4 - Tempered Anthropocentrism

Summary

Can we introduce value for biodiversity in such a way that (i) values remain anthropocentric but (ii) a reverence for nature is not lost? Part (ii) of this question is important because most, perhaps all, biodiversity conservationists share a reverence for nature that goes beyond appreciating its utility in the mundane sense that it delivers goods for our material consumption. This chapter will try to provide an affirmative answer to this question by developing a framework for attributing values using a concept of “transformative” value originally introduced in this context in 1987 by Bryan G. Norton but surprisingly ignored in the literature since then. The result is an anthropocentric defense of biodiversity conservation, but this anthropocentrism is tempered by an appreciation of the fact that biodiversity does not have the sort of human value that is routinely traded in the marketplace. It does not have cash value. The value it has is much more important. The normative account advocated here fits most easily into a consequentialist framework, though, in its discussion of the obligations for biodiversity conservation (§ 4.3), it draws on arguments that are usually associated with the deontological tradition. Environmental ethics extends ethical discussion into the nonhuman realm and thereby necessarily broadens the scope of normative ethical theory – in such a context, it is unhelpful to view the different traditions within ethics (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc.) as being incompatible in principle.