The problem of holism

Sober [4] points out one particularly important distinction to keep in mind: Often the things we'd like an environmental ethic to place a value on are whole species, communities, ecosystems, or landscapes not the individual organisms of which they are composed.¹¹

• Consider the question of whether to control the size of deer populations in reserves maintained by The Nature Conservancy. Many would agree that such management is needed to conserve the species and communities within those reserves.

• Philosophers like Peter Singer [3] argue that we have an ethical obligation to prevent the suffering of individual animals. On this view, management of deer populations would be unethical if it involves any harm to individual deer, e.g., by allowing hunters to kill some deer, even if this harm to individual deer was beneficial to other conservation values associated with the preserve, and arguably even if it prevented the suffering of other deer.

• Jane Goodall has been criticized by some conservationists for devoting too much attention to the welfare of individual chimpanzees and to little attention to the ``broader'' issues of ensuring that chimpanzees have the habitat they need to survive in the wild.

Suggesting that we have a duty to a whole species, as opposed to its individual members, is analogous to the way we often suggest that we have a duty to a group--our department, the University, the profession, our country--that goes beyond our obligation to the individual members of that group. Moreover, we often recognize a conflict between our duty to individuals and our duty to a group, e.g., the conflict between individual liberties and national security.

So suggesting that we have a duty to protect biodiversity commits us to conserving species, but not necessarily the individual organisms of which they are composed. Suggesting that we have a duty to protect ecosystems might mean that we have a duty to prevent the extinction of the species of which it is composed, or it might mean that we have a duty to protect the processes that structure it. In neither case is the primary focus of concern on the welfare of individual organisms.