Conservation

So I'm in a Conservation Biology class this semester. It's interesting since that's what I planned to major in for quite a while. This class isn't amazing- the teacher is a little dry and seems interested in not passionate about the subject- but it does make me think sometimes.

Today we discussed anthropocentric versus ecocentric views of nature. It literally was one of those instances where I realized that honestly people think completely differently from me (a lot of them in fact).

An anthropocentric view of nature says that animals and nature are important because of how they relate to humans. This is the view of many Christian faiths (man's dominion over the animals, animals & plants are here for the use of man), the Forestry service, most government agencies and the majority of corporations. It's even the view of the 2nd great Conservation Movement in the US, the Resource Conservation Ethic, which said, "Nature is to provide the most good to the most people for the longest period of time".

An ecocentric view of nature says that nature has intrinsic value, whether or not it is valuable to humans. This is the view of several Eastern faiths, the Sierra Club and most 'tree-huggers'. It was the view of the 1st great Conservation Movement in the US, the Romantic/Transcendental Conservation Ethic, led by Emerson, Thereou and Muir. This said, "Nature is spiritual".

I had noticed the results of these two schools of thought but hadn't actually separated them out in my head. When I get information from the HSUS (Humane Society of the US) they give two sets of reasons for everything they're asking. When they were trying to get laws enforced about humane slaughtering practices they gave the ecocentric view of the horribly mistreated animals and the anthropocentric view of the higher risk of disease found in the meat of these animals.

Even in my class, Conservation Biology, you would expect most people to be ecocentric but I don't think they were. These were Ag students moving toward Wildlife Management careers, which is very anthropocentric.

One question our instructor brought up was to ask what were the ethical implications of eradicating a species. What about small pox? Small Pox has been essentially eradicated except for a few specimen in Bio-Warfare labs in the US and Russia. He asked if we had the ability to destroy these last specimen from the world (knowing the implications of a whole generation not immunized against them) would we do so?

The strongest anthropocentric thinkers will say of course. The risk to humans is too great to not do so.

The strongest ecocentric thinkers will say of course not. Every species has a right to be alive. Who are we to purposefully destroy one?

So this is my question to you. Would you destroy small pox?