PHIL 155 Qs

Ch. 7: What is the difference between a descriptive difference and a morally relevant difference?

- A descriptive difference is any factual difference between two things - A morally relevant difference is a factual difference that tracks or marks something ethically significant

Ch. 2: What is the philosophical method and why is it thought to be an effective method for ethical investigation?

- A method of seeking a conclusion through reason based, empirically informed inquiry. - Effective because it supports a commitment to believing whatever has the best argument, reasons, justification, and evidence.

Ch. 7: What makes an argument "extensionist"?

- An extensionist argument is any argument that aims to justify direct moral concern for an entity on the grounds that there is no morally relevant difference between that entity or another entity that is regarded as directly morally considerable.

Ch. 3: What is the difference between an intrinsic ethical objection and an extrinsic ethical objection?

- An intrinsic objection is based on the features of the technology itself - An extrinsic one is based on expected or possible outcomes

Ch. 5: What is the inadequacy objection to anthropocentrism and ratiocentrism?

- Anthropocentrism and ratiocentrism are inadequate as environmental ethics - Their superiority complex and exclusive concern with humans and rational beings are part of the problem

Ch. 5: What does it mean to say that anthropocentrism is a biological group membership account of moral status, whereas ratiocentrism is a capacities-based approach?

- Anthropocentrism applies inherent worth based on being a member of a biological group, homo sapiens, while ratiocentrism applies inherent worth based on the capacities of the individual in question

Ch. 3: What are the difficulties with using concepts from evolutionary theory prescriptively?

- Assumes there is absolute fitness (there is no such thing as superior species/individual) - Evolution does not function with a purpose/goal - Just because a theory is justified in one context doesn't mean it's appropriate in another

Ch. 2: What is the challenge of adaptation and why is anthropogenic climate change such an important environmental issue?

- Challenge of adaptation if the difficulty for humans and eco systems to adapt in response to high magnitude ecological change - Important issue because the atmosphere and climate impact almost all ecological processes and systems - Climate change drives species extinction, economic and agri. disruptions, creates refugees, destroys resources, etc.

Ch. 1: What are the three bases for environmental concern discussed in this chapter (ch. 1) and how do they differ from each other?

- Dependency and vulnerability: (most widely recognized) we are dependent upon ecosystem services and natural resources, such as clean air, fertile soil, pollinators, and potable water. This relationship is characterized by physical dependency, vulnerability, and economic resources. - Human flourishing: appropriate relations to ecological systems, biological diversity, and individual organisms can significantly enrich human life. This can be cultural, spiritual, aesthetic. Respite, renewal, recreation in nature (e.g., Japanese forest bathing). Center for cultural/religious/traditional ritual or practice. - Intrinsic value: Moral patient-agent relation

Ch. 2: What are the differences between description, explanation, prediction, evaluation, and prescription?

- Description- Characterizes the way the world is - Explanation- proposing causal explanations for why the world is the way it is - Prediction- concerns what might happen in the future - Evaluation- claims about the value of things - Prescription- claims about what ought to be done

Ch. 3: What are the different definitions of "nature" discussed in this chapter? Which one is most widely used in environmental ethics and why is it used?

- Descriptive definitions of "nature": something is natural if it is subject to the "natural laws" that govern the material world (nature contrasted with supernatural), something is natural if it is part of the biological world (the natural world is the living world), something is natural if it is separate from humans and independent of human agency (natural contrasted with artifactual) - It's also used in an evaluative way (example: natural food) - The definition most widely used in environmental ethics is "nature" as anything independent of human design, control, or impacts - Helpful because it lets us see naturalness as a matter of degree and useful to have a term that picks out areas, entities, and processes that are independent from human beings

Ch. 5: What are the dominion, care, and stewardship models of the human relationship to creation?

- Dominion model- Humans are separate (and higher) beings and we are empowered by god to use the natural world - Care model- All creation is an "expression of the divine," we ought to care for, and be in awe of, organisms and ecosystems - Stewardship model- god has entrusted us to oversee the rest of creation

Ch. 4: Why is economic valuation of ecosystem services thought to be crucial to environmental decision-making?

- Economic valuation is the act of attempting to put an economic value on the full range of services an ecosystem my have - It can clarify who is benefitted and who is harmed, inform design of the project to mitigate environmental impacts and distribute the costs and benefits more fairly - It's crucial for environmental ethics because it can provide a basis for challenging the overall economic benefits claimed by the project, it usually favors decisions and policies that environmentalists prefer

Ch. 1: Why does environmental ethics involve reassessing our worldviews, attitudes, behaviors, lifestyles, and social systems?

