At the foundation of our modern legal and judicial system is the belief in Rights of Man to which all human beings are entitled. Because humans are rational, self-aware and autonomous beings, Kantians would argue, they are inherently valuable and worthy of respect to their dignity. To protect this dignity, universal human rights are adopted to outline the necessary conditions for humans to lead a dignified life. Of course, we must be alive and healthy to lead a dignified life, which is why, though some rights may vary from location to location, human health is always prioritised. Increasingly, we are coming to the realisation that the environment in which we live in is a major component of our health and is not nearly as protected as other components such as food and water. Instead, the environment is designated as public space. What follows is this space being used and polluted by some more than others and to the detriment of us all. Is it any wonder that some would argue for new and more stringent laws to protect the environment which they perceive as an extension to their health and well-being?

An article entitled, “Should environmental rights be in the constitution?” features two parts. In the first, David Boyd argues for the entrenchment of our environmental rights in the Constitution to empower the courts to prosecute environmental crimes, compel citizens and corporations to behave more responsibly and more. After all, constitutional rights are harder to dismiss for the sake of expediency or convenience. However, the second part of the article is a rebuttal by Emmett Macfarlane who doubts the effectiveness of this strategy. He notes that many countries struggle to fulfill the promises of even more crucial constitutional rights, so that alone guarantees nothing. It would also shift the moral dilemmas of society from the political sphere where there can be discourse, to the judicial sphere where there is only arbitration.

Being a person largely ignorant and unfamiliar with the intricacies and subtle manoeuvring of courts and politics, I struggle to provide an informed commentary. Articles such as the one above only garner feelings of confusion and inadequacy. Like Macfarlane, I am left questioning the protections guaranteed by constitutional rights and the potential damage caused by lack of public debate to resolve moral dilemmas. At the same time, I am sceptical that the political system would consistently champion environmental causes, without it turning into just another partisan issue to rally for or against as a show of party loyalty. While constitutions tend to be more stable and longer-lived than political parties, would it still be able to safeguard environmental concerns from waxing and waning with the shifting of political tides? And on and on my questions continue with no answers to be found.

I suspect I am not the only one facing this problem. Evidence of the limits of human knowledge and attention are omnipresent and our collective ignorance has always been a barrier to make rational, informed decisions. Though we may agree that environmental concerns about important and necessary to a dignified life, we seem to disagree about most everything else. These disagreements range from the philosophical, such as whether the environment is inherently value regardless of its usefulness to humans, to the practical, such as whether an increase of 1^oC in global temperature is really that bad. While it is easy to prescribe education and information as a cure to ignorance, the reality is more complicated. Who would you say is more dangerous, a person who knows nothing or a person who knows just enough to think they know everything? If the simple answers and easy solutions were readily available, environmental issues would not be such a contentious dilemma. It seems that all I can add to this debate is a remainder to be open to new information, be sceptical of its source and try to understand the limits of your ignorance and that of others.

Keisey

Works Cited

Boyd, D. R., & Macfarlane, E. (2014, March 3). Should environmental rights be in the constitution? Retrieved November 30, 2020, from https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/second-regard/boyd-macfarlane/

Humans are indisputable dependent on the world they occupy. Sharing the world are countless organisms that form a vast, interconnected network that exchange and recycle both matter and energy. This continuous movement of resources serve as the foundation of all life on Earth by creating the necessary conditions and equilibrium for life to exist and thrive. Conversely, this means that disruptions to the perpetual flow of resources threaten both the systems that rely on it and the systems that preceded it. A simple way to visualise this is probably the food chain where relationships of consumption from one species to another are illustrated. Combine several food chains together and a food web emerges, portraying the dynamic relationships between species because they usually have more than one food source.

Should one link disappear because a species has gone extinct, it is not hard to imagine how the change would ripple outwards through the food web and to the systems beyond. Being an independent self-reliant system, the Earth mitigates these shocks by introducing redundancies, such as animals have more than one food source, and evolutionary mechanics so that a new equilibrium can be formed. However, when too many sudden shocks impact the system, too quick for the system to correct itself, the collapse of one system threatens the next and so forth in a spiraling cascade with the worst case scenario being system collapse. This is when the flow of resources stagnate and the conditions and equilibrium that enable humanities’ survival turn hostile instead. The extinction of other species imposes two existential threats on humans, the threat of reducing resiliency of the systems we need to survival and the threat to very idea of our continuity. That if other species can go extinct, then so can we.

