Paul Haught

This essay offers a critical assessment of environmental virtue ethics (EVE). Finding an environmental ethical analogy with Hume’s critique of the sensible knave, I argue that EVE is limited in much the same way as morality is on the Humean view. Advocates of nonanthropocentrism will find it difficult to engage those whose virtues comport them to anthropocentrism. Nonetheless, EVE is able to ground confidence in nonanthropocentric virtues by explicating specific key virtues, thereby holding open the possibility of bridging the motivational gap between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism.

In this response, I unpack the implications of Kasperbauer’s focus on the passenger pigeon in his critique of de-extinction. While I accept his sentientist objections to de-extinction, I consider how a case for de-extinction can be developed using Ronald Sandler’s concept of integral value. In this vein, justification for bringing back the passenger pigeon is comparable to that supporting a recovery effort of an endangered species. However, as with a recovery plan, and possibly more so, de-extinction must reflect a sincere commitment to accommodate the resurrected species and provide the habitat in which it can thrive. In this vein, de-extinction should not proceed without environmental virtues of hospitality and neighborliness.