This blog post draws on “The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species” by Ronald Sandler. 

Upon reading this title, my brain immediately jumps to Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. However, I had to remind myself that this was about the ethics of reviving extinct species, not about the possible ramifications of doing such a thing. Sandler does conclude that the reasons for de-extinction are ethically problematic (355). De-extinction does not address the causes for extinction, nor does it promote the prevention of extinction of other species (355). Therefore, it could have unforeseeable negative ramifications towards conservation efforts. Sadly, Sandler decides that we can’t find it ethically acceptable to have dinosaurs walk the earth again until we address issues of human health, animal welfare, and legitimate political and ecological concerns (355). Despite my sadness about not being able to pet a Triceratops anytime soon, I do agree that this idea is not ethically sound until the anthropocentric reasons for extinction are addressed in an adequate way.

Sandler does address several ethical arguments in favour of de-extinction, for example that of justice (355). Species that went extinct due to anthropogenic reasons such as habitat destruction or hunting may be owed de-extinction (355). But Sandler decides to walk away from this argument and instead argues that it is impossible to harm a species – as species do not have aims distinct from the individual organisms making up a species (355). But Holmes Rolston would take offense to this idea because of his holism approach. Rolston prompts his readers to think of species as genetic lifelines, and millions of years of effort taken by individual organisms to create an entity (722). Rolston and holism require us to therefore think of the duties we may owe to species, or even to ecosystems that we are endangering (725). To me, Sandler’s logic therefore is flawed in saying that species can’t be owed justice.

If we continue to use Rolston to address justice that we may owe species that experienced extinction due to human causes, he would most likely agree that these species should be brought back – provided that their reintroduction would not be to the detriment of ecosystems. The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park bodes well for this concept of de-extinction for the benefit of an ecosystem (Tori 2020). There was a 70 year gap between when wolves were completely eradicated and reintroduced, and yet the ecosystems are now thriving once more (Tori 2020). The initial removal of the species caused several negative effects on other animals and plants, and even the rivers of Yellowstone National Park (Tori 2020). The reintroduction of wolves means that now the elk population is under control and preventing overgrazing (Tori 2020). So as long as we are willing to accept that we owe a species justice, we can have a hope that their re-introduction could be good for other species.

Despite my disagreement with Sandler over this specific moral reasoning for not going through with de-extinction, I do agree with him that it is outweighed by animal welfare. Animal welfare concerns are a reason that Sandler cites under the reasons for not permitting de-extinction (358). Sandler talks about the issues with cloning that cause health defects and abnormalities in both surrogates and in offspring (358). These issues, combined with how little we can be sure we know about species we are pulling from deep extinction, could cause suffering in the beings that are produced from this process. Sandler cites Singer to tell us that animals are morally considerable, and therefore their suffering is ethically significant (358). Our lack of knowledge about how effective our current de-extinction methods can be requires us to pause any efforts towards this. Rolston would also most likely agree that we should not attempt to revive a species if further harm is going to be done to it. This is a larger argument to consider as well; is it ethically permissible to bring back a species if humans are only going to exploit them once more?

It is not ethically permissible to bring long extinct species back given our current capacity to do so. Further, I want to argue that the only species we should consider bringing back are ones who experienced extinction for solely anthropogenic reasons. The species who were made extinct by humans are the animals who are owed justice, and therefore should be eligible for de-extinction. Which means I do not ever get my triceratops, whether or not we become sure that we can bring them back without harming them. Sandler’s general conclusion about reviving long extinct species is correct. The reasons to pursue de-extinction are currently outweighed by the reasons to not undergo such a thing.

~Suzanah

Peglar, Tori. “1995 Reintroduction of Wolves in Yellowstone.” My Yellowstone Park, 30 June 2020, www.yellowstonepark.com/park/yellowstone-wolves-reintroduction.

Sandler, R. “The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species”. Conservation Biology, 28: 354-360, 18 March 2014. https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1111/cobi.12198

Rolston, Holmes. “Duties to Endangered Species.” BioScience, vol. 35, no. 11, 1985, pp. 718–726. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1310053.

This blog post explores the arguments put forth in “Driven to extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-driven technology” by Johnathan Pugh.

