The Concept of Extinction: Epistemology, Responsibility, and Precaution

Ethics, Policy and Environment (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Extinction is a concept of rapidly growing importance, with the world currently in the sixth mass extinction event and a biodiversity crisis. However, the concept of extinction has itself received surprisingly little attention from philosophers. I will first argue that in practice there is no single unified concept of extinction, but instead that its usage divides between descriptive, epistemic, and declarative concepts. I will then consider the epistemic challenges that arise in ascertaining whether a species has gone extinct, and how these lead to serious limitations on responsibility and accountability for preventing extinctions. I will propose two conceptual engineering changes to our understanding of extinction. Firstly, to use twin epistemic concepts of extinction, corresponding to high and low epistemic demands. Secondly, to explicitly recognize that in many contexts extinction is a thick concept that contains an evaluative component, which therefore motivates explicit ethical considerations such as the use of precautionary principles.

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Citations of this work

The ethics of species extinctions.Anna Wienhues, Patrik Baard, Alfonso Donoso & Markku Oksanen - 2023 - Cambridge Prisms: Extinction 1 (e23):1–15.

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References found in this work

What is Conceptual Engineering and What Should it Be?David Chalmers - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63.
How To Conceptually Engineer Conceptual Engineering?Manuel Gustavo Isaac - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy:1-24.
Species.Philip Kitcher - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (2):308-333.

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