There's a folk view that I sometimes round off as "deep ecology," though I think it extends to more than the academic definition[1]. Roughly speaking, tenets include:
1) Ecosystems have an inherent right to exist, and have value beyond aggregating individuals' preferences or happiness.
2) *Species survival* is a coherent concept, and preserving current biodiversity is a worthy goal not just instrumentally but as an end in itself.
3) Humans are bad.
4) Ecosystems are by default in equilibrium.
5) Nature and her children were in harmony before some subset of {white people, capitalism, industrial revolution, agricultural revolution, homo sapiens, great apes} fucked it up.
6) The "Earth" will in a meaningful sense be better off without humans.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology
I think a lot of these points are not just wrong but incoherent (especially 4 and 5, but I think to some degree or the other, the remaining points rest on those). Is there a clear writeup of what deep ecology entails and why it's wrong? (The arguments on wikipedia seem noncentral).
Good links Max. I've often felt there is a conflict between ecosystems/species preservation and animal welfare and these are really useful for exploring that idea more.
However, I one point that I still get some cognitive dissonance from is the low-importance ascribed to (species) diversity. It seems like if resources are to be used to make more happy individuals (so using resources to improve the lives of unhappy individuals is not an option, maybe we're in a utopia where the lives of all sentient individuals are already net-positive and we value... (read more)