For a species moral right to exist: the imperative of an adequate environmental ethics

Abstract

The worsening environmental crisis and the anticipated mass extinction of the world's species require the evolution of an environmental ethics more capable of restraining destructive human actions. Political and business leaders manufacture ever more human need to morally justify, and enable ecosystem liquidation for profit, discouraging human population and consumption stabilization and reduction. The human survival adaptation of moral rights that protects less powerful members of communities by restraining more powerful members, and by doing so benefits both individuals and whole communities, must evolve to meet these challenges. This vital step in human social evolution must build on the recognition that all species have immense intrinsic value, and that like humanity, all species are ongoing entities, superindividuals that have an interest in surviving.