Philosophy 220
The Moral Status of the More Than Human World: The
Environment
The Environment and Moral
Standing
 An even more controversial expansion of the
concept of moral standing than we’ve seen in
the discussion of non-human animals attempts
to extend it to biological (a rare fungi) or nonliving features (a wild mountain stream) of the
natural world, or even to the interconnected
whole of nature.
 As always we want to ask both if such things
have moral standing, and if they do, what are
our obligations to them.
4 Perspectives on Moral Standing

As we’ve now seen, the question of the limits
of the moral community (of where DMS ends)
has been answered in a variety of
(increasingly expansive) ways:
1. Anthropocentrism: All and only human beings
have DMS;
2. Sentientism: (Matheny) all sentient creatures have
DMS;
3. Biocentrism: All living things, because they are
living, have DMS;
4. Ecocentrism: because of their integral, functional
character, ecosystems have DMS.
Ethics and the Environment
 If something like an environmental
ethics is possible, either biocentrism or
ecocentrism has to be true.
 An Environmental Ethic must include
(ala Regan):
1. A commitment to the DMS of non-human
beings;
2. The assumption that consciousness is not a
necessary condition for DMS.
Baxter, “People or Penguins”
 Baxter begins by suggesting what he thinks is
an appropriate general framework for
addressing questions that have broad social
significance, like that of the moral status of the
environment:
 Spheres of freedom: freedom from interference where such
freedom does not interfere with freedom of others.
 Waste is a bad thing.
 Humans should be viewed as ends, not means.
 As part of respect owed to each human being, each
individual should be given the opportunity and incentive to
improve their situation.
DDT and Penguins
 The case of DDT gives Baxter on opportunity to
apply his framework.
 Baxter makes it clear that the negative impact of
DDT in Penguins (interrupting reproduction and
thus threatening population) does not necessarily
imply that we should stop using DDT.
 Why? The only appropriate criteria are oriented
toward "people, not penguins" (615c2).
Anthropocentrism
 Baxter offers an example of an anthropocentric
approach to environmental ethics.
 For Baxter, this is the only tenable starting point:
 Most people think and act like this.
 Doesn’t necessarily imply mass destruction of nature.
 Humans act as surrogates for non-human life.
 Only starting point that provides workable solutions. Only humans
vote so only humans count in social decision making.
 Contrary position theoretically untenable—how can animals be ends
and how can they express their preferences?
 Nature has no normative dimension. Normativity restricted to
humans. Any normative implications make necessary reference to
human desire. What is clean air? What is polluted air? These
questions are only meaningful in a particular human context.
What are we left with?
 A set of trade-offs, where we seek to maximize
in a rationally appropriate way, the benefits
produced by our expenditure of resources.
 Pollution control is just one, not necessarily the
most important, expenditure.
 What we should be seeking is not pure air or
water, but optimally polluted air and water.
Leopold, “The Land Ethic”
 Leopold begins by outlining what he takes to be the
evolutionary development of our ethical sensibilities.
 Primitive ethical theories (as exemplified by reference
to the Iliad and Odyssey) were exclusively oriented
toward relationships between individuals (as perhaps
Baxter’s still is).
 More modern theories extended this analysis to include
the relations between individuals and societies (like we
saw, for example, in our discussion of economic
justice).
The Next Step
 The next step in this development, suggests Leopold, is
the extension of this analysis to the relation between
humans and their natural environments.
 How does this extension work? We are already willing
to acknowledge a communal element of our moral
thinking. A land ethic merely extends this sense of
community to include the entirety of the biotic
community (the nexus of living and non-living things of
which we are one expression).
An Impoverished View
 The major barrier to this expansion is our exclusively
economic understanding of the natural world.
 We view the land as ‘resources.’ This is a falsely
externalized and overly simplified view of the complex
relationships between humans and their world.
 “…a system of conservation based solely on economic selfinterest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus
eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land
community that lack commercial value, but that
are…essential to its healthy functioning” (621c2).
A Better Model, A Different Ethic
 In contrast to this economic worldview, Leopold offers the
image of the ‘land pyramid.’
 This model focuses on the flow of energy from the simplest to
most complex creatures.
 One thing this model highlights is the risk that our ability to
short circuit normal evolutionary change and upset the
complicated interrelationships between elements of the
pyramid.
 On the basis of this model Leopold proposes an ecocentric ethic
according to which it is an action's effects on the integrity, stability,
and beauty of the biotic community that ultimately make the action
right or wrong.