Extinct and Alive: Towards A Broader Account of Loss

Preston, Christopher J.

doi:10.1007/s11406-021-00426-3

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…ethical implications (such as in Hull, 1978;Gruen, 2011;Smith, 2016). Moreover, because different kinds of species conservation practices change the genetic makeup of the target species (via conventional breeding programmes or synthetic biology) and/or influence their behaviour, it is also necessary to consider (1) whether the resulting population still belongs to the same species (which in turn influences whether we consider it extinct or not) and (2) whether that matters morally (see Preston, 2021). Thus, there are different conceptions of species and these impact how extinction is defined (see Maclaurin and Sterelny, 2008;Godfrey-Smith, 2014;Korsgaard, 2018a).…”

Section: Defining Extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a topic that has recently been gaining attention is the evaluation of the possibility of engineering species (via gene drives, cloning, etc.) either with the purpose of avoiding their extinction, such as by genetically adapting them to new climatic conditions or by increasing the genetic diversity of a population (see discussions by Palmer, 2016;Rohwer, 2018;Sandler, 2019;Preston, 2021;Sandler, 2021b;Welchman, 2021), or as means to eradicate invasive species (Thresher, 2022).…”

Section: De-extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ethics of species extinctions

Wienhues,

Baard,

Donoso

et al. 2023

Camb. prisms Extinction

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This review provides an overview of the ethics of extinctions with a focus on the Western analytical environmental ethics literature. It thereby gives special attention to the possible philosophical grounds for Michael Soulé’s assertion that the untimely ‘extinction of populations and species is bad’. Illustrating such debates in environmental ethics, the guiding question for this review concerns why – or when – anthropogenic extinctions are bad or wrong, which also includes the question of when that might not be the case (i.e. which extinctions are even desirable). After providing an explanation of the disciplinary perspective taken (section “Introduction”), the concept of extinction and its history within that literature are introduced (section “Understanding extinction”). Then, in section “Why (or when) might anthropogenic extinctions be morally problematic?”, different reasons for why anthropogenic extinctions might be morally problematic are presented based on the loss of species’ value, harm to nonhuman individuals, the loss of valuable biological variety and duties to future generations. This section concludes by also considering cases where anthropogenic extinctions might be justified. Section “How to respond to extinctions?” then addresses a selection of topics concerning risks and de-extinction technologies. Finally, the section on “Extinction studies” introduces other viewpoints on the ethics of extinction from the extinction studies literature, followed by the “Conclusion”.

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Section: Defining Extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%