Question

Check My Work What is the scope or range of ethics? Are the preferences of nonhumans (polar bears, endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles, rare birds, and ocelots) included in the "good life" that is possible? Why or why not? rw

Answer 1

The province or scope of Ethics is the range of its subject-matter. Ethics, as a normative science, seeks to define the moral ideal. It is not concerned with the nature, origin or development of human conduct, it is concerned with the ideal or standard to which our conduct should conform.

But in order to enquire into the ideal, of conduct, it must know the nature of conduct.

Conduct is the expression of character. Character is the settled habit of will. It is the permanent disposition produced by habitual actions.

Ethics is sometimes said to be the science of character. But in order to enquire into the nature of character, Ethics must enquire into the nature of the springs of actions, motives, intentions, voluntary actions, and non-voluntary actions and so on. Thus Ethics must be founded on psychological basis.

But Ethics enquires into the springs of actions, motives, intentions, and voluntary actions, only to pass moral judgements upon them. The fundamental problem of Ethics is the nature or the moral ideal or standard with reference to which we pass moral judgements.

Many environmental (and animal) ethicists have wanted to develop approaches to ethics which take animals and/or the non-human natural world directly into account in ethical decision-making. Such approaches are alien to many traditional forms of ethical decision making, where animals and/or the environment have been of only indirect ethical concern. Kant, for instance, thought that cruelty towards animals was unethical. But this was not because of the harm it caused animals, but rather because the committing of such harm would 'brutalise' humans and make them more likely subsequently to harm other people. For Kant, animals are of indirect ethical concern - it is only other humans who are of direct ethical concern.

However, as Routley's Last Man example suggests, by the 1970s, philosophers were trying to develop ways of extending traditional ethical approaches to take account of the new questions raised by environmental and animal issues. Many different kinds of revisions and extensions have been proposed. This block looks at a number of these, united by their "individualist" approach.

Mapping Individualism in Environmental Ethics: An Overview
Traditional Ethics

Almost all mainstream ethical approaches focus on the value of individual human beings or individual human experiences in one way or another. Utilitarianism, for instance, focuses on either minimizing the pains and maximizing the pleasures of individuals or on satisfying their preferences. Kantianism emphasizes the priceless worth of the individual and how individuals should be treated not merely as means but as ends in themselves. The language of debate about ethics in political philosophy centres on the notion of the rights of the individual.

It is not surprising, then, that one of the most widespread moves in environmental and animal ethics is to attempt to extend these ethical frameworks centred on human individuals to include non-human individuals as well. The obvious point of attack here is to ask what it is about an individual human being that makes him or her valuable in the terms of the ethical framework being considered. Another way of putting this is to ask the question "What is it which makes humans morally considerable here?" ('Morally considerable' is a shorthand expression for 'someone or something who counts morally'). Depending on the answer to that question, it might be argued in response that the criterion for moral considerability being used is in some sense problematic - in particular that it cannot exclude some or all non-humans whilst including all humans. We will look at this move further when looking at the specific instances later.
In this block I am going to look at some of the most important accounts of environmental/animal ethics which fall into this "individualistic" category. They have been developed from a variety of different traditional approaches. In thinking about these positions, it's helpful to consider them along three different axes. These are:

Consequentialist/Deontological
Sentience-centred/Life centred
Egalitarian/hierarchical

1. Consequentialist/Deontological

Some of the individualist positions we will be considering here are consequentialist, and some deontological. Consequentialist approaches are more or less closely outgrowths of utilitarianism, whilst deontological accounts tend to draw on Kant and theories of rights.
2. Sentience-centred/Life centred
Although this is something of a generalization, individualist positions tend to fall into two categories. The first focuses on sentience (the ability to feel pain and pleasure) and other associated "higher-order" abilities including consciousness. These positions generally only extend moral considerability to animals, and possibly only some animals. The second focuses on life - being alive means an organism meets the necessary and sufficient criteria to qualify for direct moral considerability.
3. Egalitarian/Hierarchical
For some individualist positions, any organism which meets the criterion of moral considerability is as morally significant as any other. In Bentham's words: everyone counts for one and no-one for more than one. In an egalitarian ethical system, just to count gives you the same standing as everyone else. Other ethical systems, though, are hierarchical. There is a baseline to be met to count at all. (For instance, you must be alive to count). But there are other criteria in the system which mean that you count more - you can get a kind of "value-added" if you like. For instance, you might be morally considerable just by being alive. But you might get extra "value-added" - be worth more - if you are sentient and intelligent. In such a case, having to choose between killing an insect and killing a dog would be straightforward - the dog is worth more. This contrasts with an egalitarian ethical system - where all living things count for the same, it would be just as bad to kill an insect as a dog.

It's these three axes which lie at the heart of the differences between the different individualist approaches to environmental ethics we'll be considering here. This can by no means be a comprehensive survey, but it will at least outline some of the main proposed positions.