism
• The Principle of Human Defense, the
Principle of Human Preservation
• The Principle of Disproportionality, and the
Principle of Restitution
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