- Environmental ethics is radical philosophy. 1. Requires a reassessment of our default anthropocentrism. 2. Requires a reassessment of ethical responsibility - we are dealing with more mundane and diffuse causal relations. Many "amoral" are now open to ethical scrutiny. 3. Requires a more holistic perspective than the dominant individualism of mainstream ethics. Ecosystems, communities, and species - not organisms, persons, or animals. 4. Requires a reevaluation of our cultural, social, and political practices in a systemic and structural manner. There is a justice component to environmental ethics.

Ch. 4: Why is the issue of whether anything in nature has final value, and especially objective value, thought to be so important to environmental ethics?

- If ecosystems, species, and landscapes have value in virtue of their independence from humans, it supports limiting human influence on them - Whether things matter and how they matter is important in environmental ethics because value determines how things ought to be treated.

Ch. 7: What is the difference between equal consideration and same treatment?

- If sentient nonhumans are directly morally considerable, it does not follow that we must treat them the same way we treat people - Considerable- need to be taken into account

Ch. 7: What makes an approach to environmental ethics "individualist"?

- If the approach to environmental ethics functions on the view that only individual organisms are morally considerable, or that the rights, welfare, and good of individuals should be the primary focus of ethical concern, then that ethic is "individualist"

Ch. 5: What is the correlation/causation fallacy and what are some examples of it?

- Inferring causation from correlation - Ex. People carrying umbrellas and outdoor events being cancelled

Ch. 7: What is pluralism with respect to direct moral considerability?

- Instead of following one strict method for assigning value, there are in fact a plurality of bases and degrees of moral considerability - All things may be directly morally considerable, but there may be degrees of considerability as well as different forms of considerability

Ch. 3: What are the intrinsic and extrinsic objections to genetically modified crops? What are the responses to the objections?

- Intrinsic- "unnaturalness" objection to GMOs, "playing God" argument - Extrinsic- Concerns about GMOs not being safe for consumers, ecological and agricultural impacts, concerns about power, control, and justice Objections: - Intrinsic- "Unnatural" does not mean bad/immoral, people have been hybridizing organisms for millennia, cross species hybridization is common in nature - Extrinsic- Different GM crops have different impacts on the environment (some are beneficial while some are problematic), it is possible for GM crops to be developed independently from commodity monoculture

Ch. 5: What is the difference between being a moral agent and being a moral patient?

- Moral patients are individuals whose interests are directly morally considerable - Moral agents have worth and moral considerability because they understand that some things are right and some are wrong

Ch. 1: What does it mean to say that environmental ethics is both aspirational and proscriptive?

- Proscriptive - there are things we ought not to do, for a variety of reasons ranging from prudential to categorically imperative - Aspirational - positive engagement with the environment can yield above-average, above-subsistence human well-being and value.

Ch. 3: What are the concerns raised regarding the idea of "wilderness"? What are the responses to those concerns?

- Romanticizes nature, "the wilderness ideal" - "Wilderness" as a concept created by humans, results in lack of appreciation for the nature within our built environment - A response to this concern could be that this has resulted in many conservation efforts

Ch. 7: What is the difference between sentientism and biocentrism?

- Sentientism is the view that all and only those that have a mental life or are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain - have inherent worth - Biocentrism is the view that all living things have inherent worth

Ch. 4: What are the two types of final value discussed in this chapter and how do they differ?

- Subjective and objective final value - Something with subjective value has a subject who is assigning the value, the thing is valued for non-instrumental reasons. Grounded in evaluative thought. - Something with objective value has intrinsic value that is not assigned by a subject. Grounded in fact, reality.

Ch. 7: What is the basis for the denial of human superiority on Taylor's view? What is the principle of species impartiality?

- The denial of human superiority is the belief that there is no morally relevant difference between humans and nonhumans that would justify ascribing inherent worth to humans but not nonhumans. - the principle of species impartiality: "[E]very species counts as having the same value in the sense that, regardless of what species a living thing belongs to, it is deemed to be prima facie deserving of equal concern and consideration on the part of moral agents .... Subscribing to the principle of species-impartiality ... means regarding every entity that has a good of its own as possessing inherent worth" (Taylor 1986, 155).

Ch. 1: What are some of the distinctive value questions raised by environmental ethics?

