Are the methods of synthetic biology capable of recreating authentic living members of an extinct species? An analogy with the restoration of destroyed natural landscapes suggests not. The restored version of a natural landscape will typically lack much of the aesthetic value of the original landscape because of the different historical processes that created it—processes that involved human intentions and actions, rather than natural forces acting over millennia. By the same token, it would appear that synthetically recreated versions of extinct (...) natural organisms will also be less aesthetically valuable than the originals; that they will be, in some strong sense, ‘inauthentic’, because of their peculiar history and mode of origin. I call this the ‘genesis argument’ against de-extinction. In this article I critically evaluate the genesis argument. I highlight an important disanalogy between living organisms and natural landscapes: viz., it is of the essence of the former, but not of the latter, to regularly reproduce and die. The process of iterated natural reproduction that sustains the continued existence of a species through time obviously does not undermine the authenticity of the species. I argue that the authenticity of a species will likewise be left intact by the kind of artificial copying of genes and traits that a de-extinction project entails. I conclude on this basis that the genesis argument is unsound. (shrink)

If humans eventually attain the ability to create new life forms, how will it affect the value of life? This is one of several questions that can be sources of concern when discussing synthetic life, but is the concern justified? In an attempt to answer this question, I have analyzed some possible reasons why an ability to create synthetic life would threaten the value of life in general (that is, not just of the synthetic creations), to see if they really (...) give us reason to worry. The main conclusion is that it is unlikely that a future human ability to create life will really have a great negative impact on these characteristics of life. It therefore seems unlikely that the value of life will be negatively affected by the ability to create synthetic life, though it is possible that the properties in question will be less salient in the synthetic life and thus that the value of the synthetic life will be lower than that of existing life, which in turn can lead to a disturbing difference in value between different kinds of life. (shrink)

I attempt a reasoned, qualified defence of zoos, but in full recognition of the moral challenge to them. This challenge is mainly examined in chapters 3 to 7. Animals are indeed free in the wild, and must lose that freedom in some degree in zoos *. However animal captivity need only share with human captivity its being brought about by an external agent, it can and should be captivity in a technical sense only, and at its best can clearly be (...) morally acceptable. But there appear to be in all essential respects differences only of degree between animals and humans and no reason therefore why their moral claims upon us should be any different in principle from humans' claims. As, in addition, there appears to be a dominating tendency in human nature which, though no doubt useful or even essential in itself, also on occasion allows us to be oblivious to our own cruelty to other humans or animals or, worse, actively to enjoy such cruelty, bad captivity is a real possibility which needs to be vigorously guarded against. A comparison of the respective advantages for an animal of free and captive life shows that captivity can have the advantages of longer, more comfortable life with medical attention, but the likely drawback of an absence of the normal problems of living, especially food-seeking, in which animals, adapted to their natural ways of life by selection through millions of years, are likely to find satisfaction. However the state of domestication is not normally regarded as morally objectionable, and animals in zoos are in fact slightly domesticated. Interestingly, domesticated animals also retain far more of their natural behaviour than is normally appreciated. Certain criteria, such as health, breeding, and occurrence of natural behaviour, enable us both to assess the wellbeing or otherwise of captive animals kept in different ways, and to improve the quality of animal-keeping, as well as providing us with a means of articulating specifically and scientifically which ways of keeping certain animals are morally wrong, and which animals, if any, should not be kept at all. Study of an animal's natural behaviour and way of life is here of fundamental importance, as it also is in assessing the moral acceptability of ways of keeping domesticated animals. Certain animals in zoos and ways of keeping them are considered in the light of the criteria, and it is suggested that there are clear indications in some cases of animals' wellbeing in captivity. There are also undoubted failings in much zookeeping, and it is emphasised that keeping animals should be a continuing process of search for improvements. While traditional expertise is of great value, the importance also of being open to and endeavouring to make the fullest use of new ethological and other scientific knowledge cannot be over-emphasised. The major justification for keeping any animals captive must be a demonstration of their wellbeing on the lines above, but there are powerful supplementary justifications which I examine in chapters 11 to 16. I see wildlife conservation as part of a moral attitude of responsibility towards anything which may reasonably be regarded as of value. Valuing itself I see as a fundamental moral concept, and stewardship, which term I use without any implied religious connotations, as necessarily avoiding any narrowly selfish or purely financial motivation in, especially, management of the natural world. Animals themselves have exceptional and remarkable claims for being conserved, aesthetic as well as scientific. Respect for their own lives as individuals should also be a motive for their conservation. While conservation in the wild must be our primary concern, zoos have a considerable supplementary conservation role to play. This role, if zoos can only grasp it responsibly as they should, will transform them from being the independent wildlife consumers of past history into cooperating guardians of centrally managed captive populations of endangered and other species, whose genetic variation will be safeguarded with a view to future reintroductions if and when necessary. Zoos' scientific and educational roles also have strong conservational connections. Zoos may also assist the protection of natural areas by satisfying much of humans' urge for wildlife contact: zoos are visited by millions of people who could never, in comparable numbers, visit "the wild" without irreparably damaging it. (shrink)

The main concern of environmental philosophy has been to find value for nature. The thesis is an attempt to link a theory of nature, a theory of human nature and a theory of value, which Andrew Brennan stipulated for a viable environmental philosophy. The problem is set forward in Part I where a definition of nature is explored. The complexity of the task leads to a brief history of the concept of nature whereby two opposing explanations of nature and human (...) nature are revealed: teleological and non-teleological. Part II traces the decline of teleological explanation in favour of non-teleological explanations and the development of two main explanations of human nature in relation to nature that are prevalent today: Ultra-Darwinism and postmodernism. An analysis of these two positions shows that neither have an adequate metaphysics for finding value for nature, and this is revealed by an examination of two different types of environmental philosophy influenced respectively by the two opposing views. In Part III the problem of values is discussed with particular emphasis on moral values. An argument for objective values based on objective knowledge is put forward as well as a theory of human nature which leads to the conclusion that teleological explanations link a theory of nature, a theory of human nature and a theory of value more satisfactorily than the non-teleological explanations of Ultra-Darwinism and postmodernism. The relevance of this conclusion to the problems of the environment is shown. (shrink)

