environmental ethics - need help plz!
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environmental ethics - need help plz!
Scenario:
Canadian space exploration mission discovered a habitable planet, outside of the solar system, that can be reached by our space ship in a reasonable amount of time (let’s say, 8 months for a round trip, using newly developed technology).
The planet, named, by the astronauts who discovered it, XYZ, has a well developed flora (i.e., versatile vegetation) and only primitive fauna (i.e., only minimally developed animal life: bacteria, other single-celled organisms, small molluscs, etc.).
The Canadian government set out to examine the possibility of transferring many of the most polluting and dangerous industries from Canada to XYZ. After 3 years of research, the governmental study found out that such a transfer is economically feasible.
Assignment:
Setting aside the questions of international politics and proprietary rights on XYZ real estate, do you think that the government SHOULD go with the project?
Present your position, explain it and justify it ethically
I am stuck because I can`t decide where to stand on the issue. On one hand, I think we should use planet XYZ to help out humanity and give earth a break, but on the other hand I dont think its right to exploit and pollute another planet that has so much potential.
Any thoughts/ideas/opinions? It would be very very appreciated!!
- NoPityNoRemorse
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Earth was a nice green planet but when industrialization began there was no way of slowing it down. In fact we have been growing ever since, both economically and scientifically;discovering new animals etc etc.So I feel that we should go ahead and colonize/industrialize planet XYZ because in the end something has got to give. To elaborate:humans have relied on technology and its benefits, not really knowing how to survive for long periods of time without it.
If we had to cut back our current consumption rates of non-renewable energy in order to save Earth, it may take a long time for us to adapt if at all.By 'sharing' the load with XYZ, not only can we continue to grow and expand, in the future when/if Earth becomes unable to support life, we do not have to shift EVERYTHING to XYZ saving us countless resources. Like how a parallel arrangement of batteries last longer, by splitting the load, both Earth and XYZ will last longer than if we use them in 'series'-after using one planet we move on to the next.
Some food for thought, what is the purpose of not maximizing the planets resources? By trying to do something we think is 'right' like 'oh let's not despoil this planet',we end up suffering for it. True it may be a waste, but would it not be an even greater waste if we end up having to do something even more distasteful (putting humans to 'sleep' for example) to preserve the purity of this new planet? All the resources consumed on Earth would be meaningless if we are unable to continue progressing and pushing the boundaries of knowledge.In some ways, this planet is an opportunity to use eco-friendly technology and try to gauge its effectiveness.
So,it all depends on what you mean by 'potential'. Potential for what? I think the only potential it has is for humans to start anew and try to minimize their impact on the environment while maintaining their lifestyle/traditions.
P.S-Sorry for the unfriendly wall'O'post there.Didn't mean to be long winded.
Cheers!
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Since there are only plants and 'lower' animals on that planet, Canada wouldn't be hurting anything conscious.
So the question is not "would it hurt the interests of xyz?", because xyz doesn't have any interests. What use is beauty or life, if noone is there to appreciate it?
The relevant question is "is polluting the planet in humanity's long-term interest?"
I think the answer is no, not instantaneously. First, an international team of scientists should be sent there to analyze the flora and fauna. There's a lot of interesting stuff we can learn from this, biotechnology wise.
But after enough benefits have been gained, we should definitely use the planet to our own advantage. If polluting it turs out to help us the most, well then that's what should be done.
- Felix
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How do they know that these "lower" forms of life aren't conscious or won't evolve into forms of life that are? (Actually, I suspect that all life is conscious, however all life is not self aware.) Look at it this way: Earth was once at this same stage of development, would it have been alright for an advanced civilization that was not wise enough to see the potential of Earth life forms to treat our plant as a toxic waste site? Consider that if one had, it would be unlikely that we'd be having this discussion.
Frankly though, I don't accept the following premise:
"After 3 years of research, the governmental study found out that such a transfer is economically feasible."