- The ethical significance of: - things that are not alive (landscapes) - things that are alive but not sentient (plants) - things that are sentient but not human (animals) - things that are collectives (ecosystems and species) - longitudinal collective action problems

Ch. 2: In what ways does empirical information about ourselves and the world need to inform ethical beliefs and evaluations?

- Value claims are empirically dependent, the legitimacy of value claims very often depend on scientific info - Application of ethical principles to concrete situations requires understanding about the relevant facts - Well-justified prescriptions need understanding about the available courses of action and their likely outcomes

Ch. 5: What is the indirect duties view regarding nonhuman animals?

- We need to consider the interest of animals because of their relationship to people's interests

Ch. 1: What are the central questions of environmental ethics?

- What is the proper way to understand the relationship between ourselves and the nonhuman environment, including the organisms that populate it? - What values emerge from that relationship or are possessed by environmental entities, such as species, ecosystems, organisms, and landscapes? - What principles, rules, or other forms of guidance regarding action, charcter, and policy do those environmental values justify? - What do those principles and rules imply for how we ought to interact with the environment, as well as how we should live more generally?

Ch. 7: What does it mean to say of something that it is directly morally considerable or has inherent worth?

- When something is directly considerable because it has interests that moral agents ought to care about for its own sake, it has inherent worth

Ch. 2: What is skepticism about ethics and why is it thought to be unjustified?

-Ethical skepticism is the view that either there are no true ethical claims (nihilism), ethical claims are not knowable/justifiable, or ethics has no prescriptively (amoralism) - Nihilism can be disproven by the fact that some views are better justified than others - Amoralism boils down to the belief that we have no reason to act ethically outside of our own wants and desires, but just because there is no good self- interested reason doesn't mean there is no good reason, some ethical beliefs being more justified than others also disproves amoralism

Ch. 2: What are the elements that make up an argument and what are the ways in which an argument can go wrong?

-Premises, inference, and conclusion. - Premises are meant to justify the conclusion by means of an inference - An argument can go wrong if the premises are false, or if the inference is invalid

Ch. 4: What are the concerns about economic valuations of environmental goods and values?

1) Many things, particularly with final or intrinsic value, cannot be meaningfully represented in economic terms because there is no market for them 2) No economic valuation adequately represents such things such as aesthetic value, cultural value, justice, and the value of species 3) Once an economic value is placed on a population, place, or process, the values that are not presented economically are marginalized in decision-making 4) There is no guarantee that in a comprehensive economic analysis a full economic valuation of maintaining ecosystem services will outweigh the economic value of exploitation or development 5) Strictly economic analyses also often favor distributions of environmental hazards that disproportionately burden high-minority and low income communities

Ch. 3: What are the ways in which the concept of "nature" is used prescriptively? And what are the objections to using it in those ways?

1) We ought not interfere with nature 2) We ought to follow nature 3) Something is wrong when unnatural 4) We ought to maintain the balance of nature Objections: 1) Impossible, this would also imply that all engineering and tech. are wrong 2) Fallacy of appeal to nature, nature should not serve as an ethical guide 3) There are some unnatural things that aren't morally wrong 4) The term "balance" are romanticized, nature is privation, predation, and death

Ch. 4: What is the replication argument for the conclusion that naturalness is a value-adding property?

1. A replica ecosystem is less valuable than an original ecosystem 2. The only difference between an original ecosystem and a replica ecosystem is that the original is natural, whereas the replica is artifactual 3. Therefore, naturalness is value-adding for ecosystems

Ch. 5: What are the main arguments for anthropocentrism, what are the primary responses?

Anthropocentrism arguments: 1) It best corresponds with what most people think about the environment 2) Argument for participatory decision making 3) Inclusive of all human-beings Responses: 1) Fallacy of appeal to the crowd 2a) The premise that it's not possible to know what non human organism's interests/preferences are is false 2b) Anthropocentrism is biological group based while this is a capacities based argument 3a) Fallacy of begging the question, humans have worth because they're humans is faulty 3b) Good that it's inclusive of all humans but this commits speciesism

Ch. 5: Main arguments for ratiocentrism, primary responses?

Argument: - In order for someone to be held morally responsible, they need to understand that somethings are right and some things are wrong Response: - The moral agency criterion for inherent worth conflates moral worth and inherent worth

Ch. 12: What does it mean to describe something as a technofix?

To say that is is a response to environmental problems that aims to use technology to treat the problematic effects, rather than address the underlying causes