Animal Welfare and Environmental Ethics: Reconciling Competing Values

In this discussion I revisit the animal welfare-environmental ethics debate, including a recent argument by Ian Campbell in this journal, that its underlying values are incommensurable at the level of principle, making them hard to reconcile, even in practice. By relying on the geocentric framework...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEthics and the environment Vol. 27; no. 1; pp. 67 - 78
Main Author Reed, Christine
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Greenwich Indiana University Press 22.03.2022
Subjects
Animal care
Animal welfare
Conservation biology
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Endangered & extinct species
Environmental ethics
Ethics
Extinction
Habitat loss
Habitats
Indigenous animals
Lynn, William
Nussbaum, Martha
Values
Wildlife conservation
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Summary:In this discussion I revisit the animal welfare-environmental ethics debate, including a recent argument by Ian Campbell in this journal, that its underlying values are incommensurable at the level of principle, making them hard to reconcile, even in practice. By relying on the geocentric framework of William Lynn and the capabilities approach of Martha Nussbaum, as well as a place-specific example of wild horse protection policies, I argue that it is possible to balance these competing values. In light of the pervasive presence of non-native animals, as well as habitat loss and other threats to self-sustaining ecosystems, binary choices are fast becoming anachronistic. Case-by-case analyses are necessary in order to assess how to grant equitable consideration to complex claims.
ISSN:1085-6633
1535-5306
1535-5306
DOI:10.2979/ethicsenviro.27.1.04