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compatible with a human-centred ethic to see economic growth |
based on the exploitation of irreplaceable resources as something |
that brings gains to the present generation, and possibly |
the next generation or two, but at a price that will be paid by |
273 |
Practical Ethics |
every generation to come. But in the light of our discussion of |
speciesism in Chapter 3, it should also be clear that it is wrong |
to limit ourselves to a human-centred ethic. We now need to |
consider more fundamental challenges to this traditional Western |
appro~.s;h to environmental issues. |
IS THERE VALUE BEYOND SENTIENT BEINGS? |
Although some debates about significant environmental issues |
can be conducted by appealing only to the long-term interests |
of our own species, in any serious exploration of environmental |
values a central issue will be the question of intrinsic value. We |
have already seen that it is arbitrary to hold that only human |
beings are of intrinsic value. If we find value in human conscious |
experiences, we cannot deny that there is value in at least some |
experiences of non-human beings. How far does intrinsic value |
extend? To all, but only, sentient beings? Or beyond the boundary |
of sentience? |
To explore this question a few remarks on the notion of'intrinsic |
value' will be helpful. Something is of intrinsic value if |
it is good or desirable in itself; the contrast is with 'instrumental |
value', that is, value as a means to some other end or purpose. |
Our own happiness, for example, is of intrinsic value, at least |
to most of us, in that we desire it for its own sake. Money, on |
the other hand, is only of instrumental value to us. We want it |
because of the things we can buy with it, but if we were marooned |
on a desert island, we would not want it. (Whereas |
happiness would be just as important to us on a desert island |
as anywhere else.) |
Now consider again for a moment the issue of damming the |
river described at the beginning of this chapter. If the decision |
were to be made on the basis of human interests alone, we |
would balance the economic benefits of the dam for the citizens |
of the state against the loss for bushwalkers, scientists, and |
others, now and in the future, who value the preservation of |
274 |
The Environment |
the river in its natural state. We have already seen that because |
this calculation includes an indefinite number of future generations, |
the loss of the wild river is a much greater cost than |
we might at first imagine. Even so, once we broaden the basis |
of our decision beyond the interests of human beings, we have |
much more to set against the economic benefits of building the |
dam. Into the calculations must now go the interests of all the |
non-human animals who live in the area that will be flooded. |
A few may be able to move to a neighboring area that is suitable, |
but wilderness is not full of vacant niches awaiting an occupant; |
if there is territory that can sustain a native animaL it is most |
likely already occupied. Thus most of the animals living in the |
flooded area will die: either they will be drowned, or they will |
starve. Neither drowning nor starvation are easy ways to die, |
and the suffering involved in these deaths should, as we have |
seen, be given no less weight than we would give to an equivalent |
amount of suffering experienced by human beings. This |
will significantly increase the weight of considerations against |
building the dam. |
What of the fact that the animals will die, apart from the |
suffering that will occur in the course of dying? As we have |
seen, one can, without being guilty of arbitrary discrimination |
on the basis of species, regard the death of a non-human animal |
who is not a person as less significant than the death of a person, |
since humans are capable of foresight and forward planning in |
ways that non-human animals are not. This difference between |
causing death to a person and to a being who is not a person |
does not mean that the death of an animal who is not a person |
should be treated as being of no account. On the contrary, |
utilitarians will take into account the loss that death inflicts on |
the animals - the loss of all their future existence, and the |
experiences that their future lives would have contained. When |
a proposed dam would flood a valley and kill thousands, perhaps |
millions, of sentient creatures, these deaths should be given |
great importance in any assessment of the costs and benefits of |
275 |
Practical Ethics |
building the dam. For those utilitarians who accept the total |
view discussed in Chapter 4, moreover, if the dam destroys the |
habitat in which the animals lived, then it is relevant that this |
loss is a continuing one. If the dam is not built, animals will |
presumably continue to live in the valley for thousands of years, |
experiencing their own distinctive pleasures and pains. One |
might question whether life for animals in a natural environment |
yields a surplus of pleasure over pain, or of satisfaction |
over frustration of preferences. At this point the idea of calculating |
benefits becomes almost absurd; but that does not mean |
that the loss of future animal lives should be dismissed from |
our decision making. |
That, however, may not be all. Should we also give weight, |
not only to the suffering and death of individual animals, but |
to the fact that an entire species may disappear? What of the |
loss of trees that have stood for thousands of years? How much |
- if any - weight should we give to the preservation of the |
animals, the species, the trees and the valley's ecosystem, independently |
of the interests of human beings - whether economic, |
recreational, or scientific - in their preservation? |
Here we have a fundamental moral disagreement: a disagreement |
about what kinds of beings ought to be considered in |
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