Ronald Sandler

The Value of Species and the Ethical Foundations of Assisted Colonization

Discourse around assisted colonization focuses on the ecological risks, costs, and uncertainties associated with the practice, as well as on its technical feasibility and alternative approaches to it. Nevertheless, the ethical underpinnings of the case for assisted colonization are claims about the value of species. A complete discussion of assisted colonization needs to include assessment of these claims. For each type of value that species are thought to possess it is necessary to determine whether it is plausible that species possess the type of value and, if so, to what extent their possessing it justifies assisted colonization. I conducted such an assessment for each of the predominant types of value ascribed to species: ecological, instrumental (including option value), existence, and intrinsic value (including interest-based, objective, and valuer-dependent intrinsic value). The vast majority of species, including several that have been proposed as candidates for assisted colonization, have much less value than is often presumed. Moreover, with respect to some types of value, assisted colonization would not fully preserve the value of the target species even if it were to keep the target species in existence. Therefore, the case for assisted colonization is significantly weaker and more qualified than its advocates often suppose. There may be exceptional species for which assisted colonization is well justified--and for this reason, case-by-case assessment is necessary--but in general the burden of justification generated by the ecological risks associated with assisted colonization is not met by the value potentially preserved by assisted colonization. This suggests that assisted colonization ought to have, at most, a very minor role in the portfolio of ecosystem management practices, even as it pertains to species conservation under conditions of rapid climate change.

The GMO-Nanotech (Dis)Analogy?

The genetically-modified-organism (GMO) experience has been prominent in motivating science, industry, and regulatory communities to address the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. However, there are some significant problems with the GMO-nanotech analogy. First, it overstates the likelihood of a GMO-like backlash against nanotechnology. Second, it invites misconceptions about the reasons for public engagement and social and ethical issues research as well as their appropriate roles in nanotech research, development, application, commercialization, and regulatory processes. After an explication of the standard GMO-Nanotech analogy, these two problems are discussed in turn.

The Ethics of Reviving Long Extinct Species

There now appears to be a plausible pathway for reviving species that have been extinct for several decades, centuries, or even millennia. I conducted an ethical analysis of de-extinction of long extinct species. I assessed several possible ethical considerations in favor of pursuing de-extinction: that it is a matter of justice; that it would reestablish lost value; that it would create new value; and that society needs it as a conservation last resort. I also assessed several possible ethical arguments against pursuing de-extinction: that it is unnatural; that it could cause animal suffering; that it could be ecologically problematic or detrimental to human health; and that it is hubristic. There are reasons in favor of reviving long extinct species, and it can be ethically acceptable to do so. However, the reasons in favor of pursuing de-extinction do not have to do with its usefulness in species conservation; rather, they concern the status of revived species as scientific and technological achievements, and it would be ethically problematic to promote de-extinction as a significant conservation strategy, because it does not prevent species extinctions, does not address the causes of extinction, and could be detrimental to some species conservation efforts. Moreover, humanity does not have a responsibility or obligation to pursue de-extinction of long extinct species, and reviving them does not address any urgent problem. Therefore, legitimate ecological, political, animal welfare, legal, or human health concerns associated with a de-extinction (and reintroduction) must be thoroughly addressed for it to be ethically acceptable.

An Aretaic Objection to Agricultural Biotechnology

Considerations of virtue and character appear from time to time in the agricultural biotechnology literature. Critics of the technologies often suggest that they are contrary to some virtue (usually humility) or do not fit with the image of ourselves and the human place in the world that we ought to embrace. In this article, I consider the aretaic or virtue-based objection that to engage in agricultural biotechnology is to exhibit arrogance, hubris, and disaffection. In section one, I discuss Gary Comstocks treatment of this objection. In section two, I provide an alternative interpretation of the objection that more accurately reflects the concerns of those who offer the criticism than does Comstocks standard interpretation. In sections three and four, I assess the objection. I argue that despite its merits, the objection does not justify global opposition to agricultural biotechnology. Instead, it favors a limited endorsement position not unlike the one defended by Comstock.

