13/02/2018

Bioethics seminar
2
NON-humans and human morality

Non-
humans:
A problem
for ethics

The dilemma

 An ethical dilemma arises when there

are two or more courses of action
which conflict with each other
 Whichever choice is made, there will
be some measure of negative outcome

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The dilemma 2
 Changing our use of the environment and non-
humans will require effort, cost and changes to
our way of life. It will be difficult to do and
people tend to resist and be distressed by
change.
 This would be ethically bad
 Continuing to use the environment and non-
humans at our current rate and/or in the current
way will lead to suffering for those living today
and future generations
 This would be ethically bad.

The challenge

 The challenge is to work out which of the outcomes

is the most ethical
 For consequentialists – usually the one with the
least suffering or most beneficial consequences
 For deontologists – usually the one that does not
use someone as a means to an end

Respect for other non-

humans
 We can justify our consideration of animals on the
basis of the capacity to suffer, and many people
do
 But, finding a justification for moral concern
about other types of non-humans is difficult
 How can we have a moral obligation to things that
aren’t sentient?
 Plant life
 Rocks, hills, landscapes
 Oceans, rivers

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Anthropocentrism and
intrinsic value
 Conventional Western Ethics is anthropocentric
– only concerned with obligations to human
beings
 We tend to give human beings an automatic
moral status – just because they exist
 Ethics calls this ‘intrinsically valuable’ (or
intrinsically important)

Instrumental value
 Mainstream ethical theory struggles to justify a
‘respect for the environment’ because it cannot
think or suffer
 Protection of the environment is treated as
important only so far as it facilitates human
activity (or future activity).
 Ethics calls this ‘being instrumentally
important’ – our obligations (if any) only come
from the use it can be put to, not simply
because it exists

The challenge
 The problem is, instrumental values can be
overridden (particularly in short term and profit-
motive thinking)

 Some ethicists argue that the environment has an

intrinsic value instead, something that deserves
consideration just because it exists.

 This would give additional weight to non-humans

when we consider the environmental dilemma

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Approaches to environmental
ethics - Instrumental

 Consequentialism
 Destruction of the environment and our use on non-
humans will make human life worse
 Risks from loss of diversity and raw materials
 Risks of climate change
 Risks of social injustice, poverty

Approaches to environmental
ethics - Intrinsic

 Relational ethics
 attempt to break down the idea that humans are as ‘self-
contained’ as conventional theories often claim – we are
interdependent, not isolated and superior
 Humans are not automatically more important than non-
humans

 Care Ethics
 base our ethics on other human capacities – such as our ability
to nurture and protect others simply because they exist
 The environment and non-human lives are clearly deserving of
care and protection thus we are morally obliged to give it

Seminar Activity