Christian Gamborg

The emotions of guilt and shame have an effect on how individuals feel and behave in relation to environmental crises, yet studies of the moral potential of these emotions remain limited. From a philosophical perspective, some scholars have defended using eco-guilt and eco-shame as morally constructive emotions due to their ability to evoke more pro-environmental behaviour. Meanwhile, others have posited that there are pitfalls to these emotions, claiming that they perpetuate a problematic individualised focus, which diverts attention from the collective and structural conditions considered necessary for pro-environmental change. This paper critically examines these two differing perspectives on eco-guilt and eco-shame, applying insights from moral and political philosophy and the sociology of emotions. Through this exploration, we try to nuance the discussion concerning the moral potential of eco-guilt and eco-shame. We argue that if individuals are able to break their introspective, consumption-based loops of eco-guilt and eco-shame alleviation, the emotions may enforce an individual ethical demand to be more sustainable and foster an ethical and political pro-environmental drive. Furthermore, experiences of eco-guilt and eco-shame have the potential to spread socially and help catalyse emotional shifts within society, sparking a greater political and social pro-environmental movement. Therefore, eco-guilt and eco-shame may indeed transcend the purported introspective and individual-level focus and have the potential to influence broader collective and structural conditions and thus foster environmental change.

Wildlife Ethics A systematic account of the ethical issues related to wildlife management and conservation Wildlife Ethics is the first systematic, book-length discussion of the ethics of wildlife conservation and management, and examines the key ethical questions and controversies. Tackling both theory and practice, the text is divided into two parts. The first describes key concepts, ethical theories, and management models relating to wildlife; the second puts these concepts, theories, and models to work, illustrating their significance through detailed case studies on controversies in wildlife management and conservation. The book explores pressing topics including human responsibilities due to climate change, tradeoffs when managing zoonotic disease risks, the ethics of the wildlife trade, culling non-native species, indigenous wildlife use, and zoo-based conservation programs. Readers are encouraged to explore different ways of valuing wild animals and their practical implications. This essential text: Explains and explores relationships between valuing biodiversity, human utility, ecosystems, species, and animal welfare Describes established approaches to wildlife management, such as sustainable use, and emerging concepts, such as compassionate conservation Discusses key ethical theories, including utilitarianism, ecocentrism, and animal rights Offers a practical model of how to analyze ethical issues in wildlife management and conservation Wildlife Ethics: The Ethics of Wildlife Management and Conservation is an accessible introduction to complex ethical issues, making the book an important resource for students in fields such as conservation biology, ecology, environmental science and policy, game management, public health and veterinary medicine. It will also be an invaluable tool for wildlife managers, conservationists, One Health practitioners, practicing veterinarians and animal rehabilitation staff, contemporary wildlife professionals and other stakeholders.

In this paper, the feasibility of using stakeholder approaches to assess forest management practices is examined. The paper focuses on two such approaches: the idea of ethical accounting developed for livestock farming, and the so-called ethical matrix. More extensive accounting is needed in forestry. The public is increasingly sensitive to, and aware of, the broader impact of forest management, not only on human welfare but also on environmental values such as nature conservation and biodiversity. Green accounting is being used to assess the environmental effects of forestry. In a broader approach such as ethical accounting as developed for livestock farming, both the purpose and the type of use that is being made of the forest must be examined. It is also necessary to ask which visible or invisible stakeholders are to be included. However, it is important to note that the adoption of stakeholder approaches does not remove the need to reflect on one's fundamental ethical position. In fact, one must critically consider one's basic values before applying these approaches to forestry.

With the trend toward greater integration of production and conservation in forestry, traditional economic approaches to assessing forest value have come to be regarded as inadequate in the determination of forest policy and the setting of forest management objectives. In the last few decades, other types of economic as well non-economic methods to assess forest value have gained foothold. To arrive at a sound account of forest value, we need to clarify how value is understood from an economic and ecological perspective. Two things are at stake. One is the attempt to capture values beyond the more well-defined utility values. The second is the effort to try to make these values measurable. Such clarification, and the critical discussion it requires, will help to provide a better foundation for policy and concrete management decisions and make the underlying basis of prioritization more transparent.