Projects to restore nature inevitably disrupt the plants and animals that inhabit the land to be restored. This essay addresses the significance of feral animals. Can feral animals remain in a restored nature? I argue that an answer depends on what we mean by nature and restoration. I present several different conceptions of nature and discuss what their differences mean for the goals of restoration. While the presence of feral animals is not compatible with the dualist conception of nature as (...) that which is untouched by humans, other conceptions are more accommodating. Restoration to a benchmark of nature prior to human impact is both practically and conceptually implausible, thus more analysis is needed of alternative conceptions and their impacts on domesticated and feral plants and animals. (shrink)

This dissertation is based around conceptual conflicts introduced by the notion of rewilding and the challenges rewilding poses to place and cultural landscapes. Rewilding is a recent conservation strategy interested in the return of wilder, less human-managed environments. Often presented as an antidote to increasingly homogenized, organized, and managed environments, rewilding deliberately opens up space for the return of wild nature, typically by removing human elements that have obstructed or diminished its free reign or by reintroducing locally extinct species to (...) re-activate trophic cascades. There is, however, an increasing awareness that rewilding in many places will threaten cultural landscapes that are prized for their human meanings and histories. This dissertation does not attempt to resolve this conflict but instead takes a hermeneutic interest in it and tries to understand better what is at stake in such a conflict. This is attempted by means of a hermeneutic detour through the concepts of place and of wilderness, and ultimately the dissertation argues that instead of understanding rewilding simply as undermining notions of place, we should understand rewilding itself as placemaking. This conceptual work is informed by actual cases of rewilding and an examination of the conflicts arising out of the various modes of placemaking rewilding performs. Three modes of placemaking are demonstrated: wilderness placemaking, experimental placemaking, and place-regenerative placemaking. Taken in total, these reveal ways in which rewilding confronts us with relations with nonhuman others and with questions of belonging and not belonging that are increasingly at issue. (shrink)

This thesis discusses implications of framing bioethical concerns in international legal discourse. It starts from the observation that legal approaches to questions of bioethical relevance have become dominant frameworks for addressing many bioethical concerns at the international level. In particular, the UN General Assembly has long attempted to regulate human cloning processes through an international Convention. Similarly, UNESCO and the Council of Europe have both addressed a variety of bioethically relevant issues, such as the processing of human genetic data, the (...) ethics of research or organ transplantation within international legal standards. It is in the context of this strong connection between international law, international legal discourse and bioethics that this thesis seeks to analyse what exactly happens when issues of bioethical relevance are discussed within such a framework, how this affects the way bioethical issues are conceptualized, conceived of and dealt with, and, ultimately, how well-suited or successful international legal discourse is in its attempt to resolve current bioethical questions. Following the methodological approach of discourse theory, this thesis bases its analysis on the assumption that where and when international legal standards, as manifestations of an international legal discourse, serve as framework for bioethical debate that also somewhat defines how bioethically relevant issues are approached, thought of and dealt with within that framework, that it somewhat determines what methods are used to resolve such issues and that it somewhat limits the range of conceivable and viable solutions to these issue. The thesis thereby does not aim to demonise or abrogate legal approaches to bioethics and it does not understand the implications discussed in this thesis to be necessarily good or bad. To the contrary, it will be shown that legal approaches to bioethics can and have contributed to the development of the field in several important ways. Yet, this thesis also shows that it is worthwhile to closely examine implications that follow from a specific legal approach to bioethical issues as these implications are not always easily perceived. Given the important, and often dominant or near exclusive role of international law and legal discourse in the area of bioethics as well as the former's strong influence on bioethical debates as a whole, the implications of addressing questions of bioethical relevance within an international legal discourse should at least be understood and acknowledged, a contribution that this thesis aims to make. Moreover, only if these implications are understood is it possible to ask whether engaging in that type of discourse is at all a valuable enterprise and whether or not international legal standards directly addressed to questions of bioethical relevance constitute a suitable means to effectively address questions in the area of bioethics. (shrink)

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I develop the notions of direct (...) normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism and non-analogy-based nature-considerism. I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of its unique complexity, and its indispensability. I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)

Rewilding is positioned as ‘post’-conservation through its emphasis on unleashing the autonomy of natural processes. In this paper, we argue that the autonomy of nature rhetoric in rewilding is challenged by human interventions. Instead of joining critique toward the ‘managed wilderness’ approach of rewilding, however, we examine the injustices this entails for keystone species. Reintroduction case studies demonstrate how arbitrary standards for wildness are imposed on these animals as they do their assigned duty to rehabilitate ecosystems. These ‘Goldilocks’ standards are (...) predicated on aesthetic values that sanction interventions inconsistent with the premise of animal sovereignty. These include culling, relocations and sterilizations of animals that demonstrate the kind of autonomy championed in rewilding rhetoric. Drawing from Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework for political animal categories, we conclude by arguing that rewilding needs to re-position itself in one of two ways. Either it should align itself more closely to mainstream conservation and embrace full animal sovereignty without Goldilocks conditions, or it should commit to taking full responsibility for reintroduced animals, including supplementary feeding and care. (shrink)