Conservation values and Ethics ( 保育的價值與倫理 )

鄭先祐 (Ayo)國立台南大學 環境生態研究所 教授環境與生態學院 院長Japalura@hotmail.com

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Contents The value of biodiversity ( 生物多樣性的價值 )

Instrumental value Intrinsic value

Monetizing the value of biodiversity Conservation Ethics ( 保育的倫理 )

Essay 4.1 our duties to endangered species Essay 4.2 Monks, temples, and trees: the spirit of

diversity Essay 4.3 The importance of value systems in ma

nagement Case study 4.1 Cypress forest conservation o

n Taiwan: a question of value

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The value of biodiversity

Environmental philosophers customarily divide value into two main types, instrumental or utilitarian and intrinsic or inherent.

The view that biodiversity has value only as a means to human ends is called anthropocentric.

The view that biodiversity is valuable simply because it exists, independently of its use to human beings, is called biocentric or ecocentric.

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Instrumental value

Four basic categories: goods, services, information, and psycho-spiritual (Table 4.1)

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Intrinsic value

The sorts of things that may possess intrinsic value

Whether intrinsic value exists objectively or is subjectively conferred.

Value in the philosophical sense Biocentric environmental philosophers

– organism is self-organizing and self-directed.

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Norton’s convergence hypothesis

Anthropocentric instrumental values + non-anthropocentric intrinsic value = conserve biodiversity

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Burden of proof according to instrumental and intrinsic value systems (Fig. 4.2)

When biodiversity is only instrumentally valuable Burden of proof 是在 conservationists

When biodiversity is intrinsically as well as instrumentally valuable Burden of proof 是在 developers

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Monetizing the value of biodiversity

The tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968) Holmes Rolston III provides an alternative pe

rspective in Essay 4.1 Essay 4.1 Our duties to endangered species

Safe minimum standard (SMS), Bishop (1978) Assumes that biodiversity has incalculable value

and should be conserved unless the cost of doing so is prohibitively high (Fig. 4.3).

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CBA vs. SMS (Fig. 4.3, p.119)

Standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA) Burden of proof → conservation

Safe minimum standard (SMS) Burden of proof → development

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Conservation Ethics (Table 4.2, p.120)

Anthropocentrism In the western religious and philosophical traditi

on, only human beings are worthy of ethical consideration.

All other things are regarded as mere means to human ends.

The Judeo-Christian stewardship conservation ethic Diversity is God’s property, and we, who bear th

e relationship to it of strangers( 陌生者 ) and sojourners ( 寄居者 ), have no right to destroy it.

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Conservation Ethics (Table 4.2, p.120)

Traditional non-western environmental ethics Muslim (Islam) ( 回教 ), Hinduism( 印度教 ), Jaini

sm ( 耆那教 ), Confucianism ( 孔教 ), Daoism ( 道教 ) (Table 4.3)

Biocentrism ( 生命中心主義 ) Life-centered environmental ethics All living things are of equal inherent worth (Tayl

or, 1986) (Fig. 4.6, p.127) Ecocentrism ( 生態中心主義 )

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Biocentrism ( 生命中心主義 )

Rolston’s biocentrism All individual organisms baseline intrinsic value

→ Sentient animals → self-conscious human beings

Species → ecological systems → wholes Taylor’s biocentrism

Equal intrinsic value ： self-conscious human beings, sentient animals, invertebrates, plants, bacteria,

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Ecocentrism

Leopold land ethic Changes the role of Homo sapiens from

conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it.

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

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Fig. 4.7 Leopold land ethic

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Supplements

Essay 4.1 our duties to endangered species Essay 4.2 Monks, temples, and trees: the sp

irit of diversity Essay 4.3 The importance of value systems

in management Case study 4.1 Cypress forest conservation

on Taiwan: a question of value

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http://mail.nutn.edu.tw/~hycheng/

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