Mosquitoes are a burden, especially with their pesky bites and diseases. The diseases they carry often result in calls to reduce the population of certain species mosquitos. If you’re the average person, your duty is to ensure there is no standing water on your property. If you’re a scientist in gene technology, you may be asked to eradicate entire species of mosquitoes with genetic modification (Pugh, 578). This has been met with public criticism, based on moral objections that Pugh wants to dispel for us (578). I will focus on one Pugh’s first argument that seeks to dispel claims of the sanctity of life.

The sanctity of life is consistently invoked to claim we shouldn’t drive an animal to extinction (579). Pugh uses Singer to make us aware of the fact that most people invoke this argument and live their own lives to the contrary. For example, people would not use antibiotics to kill unwanted bacteria if the sanctity of life governed them. However, I raise an objection here as Pugh seems to be picking and choosing Singer’s ideas to justify his objections. Singer requires us to consider the morality of animals, and a rejection of speciesism (Singer, ch.1). By this he means to say that a cow is as morally considerable as a human. This doesn’t mean we can’t eat beef, but it does mean that we shouldn’t treat animals in an inhumane way for human consumption. In this way, we must also consider the morality of mosquitoes. 

I will overview Peter Singer’s arguments in Animal Liberation (his book on animal rights) for the purpose of this blog. In his first chapter, he tells us that if a living entity is suffering there does not exist a justification for not considering that suffering – no matter the nature of the being (Singer, ch.1). Equity requires that suffering is suffering no matter what or whom it is experienced by – provided the being can experience suffering (ch.1). So the limit we are given by the idea of a distinct lack of sentience (and the ability to experience suffering) is the only acceptable limit for eradicating species of mosquitoes.

Now Pugh addresses this, and even if we assume that mosquitoes can experience pain Pugh says that this eradication of certain species would not cause any individuals of these species to die prematurely because of the nature of using genetic modification (Pugh, 579). Instead, the species are gradually phased out, which should by Singer’s standards be morally acceptable (579). Pugh also talks about the fact that from the standpoint of a utilitarian analysis, the continued existence of mosquitoes will most likely “lead to the death of a considerable number of persons” and human suffering (580). But once again, Pugh is missing the point of Singer and his arguments! Pugh claims that the utilitarian equation would mean that not eradicating these species of mosquitoes would actually be morally unjust (580). However, mosquitoes are as morally considerable as human beings, because rejecting speciesism provides us with the argument that a single mosquito is as morally justified in living as any one human being. So it would seem to me that the sanctity of life is a perfectly valid moral argument regardless of whether or not humans respect it in their own individual lives. After all, morality is what we ought to do, not what we end up doing.

As a final blow to Pugh’s argument, I want to talk about the holistic approach of Rolston in  “Duties to Endangered Species”. If we as humans were to eradicate species of mosquitoes, we are committing a moral atrocity akin to mass murder. Rolston requires us to think of species as genetic lifelines, just as we humans would think about our own family trees and ancestry (722). By eradicating even a single species of mosquito, we are erasing the work of millions of years of evolution that led to these creatures’ current existence. Rolston tells us that we owe duties to species we have harmed, meaning that we should not even be considering the extinction of any single species, let alone a few (718). It is also prudent to note that Rolston requires us to examine ecosystems as a whole, as each unique species plays a role in the continuation and health of any ecosystem (725). By eradicating a species of mosquito, we may be removing a food source for one (if not many) animals and even plants. Therefore, the extinction of any one species of mosquito could lead to the endangerment of other species (725). Once again, we have another reason for claiming that the sanctity of life is valid in this scenario. 

Pugh has no moral ground to deny that the sanctity of life is an invalid reason for justifying why we cannot drive a species to extinction. I argue that his use of Singer is misstaken and misinformed, and that Rolston gives us even more reason why we should respect the existence of every species that continues to evolve – even that of a lowly mosquito.

~Suzanah

Pugh, Johnathan. “Driven to extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-driven technology”. Journal of Medical Ethics 2016;42:578–581

Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: a New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York: New York Review Book; distributed by Random House, 1975.