I really doubt that it could be economically feasible to import raw materials to, and export products from, such a long distance, but if it was, any civilization technologically advanced enough to make it economically feasible would also likely be advanced enough to find a way to develop nonpolluting or minimally polluting manufacturing methods.
At any rate, my answer is: no, such an act would be immoral and unethical and should be avoided if at all possible.
NoPityNoRemorse said: "both Earth and XYZ will last longer than if we use them in 'series'-after using one planet we move on to the next."
There have been a few science fiction novels about parasitic civilizations that go from one planet to another, sucking the life out of their hosts, i.e., the planets' residents, and corrupting everything they touch. I would hate to think that the human race would ever become such a "civilization."
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Felix wrote: How do they know that these "lower" forms of life aren't conscious or won't evolve into forms of life that are? (Actually, I suspect that all life is conscious, however all life is not self aware.)
They know the same way I know. I've read several neuroscience publications and around four books on consciousness by professional philosophers. One can never know for 100% sure, but then again, neither can one prove that rocks aren't conscious. There are certain requirements for consciousness, and one has to look at it from an evolutionary perspective. Consciousness is only needed in creatures that are faced with real-time, non-instinct-based choices. So I guess mollusks might well have some rudimentary consciousness. But that doesn't grant them more interests than all the conscious life, including self-aware humans, on earth.
You're right by making the distinction between conscious and conscious AND self-aware. It's much worse to kill a self-aware being than to kill a conscious one. In fact, I don't even think killing a merely conscious being is bad, as long as it's done without causing suffering.
Anyway, you assume that 'potential for consciousness/self-awareness' is something we should worry about. I disagree. If you think potential is so important, then every time a male masturbates instead of devoting energy trying to get laid without using contraception is murder, because he prevents sperm from potentially becoming a human being.
This scenario only appeals to us emotionally because we actually ARE here discussing. If we weren't, we wouldn't care, it would just feel like all the billions of years before we were born. It's a misleading perspective.Felix wrote: Look at it this way: Earth was once at this same stage of development, would it have been alright for an advanced civilization that was not wise enough to see the potential of Earth life forms to treat our plant as a toxic waste site? Consider that if one had, it would be unlikely that we'd be having this discussion.
- Felix
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Actually, it is the scenario you described that only appeals to us emotionally, i.e., that our needs and feelings supercede the feelings/needs of any life form we believe is inferior to us. That is, that we have the right to destroy whatever is not of immediate practical use to us. Where do you think such an attitude ultimately leads? To greater insensitivity and eventually self destruction, I would say.
"There are certain requirements for consciousness, and one has to look at it from an evolutionary perspective."
Funny you should say that because you are not doing so, you're saying it would be alright to destroy life forms (primitive fauna, as you said) that are likely to evolve into higher ones (because that initial stage is the most essential and difficult one to attain).
"In fact, I don't even think killing a merely conscious being is bad, as long as it's done without causing suffering."
Well, there are higher values than simply "not causing suffering." If that is a life form's highest ethic, it is rather dull witted.
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I decided to say yes to the question. My reasoning is that it would be right to do so for utilitarian reasons. As well, since XYZ is not populated by moral agents, there would be be no morals on XYZ to conflict with. Does this seem logical?
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- Felix
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"As well, since XYZ is not populated by moral agents, there would be be no morals on XYZ to conflict with. Does this seem logical?"
No, not at all. By that reasoning, an ethically advanced extraterrestrial civilization that visited our planet and examined the behaviour of the human species (with it's continual history of war, genicide, seemingly senseless destruction of it's environment and fellow species on the planet, including highly intelligent ones like whales and dolphins) would probably conclude that we are definitely not a moral agent, and could, perhaps even should, be exterminated - like the remake of the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Did you see that? (No, Keanu Reeves still can't act... )
Another point is, top scientists do not agree that we would even be able to recognize extraterrestrial life forms, let alone determine whether they are conscious or intelligent. For example, a planet might be inhabited by intelligent mollusk like creatures, that we just presume are dumb clams... until the attack of the alien clams occurs, anyway. Or if they are not carbon based life forms, we might not be able to identify them at all as "alive" - like, say, some sort of living crystal.
