The Intrinsic Value of Endangered Species

Download or read book The Intrinsic Value of Endangered Species written by Ian A. Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why save endangered species without clear aesthetic, economic, or ecosystemic value? This book takes on this challenging question through an account of the intrinsic goods of species. Ian A. Smith argues that a species’ intrinsic value stems from its ability to flourish—its organisms continuing to reproduce successfully and it avoiding extinction—which helps to demonstrate a further claim, that humans ought to preserve species that we have endangered. He shows our need to exercise humility in our relations with endangered species through the preservation of their intrinsic goods, which in turn rectifies our degradation of their importance. Unique in its appeal to virtue ethics and to species concepts, The Intrinsic Value of Endangered Species is an important resource for scholars working in environmental ethics and the philosophy of biology.