Taking natural harms seriously in compassionate conservation
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Compassionate Conservation is an ethical framework which calls for greater compassion for individual animals in conservation science and practice. CC draws on virtue ethics by understanding compassion as a virtue, but supplements that virtue with four ethical principles (first do no harm, individuals matter, inclusivity, and peaceful coexistence) which aim to capture what it means to act compassionately. In this paper I argue for a revision of the CC framework. I begin by showing how, in addition to compassion, compassionate conservationists implicitly rely on the virtue of respect. Respect better explains the principles of individuals matter and inclusivity, but also entails a principle of respect for autonomy. I further suggest that, to reflect genuine compassion for wild animals, the principles first, do no harm and peaceful coexistence should be replaced by one principle: minimize harm. In the second half of the paper I discuss the implications of this revised framework. I argue that, due to the prevalence of suffering even in well-conserved ecosystems, compassion and respect motivate a more active management of natural environments in order to reduce the harms that wild animals face, even where this entails costs to biodiversity conservation. This reveals a tradeoff between the goals of biodiversity conservation and compassionate and respectful action.
Source: Biological Conservation
Author: Tristan Katz
Institution: University of Fribourg
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,570
OpenAlex ID: W4402623394