The moral residue of conservation

Should conservationists use lethal management to control introduced wildlife populations? Should they kill individual animals to protect endangered species? Are trade-offs that prioritize some values at the expense of others morally appropriate? These sorts of ethical questions are common in conservation. In debating such questions, conservationists often seem to presume 1 of 2 possible answers: the act in question is right or it is wrong. But morality in conservation is considerably more complex than this simple binary suggests. A robust conservation ethic requires a vocabulary that gives voice to the uncertainty and unease that arise when what seems to be the best available course of action also seems to involve a measure of wrongdoing. The philosophical literature on moral residue and moral dilemmas supplies this vocabulary. Moral dilemmas arise when one must neglect certain moral requirements to fulfill others. Under such circumstances, even the best possible decision leaves a moral residue, which is experienced emotionally as some form of grief. Examples of conservation scenarios that leave a moral residue include management of introduced rabbits in Australia, trophy hunting in Africa, and forest management trade-offs in the Pacific Northwest. Moral residue is integral to the moral experience of conservationists today, and grief is an appropriate response to many decisions conservationists must make. Article impact statement: Defensible conservation decisions may neglect moral requirements, leaving a moral residue; conservationists should respond with grief.     

环境伦理学的双重价值理论

环境伦理学坚持内在属性的理论,把价值看成是自然价值。自然价值被事物的内在属性所决定。它的存在,乃是自然自身创造性的一种结果。自然价值表现着自然自身的特质关系,它是一种客观价值。与人的评价系统无关。另一方面,环境伦理学又坚持了人的主体性,在罗尔斯顿那里,审美价值是需要人的主体介入才可以形成的,而人们的情感体验又是价值产生的基本条件。这样,环境伦理学也就确定了双重的价值关系,它的理论也就具有了二元论的倾向。     

从摩尔的理论看环境伦理学的自然价值观

摩尔在伦理学原理一书中,首次分析了传统伦理学关于善的那种性质。指出善并不是一种自然之属性。而是一种非自然的属性。在严格的意义上说,善是不可定义的。并认为传统伦理学是犯了一种自然主义的谬误。摩尔的理论也波及到环境伦理学,特别是罗尔斯顿的自然价值理论受到了挑战。罗尔斯顿对自然主义的批评作出了回应。他把伦理义务的条件置于科学规律之前,并站在自然主义的立场上,指出自然界的生态平衡才是一切价值的基础。     

环境伦理学目的性理论的内在矛盾

环境伦理学的目的性理论有其内在的矛盾。一是它没能说清自然的整体目的与个体目的之间的关系,它们是从属的关系,还是各自独立的关系?二是它在坚持自然目的性的时侯,忽略了人的精神目的性。当它去解释自然事件时,用的是前一种关系,而当它去解释人类的精神事件时,又用了后一种关系.在这个地方,罗尔斯顿的理论陷入了二元论。     

Sustainable tourism for remote atolls in the Pacific

SUMMARY

Coral atolls, as visitor destinations, have received little attention in the literature of tourism on mid-oceanic islands. However, the current trend of nature-based tourism, which involves travelling to relatively remote and undisturbed places, makes the atolls a desirable destination. This paper explores ways of how appropriate tourism can be introduced to atoll society within the context of traditional resource uses and the application of intermediate technologies. With the acceptance of a code of ethics for tourist behaviour and technologies aimed at reducing dependency of foreign imports, atoll tourism could become a viable economic alternative to the continued over-exploitation of marine resources.     

Establishing moral bearings: ethics and expatriate health care professionals in humanitarian work

Expatriate health care professionals frequently participate in international responses to natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies. This field of practice presents important clinical, logistical and ethical challenges for clinicians. This paper considers the ethics of health care practice in humanitarian contexts. It examines features that contribute to forming the moral landscape of humanitarian work, and discusses normative guidelines and approaches that are relevant for this work. These tools and frameworks provide important ethics resources for humanitarian settings. Finally, it elaborates a set of questions that can aid health care professionals as they analyse ethical issues that they experience in the field. The proposed process can assist clinicians as they seek to establish their moral bearings in situations of ethical complexity and uncertainty. Identifying and developing ethics resources and vocabulary for clinical practice in humanitarian work will help health care professionals provide ethically sound care to patients and communities.     

The Harm Principle and Genetically Modified Food

It is suggested that the Harm Principle can be viewedas the moral basis on which genetically modified (GM) food iscurrently regulated. It is then argued (a) that the concept ofharm cannot be specified in such a manner as to render the HarmPrinciple a plausible political principle, so this principlecannot be used to justify existing regulation; and (b) that evenif the Harm Principle were a plausible political principle, itcould not be used alone in the regulation of GM food, since itdoes not express a concern for the expected benefits of suchfood.     

A Short History of Food Ethics

Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of theprinciple objects of monastic programs for moralexercise (askesis). During the seventeenth andeighteenth century, food ethics was transformed interms of the increasing scientific interest in foodintake, while in the nineteenth century the socialdimension of food ethics was discovered, with theresult that more and more attention was given to theproduction and distribution of food products. Becauseof the increasing distance between the production andconsumption of food products ever since, theoutstanding feature of contemporary food ethics is itreliance and dependence on labeling practices.     

Teaching Agricultural Ethics

A survey was conducted in the United Statesin 1998 and 1999 to determine what members of theNational Association of State Universities and LandGrant Colleges (NASULGC) and of the AmericanAssociation of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)offered agricultural ethics as an undergraduatecourse. Of the 59 responses, the survey found 15 USuniversities that have a course on agricultural ethicsor one that includes the topic. This paper willdiscuss the survey's findings and offer six reasonsthat explain why so few universities includeagricultural ethics in their curriculum. The sixreasons are: 1) lack of education in ethics andphilosophy on the part of agricultural scientists; 2)lack of institutional or disciplinary incentives foragricultural scientists to reflect on their work andits effects; 3) lack of administrative leadership incolleges of agriculture due to their failure tounderstand the benefits of agricultural ethics; 4)continuance of the prevailing assumption thatagriculture is inherently ethically correct; 5) thefelt necessity by agricultural scientists to defendthemselves against what are perceived to be unjust andinaccurate criticisms of agriculture; and 6) areluctance to engage in ethical reflection because itmay raise more problems than it solves. The paper'scentral question is why ethics is not taught in morecolleges of agriculture. Those who teach know thattheir students are tomorrow's farmers, businesspeople, professors, and policy makers. If we who nowteach and administer fail to include true ethicalstudy in our student's education, our students willstill be defensive when confronted with an ethicalissue and unable to respond except with assertionsbased on the production paradigm, the correctness ofwhich, although unexamined, we taught them. If theagricultural faculty does not recognize theopportunity and the obligation to participate in theshaping of values, then the values of agriculture willbe shaped elsewhere in the institution and insociety.