Ethics and Moral Reasoning

A spring creek and two hundred bass

Sable Creek holds the only known population of the Sable darter.

Since illegally stocked bass arrived in 2023, the darter catch has fallen from 410 to 97.

Every option MDWP has costed kills different animals, or none.

What should MDWP do, and on what grounds?

What you should be able to explain

• Separate descriptive from prescriptive claims in a management argument.
• Show why an ethical conclusion needs a fact and a value.
• Apply five ethical theories to the same decision.
• Distinguish moral agents from moral patients, and who counts from how much.

The questions carry forward

Module 01: Which outcomes do people consider desirable?

Module 03: For whom are fish and wildlife held in trust?

Module 09: What benefits and costs follow from each choice?

Module 10: Which of those claims ought to decide it, and why?

Ethics is already in the mission

The Wildlife Society’s vision (as of July 2024):

“A world where wildlife and people thrive in resilient ecosystems.”

Why should wildlife thrive? Because it is useful to people, or because it matters for its own sake? What counts as resilient?

The statement cannot be carried out without answering ethical questions.

Many routine choices are ethical choices

Isle Royale: when even “natural” is unclear

Wolves on Isle Royale were nearly lost in the early 2000s, mainly because of climate change.

The National Park Service hesitated. Was bringing in new wolves the right way to offset human impacts, or did it violate the principle of interfering with natural processes as little as possible?

The answer depends on what a healthy ecosystem means.

Describing the world versus prescribing action

Descriptive statements say what is. “Deer density has doubled since 2015.”

Prescriptive statements say what ought to be. “There ought to be fewer deer on the landscape.”

Most of the sciences study descriptive claims. Ethics analyzes prescriptive ones: claims about how we ought to act, value, or relate to the world.

Sort these claims

1. Darter catch fell from 410 in 2021 to 97 in 2026.
2. MDWP should remove the bass from Sable Creek.
3. Fish can experience pain during electrofishing.
4. We should not cause animals unnecessary suffering.
5. A state agency ought to protect species found nowhere else.

Which are descriptive and which are prescriptive?

An ethical conclusion needs a fact and a value

Premise 1 (fact): Fish can experience pain and suffering caused by catch-and-release fishing.

Premise 2 (value): We should not cause unnecessary pain and suffering.

Conclusion: We should refrain from catch-and-release fishing, or electrofishing, unless it is necessary.

Build the Sable Creek argument

Fill in the structure for one alternative.

Fact: something in Exhibit A or B of the brief.

Value: a principle about what MDWP owes, and to whom.

Conclusion: “MDWP should …”

Then ask: if the factual premise turned out false, would you change the conclusion?

Ethics and morals are not the same word

Ethics: social standards of right and wrong within a culture or group, and the discipline that studies them.

Morals: an individual’s own compass of right and wrong.

An agency acts within professional and public ethics. Each biologist on the crew also brings personal morals.

Four objections to taking ethics seriously

• “Ethical disagreements are intractable.”
• “Ethics is subjective; only science is rational.”
• “Right and wrong are only true from one culture’s point of view.”
• “Ethics is a way to tell other people what to do.”

Chapter 11 answers each: ethics, like science, depends on rigorous argument and can reach consensus.

Five theories ask different questions

One question from §11.3: when an agency sets an annual fish harvest, what should drive it?

• Consequentialism: which allocation produces the best outcomes?
• Deontology: which duties and rights must be honored?
• Natural law: which allocation follows natural processes?
• Virtue theory: what would a good professional do?
• Relational theory: what do our relationships require?

Consequentialism: judge the outcome

An action is right or wrong because of its outcomes.

Utilitarianism: the greatest utility or happiness for the greatest number.

Pragmatism: judge ideas by their practical results.

Two hard questions: whose outcomes count in the sum, and how do we weigh outcomes we cannot predict?

Deontology: honor the duty

An action is right if it fulfills a duty, regardless of its outcome.

Duties include treating others as you wish to be treated, respecting inherent rights, and following moral rules.

The Endangered Species Act grants species a right to exist regardless of economic value or the consequences of protecting it.

The hard case: duties conflict, as when killing one species protects another.

Natural law: is “natural” the same as good?

Natural law holds that what is natural is moral and what is unnatural is immoral. Divine command theory finds morality in a deity’s instructions.

Box 11.3 raises problems for natural law:

• Can “natural” be defined objectively?
• Is natural automatically good? (the naturalistic fallacy)
• On Isle Royale, extinction and predation are both arguably natural.

