Chapter 37 Chapter Summary

Sober identifies the main conceptual problem of environmentalism as articulating reasons for preserving species and ecosystems in addition to their known value to us as resources for use. Reviewing some of the typical ways environmentalists attempt to address the issue—for example, by appealing to the possibility of future discoveries of usefulness (the ignorance argument), by claiming that every extinction sets us on course toward disaster (the slippery slope argument), and by elevating the “natural” and the “wild” over the “artificial” and “domesticated”—he finds each lacking in one or more crucial respects. In the end, however, he does not follow those who have argued that environmentalism necessitates a radical revisioning of our familiar ethical judgments, in particular, our concern for the welfare of individuals. Instead, he suggests an analogy between environmentalism and aesthetics that, if developed, might allow us to understand how and why we value natural objects for more than just the pleasurable experiences and useful resources they afford us.