It could be valuable deontologically, but let’s put that aside for one sec. So it’s either valuable for certain individuals, or for species (dubious notion) or it just constitutes good world states. Good for individuals doesn’t make sense, is only death worse for the last individual of a species or are all harms? Are all benefits better? Good qua world states needs some measure of value a la the gini coefficient, but what measure makes any sense, and how is it commensurate with animal welfare? Is the value purely aesthetic in an objective way? Is it good because it’s good for humans?
Claude on Key Contemporary Approaches (I swear I thought of a different option though):
- Information/Option Value Theories (Norton, Maier)
- Biodiversity represents unique evolutionary information
- Focus on preserving future options/possibilities
- Links to discussions of transformative experience and option value in decision theory
- Challenge: Needs stronger grounding for why information/options have non-instrumental value
- Systemic Property Views (Callicott, Rolston)
- Value emerges from ecological relationships/processes
- Not reducible to individual welfare or species
- Draws on process philosophy and systems theory
- Current challenge: Making this compatible with welfare-focused ethics
- Natural-Historical Value (O’Neill, Holland, Light)
- Value derives from historical processes that produced diversity
- Similar to cultural heritage preservation arguments
- Challenge: Distinguishing from aesthetic/instrumental value
- Environmental Virtue Ethics (Hill, Sandler)
- Links biodiversity to cultivation of environmental virtues
- Focus on character rather than consequences
- Current work on integrating with other normative frameworks