In the “The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species” by Ronald Sandler, the author outlined his arguments for deep de-extinction as a tool of scientific advancement, rather than species conservation. Sandler argued that because species themselves lack any goal, interest or preference distinct from its members that make up the species, we have no obligation to act on the species’ behalf. Furthermore, for sufficiently long extinct species, the ecological system they were a part of has adjusted to their absence and so their reintroduction would be a disruption. Therefore, after the death of all members of a species and destruction or evolution of those that rely on them, there is no one to whom humans have an obligation to act on behalf of. Instead, only humans will find them valuable for scientific discoveries. This demonstrates a strong biocentric view, the belief that humans have duties only to individual living things, while rejecting ecocentrism, the belief that humans have duties to collectives as well. Suppose we continue to apply this view point hereafter. In the cases of recently extinct species, we can conclude that their absence is still affecting the ecological system they were a part of and any species that relied on them would be struggling to adjust. As members of those struggling species still exist, we would have an obligation to ease their suffering and aid their survival.

Another concern Sandler discussed is that de-extinction for species conservation would diminish or displace current conservation efforts or the obligation and urgency humans feel towards conservation. While this is a valid concern, there is another barrier to conservation that de-extinction may ease, despondent helplessness. In spite of all our efforts and wishes, some more than others, conservation seems like a losing battle. Every day, it seems that more species are added to the endangered list or go extinct than species are removed from the list, causing the systems we rely on to become evermore fragile. There always seem to be new ecological crises that we can only slow with tremendous effort. This generates enormous amounts of unhappiness and dissatisfaction that we should not only dispel for its own sake, but also because it may discourage people from taking action to help. De-extinction presents humans with new hope to ease our existential fears. Conservation is still of vital importance, but should we fail, there is still another method to restore the systems we have broken. Even if we think that we have no obligation to the systems themselves, surely we have an obligation to save ourselves by saving the systems. At its core, de-extinction promises that even after the death of all the members of a species, it is still not the end. Not for the animal and perhaps not for humans either. That very promise, I think, is why de-extinction is so necessary and compelling.

 

Keisey

 

Work Cited

Sandler, R. (2013). The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species. Conservation Biology, 28(2), 354-360. 10.1111/cobi.12198

It can not be understated how terrible a blight on humanity mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are. Buried beneath cold statistics like an estimated death toll of 405, 000 from malaria in 2018, lie the harsh reality of enormous human suffering. Suffering which falls disproportionately on poor, rural farmers who can afford it the least, despite dedicated efforts to combat the spread of the diseases. Therefore, surely any effective method to eradicate the disease and/or its hosts would applauded, would it not?

Yet controversy seems to plague a novel solution made possible by a technology called the gene drive. With it, humans will be able to not only manipulate the DNA of mosquito to engineer the species, but also to force these changes to future generations. Some possible outcomes are only allowing mosquitoes to produce male offspring (that do not bite other animals), allowing them to produce antibodies against the parasites, changing the shape of their proboscis (mouth) to prevent transferring of diseases, etc. If the gene drive works as intended, the result would be human-made modifications rippling outward through the mosquito population until all its members are unable to infect humans with diseases. Of course, being a novel, untested technology there many extrinsic concerns over the safety, possible future impact and even if it works at all. To this there does not appear to be any significant objections that further research and testing is required. Those involve agree that there needs to be greater oversight and new regulations to inhibit misuse. More contentious appears to be objections raised against the intrinsic nature of the technology itself and the additional power it grants humans to modify living things at will, up to and including extermination of species.

