Protecting Nature for the Sake of Human Beings

James, Simon P.

doi:10.1111/rati.12091

Protecting Nature for the Sake of Human Beings

James, Simon P.

Authors

Professor Simon James s.p.james@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

It is often assumed that to say that nature should be protected for the sake of human beings just is to say that it should be protected because it is a means to one or more anthropocentric ends. I argue that this assumption is false. In some contexts, claims that a particular natural X should be protected for our sakes mean that X should be protected, not because it is a means to anthropocentric ends, but because it is part of something about human life that is of value: because, that is, its value is anthropocentric and constitutive rather than anthropocentric and instrumental. It follows, I suggest, that one does not need to endorse the non-anthropocentric claim that nature should be protected for its own sake in order to challenge the instrumentalist notion that it should be protected simply because it is a means to anthropocentric ends (as, say, a provider of ecosystem services). To make my case, I consider the UK Government's failed attempt to sell off England's publicly-owned forests.

Citation

James, S. P. (2016). Protecting Nature for the Sake of Human Beings. Ratio: An international journal of analytic philosophy, 29(2), 213-227. https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12091

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Apr 9, 2015
Online Publication Date	Mar 4, 2015
Publication Date	Jun 1, 2016
Deposit Date	Apr 9, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 4, 2017
Journal	Ratio
Print ISSN	0034-0006
Electronic ISSN	1467-9329
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	29
Issue	2
Pages	213-227
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12091

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: James, S. P. (2015), Protecting Nature for the Sake of Human Beings. Ratio, 29(2): 213-227, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rati.12091. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.