Nanomedicine and Nanomedical Ethics

As Fritz Allhoff (2009) argues in the target article, the size, interactive, multifunctional, and precision features that nanoscale science and engineering enables is in the process of redefining medical technologies in a broad array of areas, such as drug delivery, imaging, analysis of cellular functions, tissue engineering and reconstruction, biomolecule engineering, implant materials, communication, and monitoring. Allhoff is also correct that ethicists would do well to attend to the social, ethical, economic, and policy significance of this oncoming deluge of nanomedical technologies, which has, in fact, already begun to arrive. Liposomes, for example, are a nanoparticle that has been United States Food and Drug Administration-approved for use in chemotherapeutic drug delivery. However, Allhoff (2009) significantly underestimates the social and ethical significance of nanomedical technologies when he concludes that “the issues with nanomedicine seem to be, at most, risks (e.g., toxicity and safety) and distributive justice, and in fairly standard ways” (3). This commentary will endeavor to establish three claims:

Nanotechnology and Social Context

The central claims defended in this article are the following: (a) The social and ethical challenges of nanotechnology can be fully identified only if both the characteristic features of nanotechnologies and the social contexts into which they are emerging are considered. (b) When this is done, a host of significant social context issues, or issues that arise as a result of problematic features of the social contexts into which nanotechnology is emerging, become salient. (c) These issues can only be addressed by remedying the problematic features of the social contexts, which cannot be accomplished by technology design or risk management alone. (d) The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiatives conceptualization and operationalization of responsible development does not adequately recognize the significance of social context issues to responsible development. (e) Therefore, the National Nanotechnology Initiative is not yet comprehensive and needs to be expanded with respect to identifying and addressing social context issues.

On the Moral Considerability of Homo sapiens and Other Species

It is sometimes claimed that as members of the species Homo sapiens we have a responsibility to promote the good of Homo sapiens itself (distinct from the good of its individual members). Lawrence Johnson has recently defended this claim as part of his approach to resolving the problem of future generations. We show that there are several difficulties with Johnsonʼs argument, many of which are likely to attend any attempt to establish the moral considerability of Homo sapiens or species generally. Further, even if Homo sapiens were morally considerable, this would not ground an adequate response to the problem of future generations. The sort of moral considerability that would be appropriate to Homo sapiens, or species generally, would not be as robust nor have the implications that many have supposed.

The good of non-sentient entities: Organisms, artifacts, and synthetic biology

Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms.

Beware of Averages: A Response to John Nolt's ‘How Harmful are the Average American's Greenhouse Gas Emissions?’

In ‘How harmful are the average American’s greenhouse gas emissions?’ John Nolt (2011) correctly points out that the claim that an individual’s contribution to total atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and associated harms is negligible is usually made without adequate evidence (Jamieson, 2007; Sandler, 2010; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2005). The percentage of total emissions that an average American is responsible for is, in large part, an empirical question. Nolt attempts to calculate this percentage. Nolt also attempts to calculate the total harm that will be caused by anthropogenic global climate change. Given these values he believes that he can calculate, in a rough but informative sense, the harm caused by the average American’s greenhouse gas emissions. This, in turn, provides a sense of the ‘moral significance’ of an average American’s ‘complicity in a greenhouse-gas-intensive economy’ (Nolt, 2011, pp. 3–10). In this commentary, I raise concerns about Nolt’s approach to determining the harm associated with an average American’s emissions. How much harm an average American’s emissions cause is not, as in Nolt’s calculation, the amount of total harm caused by climate change times the portion of total anthropogenic emissions for which an average American is responsible over her lifetime. (On Nolt’s calculations this is, roughly, somewhere in the range of 2–4 billion sufferings/deaths times, roughly, one two-billionth of total emissions—that is, 1 or 2 harms.) Rather, it is the amount of harm caused by anthropogenic climate change minus the amount of harm caused by anthropogenic climate change if total atmospheric levels of CO2 emission were reduced by the amount of the lifetime emissions of an average American. Let us take Nolt’s figure for an average American’s greenhouse gas emissions, 1584 metric tons. To determine how much harm is caused by those emissions, we would need to know the harm caused by climate change on the scenario when those emissions occur and the harm caused

Towards an Adequate Environmental Virtue Ethic

In this article I consider four concerns regarding the possibility of an environmental virtue ethic functioning as an alternative rather than a supplement to more conventional approaches to environmental ethics. The concerns are: (1) it is not possible to provide an objective specification of environmental virtue, (2) an environmental virtue ethic will lack the resources to provide critique of obtaining cultural practices and policies, (3) an environmental virtue ethic will not provide sufficient action-guidance, (4) an environmental virtue ethic cannot ground constraints on human activities regarding the natural environment. Each of these concerns makes a claim about the poverty of normative resources at the disposal of environmental virtue ethics. I defend a conception of environmental virtue as a character virtue with the same normative standing as the conventional personal and interpersonal virtues that enables an environmental virtue ethic with the wherewithal to address each of the concerns.