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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Natural ecosystems possess intrinsic value

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Intrinsic value requires a subject of experience or a telos directed toward the good of the entity itself, as Aristotle and Kant both ground value in rational or sentient subjects.
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    • 2.Ecosystems are not unified organisms with their own telos but dynamic, boundary-indeterminate assemblages of entities without a shared good.
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    • 3.Therefore ecosystems can possess only instrumental or relational value, not intrinsic value in any philosophically rigorous sense.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Bryan Norton's weak anthropocentrism shows that all practical conservation goals can be achieved by expanding and refining human preference satisfaction without positing non-human intrinsic value.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Positing intrinsic value in ecosystems introduces ontological commitments that are empirically unmotivated and generate irresolvable conflicts when ecosystems change or collapse naturally.
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    • 3.A parsimonious ethical framework that accomplishes the same normative work without surplus metaphysical commitments is rationally preferable under Occam's Razor.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The moral reasoning that applies to individual natural entities applies equally to natural ecosystems
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    • 2.Natural ecosystems lack intrinsic function to the same extent that individual natural entities do
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