Prompt 11

In his article, Sagoff explains that environmental ethics and animal liberation could never coincide. He states that animal rights are concerned with the individual, while the conservationist is concerned with the balance of species and ecosystems. There is no sustainable way to protect the rights of every animal while humans live in balance with nature. Some of the things he suggests are a bit out of the ordinary. For example, he states that the place of greatest mistreatment to animals is in nature, not on factory farms like some conservationist groups have suggested. He seems to suggest, almost mockingly, that if animal rights groups want to protect individuals, they cannot concern themselves with only domesticated animals.

I think this is a very unusual position to take, although it oddly makes a lot of sense. With our current population size, it is only natural that we would treat animals the way we do. In nature, as Sagoff writes, an animal can have millions of young and only have one or two survive. The wild isn't concerned with morals or ethics; it a simple, yet violent system. The years an animal will live on a factory farm are much greater than what they would survive in the wild. Although some would argue, quality of life is more important than quantity of life. Even though animals are living longer and healthier, their treatment is still torturous in that they cannot roam or explore and develop mentally.

Sagoff's article helped me realize why I was having such issues previously in this class. I was trying to find a happy medium between animal rights and environmental ethics. Sagoff clarified that there could be no in between. I think this would definitely push my perspective towards the ecological ethics end of the spectrum. I believe that it's more important for the world to be in balance than for animals to be completely protected. If animals were granted certain unalienable rights, it doesn't seem like it would solve any of the global issues we have today. It seems that the most pressing issue to animals is human invasion of habitat, something that could be solved from an environmental ethics perspective. If human population were to reduced as proposed by the perspective of Leopold, Calicott, and Hardin; it would solve many of the pressures of animals in nature. Although the lives of individuals in certain species may be lost, the quality of life of animals as a whole would be improved.

When comparing my response to prompt 10 against Allie's, there are many similarities but a few differences still remain. We both take an environmental ethics standpoint, wanting to better the community as a whole instead of the individual. We both discussed and focused on the hypocrisy of man; how he only will do things that are environmentally beneficial if he is adequately compensated for it. However, we differed in what our solutions to this might be. Allie suggested that the problem was rooted in capitalism and that taken advantage of other nations would contribute to our downfall. I suggested than the blame cannot be placed on only one socioeconomic structure. I gave examples as to how China and Russia are both greater polluters than the United States, and they are both communist. I believe the solution to this lies not in a change of economic policy, but in a global education of the issues that are prevalent. Good ecological decisions cannot be made until people around the world have an in depth knowledge of the issue. This isn't to say that the problem lies only in third world countries, as the example with the farmers clearly suggest. I believe that through this effort, environmental progress can be made, and as a result, so can the improvement of the welfare of individual animals.

In regards to: http://alliegories.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/prompt-10-the-land-ethic/#comments