Lori Gruen

We think Hall (2013) is correct in arguing that the environmental movement needs a stronger narrative and believe that such a narrative requires significant nuance. Hall rightly recognizes the importance of appropriately framing the current narratives appealed to by the environmental movement. They are too simplistic and, as such, misleading. The optimistic frames tend to ignore the real losses people experience in trying to live greener lifestyles. The ‘doom and gloom’ frames are apt to foster a sense of hopelessness rather than motivate change. However a stronger narrative, as we think Hall would agree, requires that the more qualitative, multifaceted, and mutable nature of value be considered.

In June 2010, Rosie, a descendant of the chimpanzees sent into space, and thirteen others were shipped from New Mexico to a laboratory in Texas for possible use in hepatitis research. They were to be the first group of approximately two hundred chimpanzees to be reintroduced to invasive research. These chimpanzees had been in semiretirement for a decade after being removed from an enormous laboratory that was in egregious violation of the Animal Welfare Act. I, along with many bioethicists, scientists, primatologists, and others, have long been arguing against the use of chimpanzees in invasive research on ethical grounds. The United States is now poised to join the rest of the world in ending invasive research on our closest primate relatives.

Establishing that nature has intrinsic value has been the primary goal of environmental philosophers. This goal has generated tremendous confusion. Part of the confusion stems from a conflation of two quite distinct concerns. The first concern is with establishing the moral considerability of the natural world which is captured by what I call "intrinsic value p ." The second concern attempts to address a perceived problem with the way nature has traditionally been valued, or as many environmentalists would suggest, undervalued, what I call "intrinsic value v ." In this paper I argue against further development of both types of theories of the intrinsic value of nature. There are, I believe, intermediate valuations that have been almost entirely overlooked in discussions of value. Much of the confusion currently plaguing environmental ethics can be avoided by abandoning intrinsic value and refocusing environmental ethics.

Lately there has been increased attention to the philosophical issues that death raises, but the focus remains individualistic. Death is philosophically puzzling. Death is thought to be bad for the individual who dies, but there is no one there to experience death as a harm. In this paper I argue that the harm of death is a social harm. Of course, social relationships are fundamentally changed when any member of a social group dies. Death is harmful for those left behind. The problem is not just that social relations are harmed by the loss of a loved one. The very meaning and value of our lives and projects are shaped by social relations. By recognizing death as a social harm that many animals, human and nonhuman, experience, we may be better prepared for the work of mourning