In this chapter we will use the case of beaver reintroduction in southern Scandinavia to illuminate the philosophical issues underlying the value of biodiversity. First, we rehearse some of the main types of argument relating to the practice of ecological restoration. This is followed by a description of the case study, and by a summary of what we take to be the main positions in the ongoing debate over reintroduction of beavers. We then interpret these different positions, asking in each case how ‘biodiversity’ is being understood. In this way, we try to establish the causes of the disagreement. It is important to distinguish between disagreements caused by conflicting interests and disagreements caused by conflicting values. We shall focus on a special type of disagreement where there seems to be a genuine conflict of values pertaining to biodiversity. Finally, we show how the claim that biodiversity should be protected is made by several participants in the debate and taken to have remarkably different implications: the need to protect biodiversity has been invoked both in attacks on, and defenses of, reintroduction and other forms of ecological restoration.

This paper revisits the strained yet ubiquitous notion of sustainability to see where and how it can make a contribution to improved agricultural and natural resource management and policy making. The case of a three-year EU network on farm animal breeding and reproduction is used as a practical illustration. In this network, commercial breeders and breeding scientists were required, with professional assistance from philosophers and social scientists, to develop a definition of sustainable farm animal breeding. The word ‘sustainability’ does not define a unique ethical perspective. At best it indicates a willingness to open an ethical agenda. However if the agenda is not specified in some detail, there is a real danger that necessary ethical discussion will be swept under the carpet. Even worse, the word may be used as a fig leaf in an attempt to legitimise projects which are ethically dubious. Used conscientiously, the framework of sustainability has two benefits: First, it invites parties involved in the planning of future activities in a company or sector to take a comprehensive look at potentially conflicting concerns and to face any difficult trade-offs. Second, it encourages concerns to be presented within a framework that is endorsed by society as a whole, and this enables the stakeholders to make room for communication to, and dialogue with, a broader audience than the rather narrow group of people directly involved. Adapting the definition of sustainability to specific conditions and circumstances is more than a technical or scientific task. It requires us to address carefully underlying questions about values. The fundamental dilemmas that emerge when the notion of sustainability is considered have no easy solutions, but they can be addressed by taking into account four key characteristics of sustainability discussed in this paper.

Control of wild animals may give rise to controversy, as is seen in the case of badger control to manage TB in cattle in the UK. However, it is striking that concerns about the potential suffering of the affected animals themselves are often given little attention or completely ignored in policies aimed at dealing with wild animals. McCulloch and Reiss argue that this could be remedied by means of a “mandatory application of formal and systematic Animal Welfare Impact Assessment ”. Optimistically, they consider that an AWIA could help to resolve controversies involving wild animals. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the potential of AWIA. We begin by showing how ideas akin to AWIA already play a significant role in other animal ethics controversies, particularly those concerning laboratory animal use and livestock production; and we bring in lessons learnt from these controversies. Then we comment on the suggested development and application of AWIA in the case of badger control. Finally, we discuss the prospects of applying AWIA to other sorts of wild animal controversy. We argue that the AIWA, as developed by McCulloch and Reiss, relies on several dubious premises, including that killing is a welfare issue. Furthermore, we argue that AWIA is unlikely to prevent serious moral disagreements over how to weigh concerns about wild animals against priorities in human health, the health of domestic and farm animals, and biodiversity, but that it may nonetheless serve to limit harms imposed on the wild animals.

De-domestication is the deliberate establishment of a population of domesticated animals or plants in the wild. In time, the population should be able to reproduce, becoming self-sustainable and incorporating ‘wild’ animals. Often de-domestication is part of a larger nature restoration scheme, aimed at creating landscapes anew, or re-creating former habitats. De-domestication is taken up in this paper because it both engages and raises questions about the major norms governing animals and nature. The debate here concerns whether animals undergoing de-domestication should be looked upon as wild or non-wild and the effect this has on questions about how they should be treated. It also concerns the value of nature, and the kind and degree of nature management considered appropriate. The paper first describes actual de-domestication practices and considers the character of human duties to animals in process of de-domestication. Secondly, the paper explores the implications of de-domestication for nature management, focusing on notions of naturalness and wildness. Finally, because the current division of ethical topics, with its dependence upon whether animals and nature are domesticated, hampers rather than helps, a new perspective is offered on the issues raised by de-domestication. More ‘thinking outside the box’ with regard to animals and nature is recommended.