In the article “Driven to extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-drive technologies” by Jonathan Pugh, the author outlines several defenses of the technology. Not the least of those defenses is the argument for the shear utility of reducing overall human suffering, especially since it is unclear whether or not mosquitoes are capable of suffering at all. Surely though, biocentrists, who believe that all living things are morally considerable, would disagree with the wanton tampering of other species to suit human needs. However, biocentrists have also had to navigate the contradiction inherent in that if all living things are morally considerable, how should conflicts between species be resolved? After all, unless an organism is capable of creating organic matter from inorganic material, it must consume another organism to survive, while the other organism is invested in its own survival and uninterested in being consumed. To resolve this dilemma, several biocentrists argue that just because all living things are morally considerable, it does not mean that we have a duty to act for its sake. Others appeal to the principles of self-defense that would allow us and all living things to consume others to survive. Therefore, in this case of eradicating mosquito borne diseases and/or its host the mosquitoes, biocentrists would agree that humans have the right to defend themselves from contracting deadly diseases. It should come to no surprise that biocentrists wouldn’t have much objection. After all, they are not arguing against traditional methods already being employed to eliminate the mosquitoes or the use of vaccination to eradicate polio or smallpox.

That said, gene drive is a versatile tool that can be used and misused for many purposes. While engineering mosquitoes to prevent the spread of diseases would satisfy the self-defense clause, other frivolous uses such as creating trees that glow in the dark would not. Like any tool, gene drive as a technology has the potential for great harm and great benefit in the hands of humans, but by itself does not possess any agency or autonomy. The intrinsic objections raised are not against the technology itself, but what human can do with it. Therefore, biocentrist and other ethicists should evaluate its merits and demerits on a case by case basis, rather than rejecting or accepting it wholly.

 

 

Keisey

 

Works Cited

Pugh J. J Med Ethics 2016;42:578–581.

World Health Organization. WHO|Malaria. WHO. 2020 (cited 17 November 2020).https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

 

“The Technological Fix Criticisms and the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate” by Dane Scott, as the title suggests, examines the criticisms levied at the modern practice of solving problems of food and nutritional insecurity with novel inventions and techniques. To clarify, agricultural biotechnology encompasses all the tools humanity has crafted to alter living organisms to better suit human needs and ranges from cross-breeding to genetic engineering. The article frames the criticisms into two major categories, those that are philosophical in nature and those that are practical. Opponents of biotechnology on philosophical grounds decry the uncritical faith in the adoption of new technology to solve social problems rather than investing in social engineering to combat those same problems. Because science involves the breaking down of the world into its base components and restructuring natural phenomena into inputs, processes and outputs, it plays an integral roles in perpetuating humanity’s domination of nature. After all,  if a process can be understood, it can be manipulated to the benefit of humans. Through this anthropocentric (human-centric) lens, the inherent value of living organisms are easily ignored and reassigned based on its usefulness to human interest. This normalisation of the exploitation and domination of nature is considered both morally reprehensible and unjustifiable for opponent of biotechnology. Furthermore, because society operates on the paradigm of production, which assumes more production is always better, agricultural innovations trend towards becoming increasingly intensive and therefore environmental damaging and exploitative.

On the other hand, proponents of biotechnology point toward the two irreconcilable goals of ensuring food security for humanity and respecting the autonomy of nature. Since the agricultural revolution that enabled humanity’s transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to fixed settler in communities, agricultural biotechnology in the form of selective and cross breeding has been used to improve harvests and resistance to diseases. It has become an integral part that allows society to function the way it has and for humanity to florish. Faced with these two opposing interests, the proponents claim the only way to satisfy both would be to generate a third option through the improvement of technology. The article rightly notes that this argument fails to address the underlying moral dilemma of unjust acts being committed towards nature and in fact would further exacerbate the problem as more unjust acts would be committed in hope of preventing future injustice. However, the physical reality of the situation of two irreconcilable interest also can not be dismissed. All things being equal, the interests of nature not to be dominated by humans itself can not overrule humanity’s interest in survival anymore than the other way around.

There are three paths that can be charted for the course of agricultural biotechnology: forwards, backwards and stationary. As previously discussed in the paragraph above, to continually invest in biotechnology would be to continually perpetual the domination and exploitation of nature for solutions that may or may not be effective in combating social problems. Even to halt the development of new technology and rely on current methods would still mean the continuation of the abuse of nature, if to a lesser degree. But suppose humanity decides to relinquish the tools it has thus far crafted, that would mean finding new solution to combat new problems that may arise, such as the sudden appearance of a virulent strain of disease that causes potatoes to rot and harvests to fail. A technological fix could be to produce a new breed of potatoes resistant to the disease, while some social solutions would be to plant other staple crops, import more food, attempt to contain the spread of the disease, move away, etc. In this case, a technological fix would be the simplest, most convenient to implement and cause the least societal disruption, whereas the social solutions require more thought, organisation, coordination and compliance. Yet even in this scenario, farms elsewhere will exist having crops altered by biotechnology, a clear symbol of the domination of nature that can not be reversed. No crop unaltered by human hand exist that is productive enough to sustain the current human population. None of these scenarios conclusively eliminate the philosophical dilemma of the exploitation of nature, though some alleviate it to some degree. Makes one wonder if it could ever be adequately resolved.

