Anthropocentrist Environmental Ethics: Notes on Baxter's "People or Penguins? The Case for Optimal Pollution"

Notes: Baxter: “People or Penguins? The Case for Optimal Pollution”


Preliminaries: Instrumental value (means to an end) vs. Intrinsic value (end-in-itself)

-Instrumental value: If something only has instrumental value, then it is valuable only to the extent that it helps you get something else that you value. If and when it stops performing this function, it is worthless. For example, suppose you recently bought a Porsche. It is valuable to you only so long as (i) it makes you popular, (ii) the engine works or can at least be repaired, (iii) it looks nice, (iv) it gets you where you need to go, etc. However, once it loses all these features (it no longer runs, nor can it be repaired, it’s rusty, etc.), it becomes worthless to you. We would therefore say that the Porsche has mere instrumental value. Another way of saying the same thing is to say that it is a mere means to an end (i.e., it is a mere thing that is valuable to you only to the extent that it gets you other things that you value for their own sake, such as pleasure, friendship, sex, happiness, etc.). Most non-living things are commonly considered to have mere instrumental value (rocks, computers, doorstops, lumber, etc.)

-Intrinsic value (end in itself): If something retains its value even if you can’t use it to get other things that you want, then it is intrinsically valuable. So, for example, human beings are almost universally considered to be intrinsically valuable. For even if a person is paralyzed, blind, deaf, and mute – that is, even if they aren’t useful to anyone for anything – they still retain their value. We don’t, for example, think that it is permissible to kill them, torture them, or use them as doorstops. Their value remains even if they are useless to us, unlike, e.g., cars and computers. Another way of saying the same thing is to say that people are ends-in-themselves. Other examples of intrinsically valuable things include pleasure, friendship, beauty, and truth. As we will see, the differing views about environmental ethics are usually based on differing views about what kinds of things the authors think are intrinsically valuable.

Main points in Baxter’s article:

-Baxter’s argument is utilitarian.

-Baxter’s article is an anthropocentric account of limited environmentalism. That is, Baxter thinks that neither non-human living beings (plant and animal life), nor the non-living environment, have intrinsic value. Rather, they have instrumental value. They are valuable only to the extent that humans value them. If humans didn’t value (for example) cats, they would literally be worthless, and it would be permissible to destroy them at will.

-Baxter therefore thinks that such causes as environmentalism and animal rights are unjustified without further argument. For Baxter, it isn’t enough of a reason (for example) for stopping the destruction of the rain forests if one just points out that they are being destroyed. One must give a further reason for thinking that this is a bad thing. And the further reason had better include the claim that it will somehow be bad for human beings that the rain forests are being destroyed.

-In arguing for his particular account of limited environmentalism, Baxter takes as his starting point the plausible view that any such account must be justified by broad principles that almost everyone accepts. He lists four:

(1) Every person should be free to do whatever he wishes to in contexts where his actions do not interfere with the interests of other human beings.
(2) Resources are limited and extremely scarce: even if we used the world’s resources in such a way that we got the most out of them, there would not be enough for every person to have all of their desires met. Therefore, the world’s resources should not be wasted.
(3) Every human being should be treated as an end in themself, and never as a mere means to an end. So, everyone should be treated equally, and be eligible for an equal share to the world’s goods.
(4) Each person’s incentive and opportunity for improving their share of satisfaction should be preserved.

-From these four principles, Baxter thinks it follows that the non-living environment and the realm of non-human organisms should be treated as having mere instrumental value. That is, he thinks it justifies his anthropocentric, limited environmentalism mentioned above.

-Notice the implication of the last point: If nature doesn’t have intrinsic value, then we have no absolute obligation to restore nature to a clean, pristine state. Nor do we have an absolute obligation to protect other animal species. The only justification that can possibly be given for protecting nature is that it is in our best interests to do so (i.e., we have to get something beneficial from being “environmentally conscious”).1

-Baxter’s main idea is that we need to strive for an optimal balance of consumer goods and clean environment. To find out how much pollution is acceptable (and how much environmental protection is reasonable) we must see the world as consisting of an extremely limited set of resources that can be turned into human goods and services. All goods and services are aimed at satisfying our desires. Now imagine that our desires can be satisfied by using the world’s resources to create two basic kinds of goods and services: consumer goods (cars, washing machines, etc.), and a clean environment. Since the world’s resources are scarce, we don’t have enough resources to create all the goods and services of both kinds to satisfy our desires. Therefore, if we want to satisfy one kind of desire (e.g., the kind that can be satisfied by consumer goods), then we will have to sacrifice some degree of our ability to satisfy the other kind of desire (the desire for a clean environment). But if this is how things are, then our goal will be to have an optimal balance of the two kinds of goods, where both kinds of desires are satisfied as much as possible for the most amount of people, given a limited amount of resources. This optimal balance will amount to (i) an environment that has some pollution, but not so much that life is generally unpleasant; and (ii) a supply of consumer goods that satisfy as many people as possible (even though we desire an even greater quantity and variety of consumer goods).2 .

-Baxter considers the objection that his account is very selfish: it only counts human beings as having real (i.e., intrinsic) value. But this is supposed to be a consequence of his view that makes it implausible. (Does the strategy of this attack sound familiar? Remember the two main strategies of attacking a conclusion? Which one is this? A reductio ad absurdum? The G.E. Moore shift?)

-In response to this objection, he offers six replies. I leave it as a homework exercise to learn what these replies amount to.