Utilitarianism and environmental ethics

I have generally seen environmental ethics in terms of duty to non-humans, such as the planet, the biosphere and inanimate objects as well as those who are less controversially aware and therefore presumed to be capable of suffering and pleasure, but utilitarianism may also be relevant.

I would say it could be relevant in two main ways. Firstly, the capacity for suffering and pleasure in living organisms could provide a huge environment compared to human population, depending on how far consciousness can be attributed to non-human organisms. If the population of relevant non-human animals is greater than the human population, their suffering becomes highly relevant because it could come to outweigh the pleasure available to the whole human population of the planet. For this to occur, it would only be necessary for rodents to be considered capable of suffering, which is not an outlandish assumption.

This does not, however, distinguish between higher and lower qualities of pleasure - qualitative utilitarianism, as conceived by John Stuart Mill. It seems plausible that either only humans or a small number of other species along with humans are capable of experiencing higher pleasures. If so, sufficiently greater weighting could be given to "higher" pleasures to justify the infliction of harm to members of other species incapable of such pleasures. However, this depends on the commensurability of higher and lower pleasures. If they can be compared, it suggests that there is another scale by which these pleasures can be compared, in which case, a greater level of lower pleasure could trump a certain level of higher pleasures. The qualitative division of the utility principle might also fail to apply to negative utilitarianism, which is the avoidance of suffering, and in terms of environmental ethics, the aim is the minimisation of suffering rather than the maximisation of pleasure. Qualitative utilitarianism can only be extended to negative utilitarianism if there is also higher and lower suffering.

The second way utilitarianism could be relevant to environmental ethics is that if humans are assumed to be the only beings capable of experiencing pleasure or suffering, they may suffer or experience pleasure at the quality of their environment or the knowledge that wilderness still exists. However, with a pastoral aesthetic, a particular cultural understanding leading to enjoyment of an environment which is in ecological terms impoverished, with, for example, lower biodiversity. That is, many people admire and enjoy well-kept gardens, parks and farmland which are relatively unsophisticated ecosystems. There is therefore a possible conflict between utilitarianism and environmental ethics. However, it may be that a different environmental aesthetic could give greater pleasure, although not in an aesthetic sense. If utilitarianism is qualitative, aesthetic appreciation could well be considered a higher pleasure, but if cultural considerations are left aside, this actually means that utilitarianism can be in direct conflict with environmental ethics.

Preference utilitarianism is based on getting what one wants rather than distinguishing between what one doesn't know would give one greater pleasure. This condition would, in general, apply to any conscious being rather than preferring humans, since if drives are associated with conscious desires in non-human animals, this is the relevant factor in how they should be treated as a group. This can be applied to dietary ethics, field sports and animal experimentation. In the first two cases, the argument is that the suffering inflicted outweighs the pleasure derived, and in the third, that it does not directly save human life. These arguments are Peter Singer's.

However, I am not a utilitarian. I believe that environmental ethics is largely based on duty to the planet or individual beings or aesthetic principles rather than utilitarianism. There is controversy over how far consciousness can be attributed: to certain humans, to hominids, to mammals, vertebrates and so forth: how far? Hence the question of whether they can suffer is controversial, and Jeremy Bentham's question does not have a clear answer. This clouds the issue of utilitarianism. Inanimate objects are often seen as beautiful but, more than that, many people have a sense that an act such as deforestation is wrong, and I believe this is regardless of whether any of the organisms in the ecosystem perceived to have been damaged suffered as a result. Imagine a virgin forest consisting solely of non-animal organisms. Most people would not attribute consciousness to anything living in that forest, and therefore would not regard any destructive act as causing suffering, but they would still regard it as wrong to destroy that forest. Nor is this due to the right to life of the organisms in the forest. A completely lifeless area of outstanding natural beauty, for example perhaps the Valles Marineris on Mars, would still have this status. It seems absurd to attribute rights to inanimate objects, so my conclusion is that environmental ethics is based upon the concept of duties to inanimate objects, and although capacity for suffering is a possible additional consideration, it is not necessary to have an environmental ethic.