Rolston, Holmes. “Duties to Endangered Species.” BioScience, vol. 35, no. 11, 1985, pp. 718–726. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1310053.

After reading “Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance”, I had an answer to the question: why is conserving food so related to self determination of Indigenous peoples? Most of us are aware that settler colonialism undermines Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous ways of living. So how does food come into the picture? In this blog post, I want to briefly go over Whyte’s discussion, and then apply it to the case of the lobster feud in Nova Scotia.
In the essay, Whyte discusses the claim that colonial powers violate Indigenous peoples’ collective self determination. The self determination discussed here specifically concerns food systems, or food sovereignty, and violations of these are food injustices. When we talk about food systems, we are referring to complex chains of “production, distribution, consumption, recirculation, and trade” (Whyte, 2018). Food sovereignty is the right of governments and peoples to choose the method in which food is consumed and produced for the purpose of respecting their livelihoods (Whyte, 2018). Food injustice occurs when a group of humans (in this case settler colonials) systematically dominates another (or several other) human groups by connecting and interacting with one another in both global and local food systems (Whyte, 2018). When we talk about food injustice, we’re discussing a structural issue. We’re concerned about the corporate consolidation that has created a monopoly of the agricultural industry – thereby encroaching on food consumption, and food sovereignty. What is important to understand in Whyte’s discussion of these topics, is that the demand for big agriculture was not a consumer demand, but that of the producer.
Indigenous peoples hold that one of the solutions to protecting food sovereignty might require conservation of particular foods (Whyte, 2018). Examples of these particular foods include salmon, and wild rice. But Whyte makes an argument that this type of claim (that conservation is necessary) pushes theories about food sovereignty and food injustice not grounded in fixed conceptions of Indigenous cultures (Whyte, 2018). Instead this claim, and others like it, can offer significant contributions for understanding how colonial domination of Indigenous cultures is a type of injustice undermining important relationships supporting collective Indigenous self determination (Whyte, 2018). To put this more simply, this claim that food sovereignty might require conservation wasn’t founded in Indigenous traditional knowledge. Therefore, we must acknowledge that colonial influences are taking away from Indigenous collective self determination by endangering their food sovereignty.
Whyte presents food sovereignty as a norm that defends self determination of collectives over their food systems. These collectives include societies, and governments, and therefore also includes Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples themselves describe food injustice as violating their collective self determination over food systems. Essentially, we can conclude that Whyte is correct in saying that food is another area in which Indigenous sovereignty and right to self determination has been violated.
Briefly, the Nova Scotia lobster problem can be broken down to the title of a Washington Post Article: “Indigenous people in Nova Scotia exercised their right to catch lobster. Now they’re under attack”. Mi’kmaq fishers have experienced threats, their traps being pulled, and their lines being cut by non-Indigenous commercial fishers (Coletta, 2020). The goal apparently is to remove the Mi’kmaq fishers from St. Mary’s Bay. Angry mobs of non-indigenous fishers have ransacked Indigenous fisher’s catch, and burned down one of the two lobster pounds after pelting the building with rocks and dumping the lobster (Coletta, 2020). The issue at the centre of their anger is that the Sipekne’katik, a Mi’kmaq band, are asserting their right to pull lobster outside of the closed fishing season. This right is affirmed by both courts and the treaties. The Mi’kmaq have a constitutional right to hunt, fish, gather and secure necessities or a ‘moderate livelihood’ (Coletta, 2020).
The fact that non-Indigenous fishers have been allowed to get away with assaulting Indigenous self-determination and food sovereignty questions whether the government is truly committed to reconciling with Indigenous peoples. Non-Indigenous fishers’ spokespersons have claimed that this outrage is due to lobster conservation and protecting the livelihoods of fishers. This conservation claim is thin, as the Mi’kmaq have 11 licences to 11 boats with 50 traps each, in comparison to the 979 licensed boats with up to 400 traps each in this area of Nova Scotia (Coletta, 2020). Sounds like settler colonialism to me, and Whyte would be inclined to agree with me. Moreover, Dalhousie University biologist has affirmed that the Sipekne’katik pose a threat very close to zero to the lobster stock (Coletta, 2020).
If Whyte were to analyze this case, he would tell us that this is an example of attempting to remove food sovereignty from a group, thereby endangering their food system and causing food injustice. This case is exactly how infringing on Indigenous food systems threatens Indigenous rights of self determination. Furthermore, this undermines Indigenous collective self determination and the Sipekne’katik identity. The government should be protecting Indigenous rights in this case and prosecuting the people directly harming it. Failure to do so only further endangers the Indigenous peoples and their right to self determination.

