I think there's an underlying aesthetic preference for pristine/virginal wild spaces. Those ecosystems are characterized by very high biodiversity (usually, there are exceptions, e.g. Antarctica) and so the association of biodiversity with ecological health is made.
-
-
Replying to @danlistensto @Locus_of_Ctrl
I'm also fond of that aesthetic but there are most certainly places that are not even close to pristine and we ought to still care about their ecological health. A healthy farm would have very low species diversity, for example.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
-
Replying to @Locus_of_Ctrl
That I care about the ecological health of not just wild places but also human places and that species diversity is a good measure of wild ecosystem health and a poor measure of human ecosystem health
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto @Locus_of_Ctrl
and since domesticated animals and farms are human ecosystems I do not care about a domesticated species going extinct if the health of the ecosystem they lived within is improved because of it
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto
Okay. This doesn't avoid my utilitarian justification for environmentalism though -- our future descendants might find certain species (or breeds) useful. There already are extinct breeds of domesticated animals -- like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_White_Terrier …
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Locus_of_Ctrl
I didn't think we were debating whether or not environmentalism can be justified (it can be, in many different ways) the question is do we care about the loss of say, pigs, if a synthetic alternative becomes available. Lets just keep a few in a museum-zoo or something.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto
My original argument was that existence of species has a certain "moral worth" from the perspective of modern environmentalism (I didn't argue whether modern environmentalism is inherently justified or not -- I simply stated what seems to be the case).
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Locus_of_Ctrl @danlistensto
I then wondered why it is that domesticated animals (many of which have a staggering variety of unique breeds) are not given the same status by the very people who seem to support modern environmentalist ethics.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Locus_of_Ctrl @danlistensto
When I try to think about why this is so, I can't escape the conclusion that there are two different "moral systems" at play here -- one of "city-dwellers" and another of "rural dwellers."
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
at least two different ones. very different ethical calculus between first-world and third-world versions of those as well. environmental ethics atomizes very quickly based on local conditions.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.