transform wild nature into a gigantic zoo. An egalitarian sentientism loses contact
with human practices such as domestication, animal husbandry, gardening and
hunting. It cultivates, however, the practice of pet keeping and it gives political
rights to pets (“Zoopolis”, Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011). Policing wild nature,
granting political rights to pets, and abolition of hunting and domestication present a
somewhat weird result of animal rights theory. The result looks weird because it runs
counter to how humans interacted with animals since they left the stage of hunters
and gatherers.
Equity is a gradual alternative to equality. Equity means adequacy to the degree to
which morally relevant abilities are actually present in a natural being. The faculty to
sentience should be coupled with the ability to communicate under the principle of
equity. Plants do not communicate with each other, but they transmit signals that are
decoded by other plants in the environment. This differs from the gestures with
which dogs interact, and such interactions differ from a linguistic interaction
between a chimpanzee and a human being. A discursive being would therefore not
be equated with a capacity to exchange information on biochemical signals. A
principle of equity, joined with the combined criteria of sensitivity, communication
and biological strategies, can provide a solid basis for gradually overcoming anthropocentrism, which is in reflective equilibrium with common intuitions about what
we owe non-human beings.
This entire pattern of reasoning about inherent moral value goes beyond TEV and
ESS. However, most TEV and ESS scholars acknowledge that the Inherent-ValueProblem should be taken seriously. Within the TEV, however, it holds that if all
people believe that Anopheles mosquitoes are worthless, there is no reason to protect
them. If WTP is zero or less than zero, there are reasons to remove such parts of
nature. Only if people want to see penguins or observe whales, there is a reason to
protect these animals. In the case of whaling, however, economists would try to
maximize the net present value of whale watching tourism and whale hunting for
trade. Rich Norwegians may sometimes like to watch whales, but they also enjoy
whale meat in some expensive Oslo restaurants—and they will pay for both. The
efficient solution would be to protect the whale populations that live near tourist
destinations and kill whales in remote parts of the ocean for luxury food with a fancy
smell of decadence. This solution seems clearly cynical to conservationists who may
give inherent moral values to whales. To sum up: the problem of inherent moral
value in nature can’t properly addresses within TEV and ESS. Since it should count
as real moral problem, environmental ethics can’t be reduced to TEV and ESS.
5.5 Conceptions of and Attitudes Towards Nature
The considerations so far in this section illustrate how diversely nature is valued and
how reluctant one should be in view of one’s own ignorance to make conclusive and
unambiguous evaluations. This is the reason for the fifth set of issues concerning
conceptions of and attitudes towards nature. Within environmental ethics we find
Environmental Evaluation between Economics and Ethics: An Argument for. . .
149
with human practices such as domestication, animal husbandry, gardening and
hunting. It cultivates, however, the practice of pet keeping and it gives political
rights to pets (“Zoopolis”, Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011). Policing wild nature,
granting political rights to pets, and abolition of hunting and domestication present a
somewhat weird result of animal rights theory. The result looks weird because it runs
counter to how humans interacted with animals since they left the stage of hunters
and gatherers.
Equity is a gradual alternative to equality. Equity means adequacy to the degree to
which morally relevant abilities are actually present in a natural being. The faculty to
sentience should be coupled with the ability to communicate under the principle of
equity. Plants do not communicate with each other, but they transmit signals that are
decoded by other plants in the environment. This differs from the gestures with
which dogs interact, and such interactions differ from a linguistic interaction
between a chimpanzee and a human being. A discursive being would therefore not
be equated with a capacity to exchange information on biochemical signals. A
principle of equity, joined with the combined criteria of sensitivity, communication
and biological strategies, can provide a solid basis for gradually overcoming anthropocentrism, which is in reflective equilibrium with common intuitions about what
we owe non-human beings.
This entire pattern of reasoning about inherent moral value goes beyond TEV and
ESS. However, most TEV and ESS scholars acknowledge that the Inherent-ValueProblem should be taken seriously. Within the TEV, however, it holds that if all
people believe that Anopheles mosquitoes are worthless, there is no reason to protect
them. If WTP is zero or less than zero, there are reasons to remove such parts of
nature. Only if people want to see penguins or observe whales, there is a reason to
protect these animals. In the case of whaling, however, economists would try to
maximize the net present value of whale watching tourism and whale hunting for
trade. Rich Norwegians may sometimes like to watch whales, but they also enjoy
whale meat in some expensive Oslo restaurants—and they will pay for both. The
efficient solution would be to protect the whale populations that live near tourist
destinations and kill whales in remote parts of the ocean for luxury food with a fancy
smell of decadence. This solution seems clearly cynical to conservationists who may
give inherent moral values to whales. To sum up: the problem of inherent moral
value in nature can’t properly addresses within TEV and ESS. Since it should count
as real moral problem, environmental ethics can’t be reduced to TEV and ESS.
5.5 Conceptions of and Attitudes Towards Nature
The considerations so far in this section illustrate how diversely nature is valued and
how reluctant one should be in view of one’s own ignorance to make conclusive and
unambiguous evaluations. This is the reason for the fifth set of issues concerning
conceptions of and attitudes towards nature. Within environmental ethics we find
Environmental Evaluation between Economics and Ethics: An Argument for. . .
149