Virtue theory: what kind of professional?

Instead of “What is the rule?” or “What is the best outcome?”, ask “What kind of person should I be?”

Virtues include generosity, humility, respect, care, and courage.

Compassionate conservation treats compassion as a foundational virtue: respect for individual sentient animals and practices that avoid causing them direct harm.

Relational theory: what do our relationships require?

Obligations depend on the relationships and history we share with other species and places.

Domestic animals and wild animals call for different obligations.

We may owe more than avoiding harm: a duty to restore broken relationships, such as with species people displaced or extirpated.

One case, five questions

Pair check: name the theory

Which theory is each speaker in Exhibit C closest to?

1. “This fish lives nowhere else. … for every generation after us.”
2. “Choose the way that kills the fewest animals.”
3. “Bass eat darters. That is nature.”
4. “We will not support any method we were not in the room to help choose.”

Moral agents and moral patients

A moral agent can extend moral consideration to others.

A moral patient deserves moral consideration from others.

A typical adult human is both. A newborn infant is a moral patient but not yet a moral agent.

Which non-human beings are moral patients is the open question.

Who counts, and how much?

Moral consideration: which beings belong in the moral community, and what justifies their membership?

Moral significance: once they belong, how do we weigh their claims when those claims conflict?

Instrumental and intrinsic value

Instrumental value: useful for achieving some end, such as human needs.

Intrinsic value: valuable in and of itself.

Pinchot: “There are just two things on this material earth—people and natural resources.”

Leopold: humans are “plain members and citizens” of a biotic community.

The circle has grown before

An ethic of reciprocity

Chapter 11 describes an Indigenous environmental ethic built on reciprocity: survival is an undeserved gift, which creates a lifelong duty to give back.

• Seventh Generation: decide for people seven generations ahead.
• Mitakuye Oyasin, “all our relations”: humans are within the natural world, not above it.
• Humility and knowledge pluralism.

It does not ban harvest: “Never take the first. Never take the last.”

Ethics also concerns how a decision is made

Since 2021, federal and state agencies have increasingly required Tribal consultation and the integration of Indigenous Knowledge in co-stewardship.

In Sable Creek, MDWP’s policy says to consult before decisions that may affect Tribal interests. The options were sent after they were drafted.

What would honoring that policy require before December 10?

Ethical reasoning versus winning an argument

Political debate asks who wins and who loses.

Ethical reasoning asks what is right or wrong, and why.

A defensible management choice states its premises, names who counts, and answers its strongest objection.

Wednesday, October 28: no class meeting

Work through Week 10 Wednesday Preparation: Who Counts, and How Much? in Canvas, about 50 minutes, on your own.

It covers the four ways of drawing the moral community, consideration versus significance, and the ethic of reciprocity.

It ends with a moral community map of the Sable Creek comments. Bring it Friday. Nothing from the preparation page is submitted or graded.

The Week 10 Reading Quiz is due by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

Prepare for Friday, October 30

Re-read the Case Brief and find your preassigned group and role.

Submit the role record and four sections: facts and values; who counts; recommendation and objection; process and revision.

Due before 10:50 a.m. Shared response: 80 points. Every present member completes the private Group Check: 20 points.

Any allowed option, including D, can earn full credit.

Exit check

In one sentence:

Name one claim in the Sable Creek case that science could settle, and one that it could not.

Reference: inclusive ethics in the real world

Box 11.4 reports that more than 80% of the public supports granting wildlife intrinsic value.

Long-term research also reports a shift from domination (wildlife used primarily to benefit humans) toward mutualism (wildlife as part of one’s social network, worthy of care).

Recall Module 07: wildlife value orientations.

Reference: has The Wildlife Society’s ethic shifted?

2012 vision (excerpt): “…a world where people and wildlife coexist, where biological diversity is preserved, and decisions … are made after careful consideration of relevant scientific information and with the engagement and support of an informed and caring citizenry.”

2024 vision: “A world where wildlife and people thrive in resilient ecosystems.”

Does the change signal a different ethical position? Why or why not?

Reference: the ethics of an Honorable Harvest

Selected guidelines quoted in Chapter 11 from Robin Wall Kimmerer:

• Ask permission before taking and abide by the answer.
• Never take the first. Never take the last.
• Take only what you need.
• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
• Give a gift, in reciprocity, for what you have taken.