~Suzanah

 

Coletta, Amanda. “Indigenous People in Nova Scotia Exercised Their Right to Catch Lobster. Now They’re under Attack.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Oct. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canada-nova-scotia-indigenous-lobster-fishery/2020/10/24/d7e83f54-12ed-11eb-82af-864652063d61_story.html.

Whyte, Kyle. “Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance”. The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. March 2018.

Noah Mohr authored “A New Global Warming Strategy: How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes”. In it, he acknowledges that global warming is the most threatening environmental event that has occurred during the existence of humanity. But Mohr argues that we are misguided in focusing on carbon emissions, and instead should account for other methods of mitigating the effects of climate change (1). Mohr states that what may be the more effective strategy is implementing vegetarian diets (1). In this blog I want to explain Mohr’s argument as well as present a middle ground for North Americans who notoriously consume large amounts of meat and meat by-products. Mohr does want to stress that reducing carbon emissions is still vital to mitigating climate change, it’s just not the most effective method. As I said before, Mohr believes this more effective method is vegetarian diets, but where does this idea come from?

Large-scale consumption of “animal agriculture” produces large amounts of methane gas, which is 21 times worse in its role as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (2). Mohr’s stance is that this gas is the most important greenhouse gas that is not carbon dioxide, and the primary source of methane gas is animal agriculture (2). Mohr argues that due to the fact that methane emissions are responsible for nearly 50% of human caused global warming, methane reduction should be the priority (2). However, Mohr only briefly mentions the other sources of methane emissions, which include coal mining and landfills (2). According to Mohr, animal agriculture is the number one source of methane emissions, but he does not give us information about to what extent animal agriculture creates more greenhouse gas emissions (2). 

Though vegetarian diets would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so would ending the use of coal and leading zero-waste lives. Furthermore, animal agriculture will remain in place to create animal by-products such as wool, eggs, milk, cheese, leather, etc. Given that this will remain in place, the only sure way to completely reduce methane emissions from animal agriculture is to implement vegan diets which would render the animal agricultural industry unusable. But this is impossible, because it is medically impossible for some humans to be vegan. Despite this, what irks me most about Mohr’s arguments is that he presents vegetarianism as the easy way out. 

Mohr’s main advantages for bolstering vegetarian diets over a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions are: limitless reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture, the rate at which greenhouse gas concentrations will lower in the atmosphere, and the difficulty in fighting wealthy business interests (3). The reasoning behind Mohr’s first advantage is mathematically false, the limit is 100% from this singular source. But solving this one climate issue does not solve the rest of climate change. Furthermore, I already presented that animal byproducts will continue to exist, meaning that we will never fully end animal agriculture. His second advantage I will concede is sound, as Mohr argues that the changes to diet lowers greenhouse gas emissions faster than reducing carbon dioxide emissions (3). This is due to the turnover rate for farms versus powerplants and coal mines, as well as an apparent immediate drop in methane emissions from an over-night implementation of vegetarian diets.

Mohr’s third advantage however is seriously flawed. Mohr argues that efforts to reduce carbon emissions involves fighting industries such as oil and automotive – both of which have wealthy business interests behind them (3). But what Mohr fails to account for is the money behind animal agriculture. If we were to implement vegetarian diets across the board, we must acknowledge the fact that we would be forcibly changing some people’s diets. The only way to do this is to implement laws through the government about the consumption of meat, which would require massive amounts of lobbying. What we need to acknowledge about this factor is that animal agriculture is a massive industry, and most likely has as much monetary and influential sway over the government as other greenhouse gas emitting industries do. Therefore, while I do agree with Mohr that a personal undertaking of a vegetarian diet on a massive scale would most likely be more beneficial in the short run than focusing on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, I do not see this happening. 

