Paul W. Taylor (1923-2015) was professor emeritus of philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

RESPECT FOR NATURE

A Theory of Environmental EthicsBy Paul W. Taylor

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1986 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-15024-6

Contents

Foreword to the 25th Anniversary Edition...........................................................ixAcknowledgments....................................................................................xiiiOne. Environmental Ethics and Humanethics..........................................................31. Introduction....................................................................................32. Moral Agents and Moral Subjects.................................................................143. Formal Conditions for Valid Moral Principles....................................................254. Material Conditions for Valid Moral Principles: The Content of Human Ethics.....................335. The Structural Symmetry between Human Ethicsand Environmental Ethics............................416. Biology and Ethics..............................................................................477. A Note on the Ethics of the Bioculture..........................................................53Two. The Attitude of Respect for Nature............................................................591. Introduction....................................................................................592. The Concept of the Good of a Being..............................................................603. The Concept of Inherent Worth...................................................................714. Having and Expressing the Attitude of Respect for Nature........................................805. Respect for Nature as an Ultimate Attitude......................................................90Three. The Biocentric Outlook on Nature............................................................991. The Biocentric Outlook and the Attitude of Respect for Nature...................................992. Humans as Members of the Earth's Community of Life..............................................1013. The Natural World as a System of Interdependence................................................1164. Individual Organisms as Teleological Centers of Life............................................1195. The Denial of Human Superiority.................................................................1296. The Argument for the Biocentric Outlook.........................................................156Four. The Ethical System...........................................................................1691. The Basic Rules of Conduct......................................................................1692. Priority Principles.............................................................................1923. The Basic Standards of Virtue...................................................................198Five. Do Animals and Plants Have Rights?...........................................................2191. Legal Rights and Moral Rights...................................................................2192. Analysis of the Assertion of Moral Rights.......................................................2263. The Defeasibility of Rights.....................................................................2414. Is It Logically Conceivable for Animals and/or Plants to Have Moral Rights?.....................2455. A Modified Concept of Moral Rights..............................................................251Six. Competing Claims and priority Principles......................................................2561. The General Problem of Competing Claims.........................................................2562. Human Rights and the Inherent Worth of Nonhumans................................................2603. Five Priority Principles for the Fair Resolution of Conflicting Claims..........................2634. The Ethical Ideal of Harmony between Human Civilization and Nature..............................3075. The Normative Function of the Ethical Ideal.....................................................310Bibliography.......................................................................................315Index..............................................................................................325

Chapter One

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND HUMAN ETHICS

1. Introduction

Environmental ethics is concerned with the moral relations that hold between humans and the natural world. The ethical principles governing those relations determine our duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth's natural environment and all the animals and plants that inhabit it. I shall use the term "the natural world" to refer to the entire set of natural ecosystems on our planet, along with the populations of animals and plants that make up the biotic communities of those ecosystems.

The idea of a natural ecosystem as it is to be understood in this book means any collection of ecologically interrelated living things that, without human intrusion or control, maintain their existence as species-populations over time, each population occupying its own environmental niche and each shaped by the evolutionary processes of genetic variation and natural selection. Two types of natural ecosystems may be distinguished. First, there are those that have never been exploited by humans and have not undergone any major changes as the effect of human culture and technology. Examples are remote expanses of northern tundra, mountain forests, savannah grasslands, cactus deserts, and the marshlands of river estuaries. Insofar as such ecosystems are left undisturbed by humans, they remain in pristine condition and their biotic communities exist in a genuinely wild state. Some of them are preserved in their natural condition because they have been intentionally set aside as wilderness areas by humans.

The second type of natural ecosystem, like the first, includes a biotic community of wild animals and plants that now maintains its existence without being interfered with by human activities. But unlike ecosystems of the first type, these are found in areas that were at one time worked by human labor (such as farming and mining) or have undergone modification in the past as the result of certain human practices (such as sheep grazing or woodcutting). Such an ecosystem may now have returned to a natural condition simply because it has been left alone for a long period of time. On the other hand, it may have resulted from intentional human efforts aimed at restoring it to approximately the condition it was in before it was changed by humans.

For both types of ecosystems, what makes them "natural" in the sense meant here is the fact that the biological and environmental factors determining the structure of relationships holding among their constituent species-populations take place without human intervention. I shall analyze in this study how the order of living things in a natural ecosystem is explained as the outcome of certain evolutionary processes and environmental conditions. When that explanation does not make reference to human purposes or to the effects of human actions, the ecosystem in question is here designated a "natural" one.

Doubts might be raised as to whether any genuinely natural ecosystems now exist on our planet. The impact of human civilization in the contemporary world appears inescapable. Certainly it is the case that wild biotic...