Work Cited

Scott, Dane. “The Technological Fix Criticisms and the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 24, no. 3, June 2011, pp. 207–226. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=phl&AN=PHL2170640&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

The essay, “Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals” by Carol Adams, argues for the integration of the protection of animal into the greater ecofeminism discourse, a topic Adams feels has been unfairly neglected. Ecofeminism is the belief that the oppression of both women and the environment are inextricably linked because tolerance for the abuse of either perpetuates the tolerance for the abuse of both. Of the six arguments presented in the essay explaining why the rights of animals has been marginalised but deserving of more attention, the fourth argument is entitled, “the Social Construct of Edible Bodies and Humans as Predators.” This section condemns the notion of human beings as natural predators who require the consumption of meat to survive as merely a social construct perpetuated by the meat industry to justify their products and practices. Moreover, the widespread acceptance of this doctrine has lead to the acceptance of the abuse of animals as a necessary evil, which paves the way for other necessary evils, such as the mistreatment of women, to be accepted. Adams posited that this acceptance stems from the desire to seek and adhere to the natural order, an objective good, which humans has falsely interpreted to include the predation of other animals.

The sections raises the chimpanzee as a challenge to the notion that humans require meat as part of their diet. After all, they appear to be mostly herbivores who rarely consume meat. Furthermore, they are far more anatomically suitable for the hunting and consumption of prey than humans who are physically weaker and lacking natural tools, such as long canines and sharp nails. But what does chimpanzees have to do with humans? It is true that humans are evolved from chimpanzees. It is also true that the last link in the genetic compatibility chain has long snapped and humans are indisputably a separate species altogether. A separate species who construct their own tools of the hunt and develop their own strategy of relying on greater endurance rather than their comparatively meagre strength and speed. It is also as true that humans are not carnivores, as is evident by their ability to digest some plant matter, as it is true that humans are not herbivores, as is evident by our ability to consume some animal matter. Instead, like chimpanzee, humans occupy a different category of animals called omnivores whose natural diet can consist of both plant and animal material.

Perhaps this is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the comparison above. Perhaps the true purpose of the comparison above, distracting as the inadequacy of the example may be, is that omnivores have the ability to choose the content of their diet. Perhaps the point is that, like our very distance ancestor, humans too have the ability to choose and should therefore emulate chimpanzee in the elimination (mostly) of animals from their diet. If so, the argument is weakened and muddled by the insistence that humans are not predators in their own way, which could be interpreted as selective rejection of facts that are contrary to the argument presented. However, if it is natural for humans to eat meat, then is the oppression of animals also natural?

Underpinning this argument is an assumption that requires further scrutiny, that that which is natural is good in and of itself and the natural order must be followed. This is a short list of natural phenomena : bird songs, snow-capped mountains, parasites, the bubonic plague, mass extinction events and cannibalism. This is a short list of unnatural phenomena: justice, rights, morally, ideology and philosophy. The natural life expectancy of humans was around fifty years of age before it was unnatural extended by cleaning agents, pharmaceuticals, aggressively engineered living conditions, etc. An authentically natural lifestyle has been so long abandoned by most humans that truly returning is unimaginable and unfeasible. This is not a condemnation of nature or the natural order. Rather, it is a (criminally) brief argument that the natural condition is not an objective good and nuanced and measured reflection is required when engaging with the topic. With regards to the question at the end of the previous paragraph, more questions now arise. If it is natural for humans to eat animals, why follow this natural convention and reject so many others? Do humans not have the ability and autonomy to choose otherwise?

Keisey

Work Cited:   Adams, C.J. (1991), Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals1. Hypatia, 6: 125-145. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1991.tb00213.x