But I guess this is just a round about way of agreeing with Belinda that we should respect life and the biospheres that support it - although, as I said, we're not even doing that now on our home planet.
Last but not least, "IlostMySpoon", my most formidable argument: what if we found your spoon on this distant planet? Would that alone not be reason to let it be?
- reflected_light
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And why pick one thats inhabited anyways? Pick a dead one, if a planet so tickles your fancy, and dump garbage there.
Silly question.
Life anywhere is interesting enough to save, and besides,
we may need a place to go soon enough if population expansion continues at it's current rate.
Since noone else made the obvious joke, I will.
Tell your professor to 'stick it in Uranus'.
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Grossly, for/against/your opinion.
Pragmatism against Moralism.
It may be a pragmatic solution but is it a moral one?
Are we ready to completely compromise the evolution of an entire planet simply because of our own stupidity?
Do we have to make other entities and their evolution pay the price of our own negligence/irresponsibility/mediocre technological advancement due to greed...?
The technologies could EXIST TODAY. If they are not really researched and even 'killed' it's only because of the greed of some (who are controlling us) profiting of the status quo.
This answers the question: If feasible economically, why not invest the money in waste treatment instead? The cost/money alloted of the trips and the technology necessary to make these trips and stock the waste overt here could well be injected in a waste treatment project here on earth.
Relativism against Objectivism.
It's 'good' for us, but objectively 'bad' for XYZ, its fauna and flora.
short term view against long term view.
It seems like a good solution now, but what if the simple fact to have a new 'dumping-s**t' place render, de facto, the need to developp new sources of energy and/or new ways to treat the waste we create.
Therefore we will go on with our actual energetic model.
We could increase our population even more.
So, how long would it take for XYZ to be useless in its ppurpose? We would only have postpone the inevitable and rely on hopes of finding other planet at an equivalent distance.
So, we would have rendered not one but 2 planets unsuitable for sustaining life in 'good' conditions.
Also, the fact that this planet is suitable for life should be tken into consideration.
Why choose this planet to dump our s**t??
Why not on a planet or a moon of our solar system, NOT suitable for life? We could dump whatever we want from a low orbit...
Finally isn't it fantastic that as soon as we discovered a planet with alien life, we want to colonize it for waste dumping purposes?!
Because they have indeed found a planet harboring life not too far from us (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/ ... nomer-say/).
So, it's not a mere hypothetical... I suspect that the authors of this assignement were aware of that... Interesting.
That was done in 15mn. From the top of my head.
I'm sure that in an hour I will come up with better/different arguments... But I'm not the one having this assignment .
EDIT: I didn't see that reflected lights had one similar idea for the disposal of this waste. It seems so obvious in fact that it makes me wonder why did they give this parameters to this test
Are you sure that these guys are philosophers, meaning supposed to use their brain??
- Felix
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It is clear from the description that the planet is free from pollution. What is the need to pollute a planet? It is the best to keep the planet pollution free. In future, people from world may to go to a pollution free planet for improving health.
Even it is not ethical to pollute our world. We need industry for the overall welfare of living beings of the world. We do not need industry which spreads pollution and slowly takes us to destruction. This simple truth should be understood by all. So, there is no question of polluting another planet.
- Antone
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Re: environmental ethics - need help plz!
Something to consider:IlostMySpoon wrote:I am stuck because I can`t decide where to stand on the issue. On one hand, I think we should use planet XYZ to help out humanity and give earth a break, but on the other hand I dont think its right to exploit and pollute another planet that has so much potential.
Any thoughts/ideas/opinions? It would be very very appreciated!!
I think the whole scenario seems to be based on the notion that the earth can't adequately handle the amount of pollution that is being produced on earth.
I believe this is a false notion, which makes it pretty clear that it would be morally wrong (as well as economically silly) for Canada to export it's pollution to another planet.