Increasingly, ethical concerns are being raised regarding bioenergy production. However, the ethical issues often do not stand out very clearly. The aim of the present paper is to improve on this situation by analyzing the bioenergy discussion from the perspective of land use. From this perspective, bioenergy production may give rise to ethical problems because it competes with other forms of land use. This may generate ethical problems mainly for two reasons. First, bioenergy production may compete, directly or indirectly, with food production; and as consequence the food security of poor people may be adversely affected (social aspects arguments). Secondly, the production of bioenergy may directly or indirectly lead to deforestation and other changes of land use that have a negative effect on greenhouse gas emissions (environmental arguments). So from this perspective the main challenge raised by bioenergy production is to secure responsible land use. The purpose of the paper is not to advocate, or promote, a specific ethical position on bioenergy, but to structure the main arguments found. The paper falls in two parts. One part addresses social aspects arguments for using agricultural land for bioenergy—where food insecurity, malnourishment, and significant food poverty are the main concerns. The second part scopes environmental implications—notably greenhouse gas emissions impact, as affected by deforestation and other (indirect) land-use changes. Alongside showing some of the current dilemmas presented by wider land-use changes, arguments are analyzed from two ethical angels: a consequentialist and a deontological

This article criticises the notion that critical/political/ethical consumerism can solve issues related to sustainability and food production. It does this by analysing the complexity of the concept of sustainability as related to food choices. The current trend of pursuing a sustainable food production through critical purchase decisions rather than through regulation is shown to be problematic, as shopping for a more sustainable food system might be much harder than initially believed due to the conflicting values and inherent trade-offs entailed in the different notions of sustainability. Thus, critical consumerism may give way to false expectations as the complexity of choices transpires. One obvious way out is to let decisions regarding food choices be made earlier in the food production chain as well as through new modes of governance engaging members of civil society in their capacity as citizens rather than consumers. This entails complementing society’s reliance on critical consumerism with a citizen-oriented and political process in support of making more sustainable food choices

Animal welfare and the ethical issues it raises have been discussed intensively for a couple of decades. The emphasis has been on the direct effects of housing and husbandry, but more attention is now being given to problems originating in selective breeding. European attempts to adjust animal welfare legislation to deal with these problems have been largely unsuccessful, but the fact that selective breeding can introduce welfare problems continues to place an ethical responsibility on the animal breeding industry. Since breeding decisions are made centrally and, increasingly, internationally, strategic change is only likely to occur if it is embedded in an international agreement of some kind. The aim of this paper is to describe the key ethical issues facing animal breeding and assess the suggestion that the breeding industry itself can deal with ethical issues by means of an ethical code. Results from recent projects involving commercial breeding enterprises are presented.

De-domestication is the deliberate establishment of a population of domesticated animals or plants in the wild. In time, the population should be able to reproduce, becoming self-sustainable and incorporating 'wild' animals. Often de-domestication is part of a larger nature restoration scheme, aimed at creating landscapes anew, or re-creating former habitats. De-domestication is taken up in this paper because it both engages and raises questions about the major norms governing animals and nature. The debate here concerns whether animals undergoing de-domestication should be looked upon as wild or non-wild and the effect this has on questions about how they should be treated. It also concerns the value of nature, and the kind and degree of nature management considered appropriate. The paper first describes actual de-domestication practices and considers the character of human duties to animals in process of de-domestication. Secondly, the paper explores the implications of de-domestication for nature management, focusing on notions of naturalness and wildness. Finally, because the current division of ethical topics, with its dependence upon whether animals and nature are domesticated, hampers rather than helps, a new perspective is offered on the issues raised by de-domestication. More 'thinking outside the box' with regard to animals and nature is recommended

This paper examines the challenges that climate change raises for animal agriculture and discusses the contributions that may come from a virtue ethics based approach. Two scenarios of the future role of animals in farming are set forth and discussed in terms of their ethical implications. The paper argues that when trying to tackle both climate and animal welfare issues in farming, proposals that call for a reorientation of our ethics and technology must first and foremost consider the values that drive current livestock production. This paper sets forth and discusses the broader societal values implicit in livestock production. We suggest that a virtues approach would improve our thinking and practice regarding animal agriculture, facilitating a move from livestock production to animal husbandry. This change in animal agriculture in a time of climate change would stress virtues such as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness as central elements in any mitigation or adaptation program