Given that the majority of North Americans do not prioritize mitigating climate change, I do not see them adhering to personal changes that would create massive changes in greenhouse gas emissions. Though my argument about Mohr’s third advantage was radical and took his reasoning to the extreme, this was necessary to show how difficult even achieving diet changes is. Lastly, I want to conclude by saying that there are no singular solutions to climate change. We as individuals can consume less meat, live minimally wasteful lifestyles, and even try to fight against industries that are largely responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, solving climate change does not rest on any singular person, and it is important to acknowledge this issue does not rest on individuals.

Noam Mohr. (2005). A New Global Warming Strategy.

In “Duties to Endangered Species”, Rolston argues for a mixture of biology and ethics that will produce an ethic sufficient for preserving species. Though he states that there are ethics that exist with the outcome of protecting species that are threatened, these ethics have humans at their centre, not the endangered species themselves. Rolston outlines this to emphasize the lack of ‘interspecific altruism’ (720). By this concept he means to expand the duties humans have to species themselves, as opposed to the preservation of species for the purposes of human exploitation and enjoyment. The latter represents duties to humans, not duties to species. This is an important concept to grasp, as the centre of Rolston’s argument is that species should be valued for their own existence, not that of human usefulness.

I agree with Rolston that humans must expand past their limited intraspecific altruism to an interspecific version (720). However, from a policy standpoint which Rolston sometimes mentions, what difference does this truly make. Humans have already created a legal standard for when they will choose to lawfully protect animals. These laws however are often not sufficient for protecting the animals, but I cannot see humans advancing past legal protections. Rolston also cites barriers to his proposed line of thinking, stating that there are scientific considerations that surpass ethical ones (720). 

Rolston seems to support the existence of ‘species’ as a concept, but cites Darwin to state that ‘species’ as a categorical tool often draws lines arbitrarily between two species that may be slightly different. Species therefore, Rolston follows, are merely inventions. Rolston follows this line of reasoning only to state that not only scientifically, but historically, ‘species’ as a concept is a useful term in order to be logically correct about orientating what life falls into what categories (721). Rolston focuses on this clash between ethical thinking of ‘life should be respected because it is life’, and the scientific purposes of utilizing categories. From here Rolston takes a very interesting argumentative stance, that humans ought to respect and consider the genetic lifelines that exist and persist over millions of years of evolution. This, to me, begins to form a more usable logic for ascribing duties to species that are not humans. By this sort of roundabout explanation, Rolston seems to want to stress to us that ‘species’ as a term is useful not to create hierarchical importance of different species, but to highlight that respecting current members of a species is akin to respecting the species as it existed in the past and present. 

So how do we form an ethical connection with species that are not our own? We cannot create contracts with endangered species to ensure reciprocal duties and rights as prevailing theories of justice would have us make, as Rolston mentions (722). However we as individuals still have duties to others who cannot communicate with us in the same way the majority of the population can. We do not forsake those who hold less power than we do in the ethical sense, so why can this not extend to other forms of human life, as Rolston proposes in his easiest conclusion (722). But my argument here is that though we extend the same moral value to those who are powerless, we do not ascribe them the same rights in a legal sense. In this same way, we can respect life on the basis of life, but we may still destroy their habitats, or reduce their food supply, or any number of things that are outcomes of not giving species the same rights as our own.

Though Rolston provides many useful arguments on behalf of ascribing moral worth to other species, I do not see how it would pan out in a practical way. We ought not to harm other species, but to what extent? Species are easily endangered when humans are utilizing their fragile ecosystems for our own purposes. It is prudent to note here that Rolston holds that a species is inseparable from its environment, which implies that any harm we do to an ecosystem is direct harm to a species itself. Though we should not harm species, is it correct to say we cannot utilize resources located in the environments of every species? How should we survive if we cannot drink the water that the fish live in? If we cannot separate species from their environments, we cannot survive as a species ourselves. Therefore, though I can support his ethical standpoint, I cannot advocate for his mixture of ethics and biological science. So though Rolston provides many interesting ethical features, I cannot say definitively that his ethical argument is complete.

~Suzanah

 

Rolston, Holmes. “Duties to Endangered Species,” BioScience 35(1985):718-726