It also would seem to imply that XYZ will probably be able to deal with the pollution being exported to it as easily as Earth could--unless it is significantly smaller.
On the other hand, if we assume that the Earth really can't support the amount of pollution being created on it, then there are two possibilities.
1) we can satisfactorily reduce the amount of pollution we are producing without significantly and adversely affecting our quality of life, or
2) we are unable to satisfactorily reduce the amount of pollution we are producing without significantly and adversely affecting our quality of life.
I believe (2) to be false as well, which again implies that it would be economically silly to export pollution.
But, if we accept (2) as our premise, then the debate really becomes: should we significantly lower our own standard of living in order to preserve the standard of living for lower life-forms on another planet.
Assuming that pollution will alter the ecological system of XYZ, it is reasonable to assume that new life-forms are also likely to evolve to take their place. So while polluting may lead to the extinction of some species, it may also lead to the creation of other, new species. And we will be preserving our own standards of living at the same time.
Whether we should limit our own standard of living here to preserve life-forms elsewhere depend on how significant these inconveniences really are for us. If we have to go back to a pre-industrial standard of living, then that is a pretty significant inconvenienced--and it will ultimately result in the deaths of billions of people. (Just as the banning of DDT, lead to the deaths of many millions of people from Malaria--because nothing else is as effective at riding an area of mosquitos as DDT--and evidence now shows that DDT is nowhere near as harmful to other ecosystems as it was originally feared.)
If it is wrong to kill lower-life forms, is it not also wrong to intentionally be the cause of the death of millions of higher life-forms?
Similarly, if we assume CO2 is a pollutant (which it clearly isn't) then cows (and other bovines) are by far the largest producers of pollution. So reducing the amount of CO2 would necessarily involve reducing the amount of meat that was produced for consumption--This means becoming vegetarians (which would mean more tractors plowing fields) or the forced reduction of the number of humans living on the planet.
Ironically, however, CO2 is essentially plant food. So, if we exported it, (and we assume that such infinitesimally small quantities as what we were able to transport was actually enough to change the ecology on a whole planet) then we would actually be increasing the livability factor for the plants on XYZ. And because there are more plants, there would be more food for the animals that eat plants and thus more food for the animals that eat animals. SO... the argument also depends on what the pollutant is.
The other possibility is that we could maintain our standard of living while employing new technologies that are not as polluting. No other source of energy is as reliable and efficient as petroleum based products. Thus, using these other resources necessarily adds significant costs to the production of the things we currently use. These increased costs mean that we can afford fewer things--and (until we can find a cheap, reliable alternative) this will invariably reduce our standard of living and may lead to more deaths. For example, regulations in some African countries have forced hospitals to use only a limited amount of fuel to run their electric generators. The rest of the time they use energy from solar panels--unfortunately, the sun energy isn't enough to run the hospitals long enough to avoid using up all the fuel for the generators. This leaves live saving equipment without energy.
These sorts of problems are happening NOW, in a world where it is generally recognized that pollution is not a serious problem--i.e. pollution levels are much lower now than they were even a decade ago. How much worse will similar problems become in a world where pollution is even more rigidly controlled.
The facts, however, are that pollution is a much less serious problem now than it has been in the past few decades. It is also a fact that there are many effective low-polluting ways of producing energy right now that are not being utilized. For example, U.S. get only a very small amount of it's electrical power from Nuclear plants. Such plants are very clean, and if they weren't opposed by green groups, we could get a very large portion of our energy from them. So there are common-sense ways that we can (right now) reduce pollution levels--and if these rather minimal changes are enough to satisfy the pollution reduction necessary to preserve the planet...lol... then there are commonsense things we can do right now to reduce pollution.
- Juice
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Aside-I don't believe life exists on any other planet but this one. The universe is ours to interpret and do with as we see fit for our betterment and benefit.
Aside-2-I think Canada better use its finances to better its failing socialist health care system before commuting its progressive ideology on some other world, or maybe that's the reason so many would be considering the idea, to get as far away from progressivism as possible!
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. Lewis
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