I am very sensitive to the view that animal rights is only in certain,
narrow formulations related to 
Environmental Ethics. On the contrary, I think animal rights is the premier
Ecological-ethics issue. Who could argue that Leopold with his old notion of
the Land Ethic is the premier ecological-ethicist?

As I have mentioned before on this list (with no responses), I think
Leopold's Ethic is faulty and doomed because of his not seeing the
animal-rights issues as primary to any land ethic. How can anyone conceive
of "the beauty, integrity, and stability of the biotic community" if there
are a host of sensitive, sentient beings within that community who aren't
first accorded moral status? I agree with Regan that an environmental ethic
is not possible before intrinsic value is accorded to animals in the same
way that it is accorded to humans.

I know that Nash has been discussed on this list (though I haven't
researched the archives), but I think "Rights of Nature" is very astute.
Though he doesn't conclude the same, my reading of his book is that deep
ecology, environmentalism that doesn't address animal rights first is
premature. We jump from humanitarian ideals, to abolishment of slavery, to
women's suffrage, to civil rights, to...environmentalism? I think not. The
animals represent a huge gap in that logic. Again, how can intrinsic
value/moral status be assigned to a community made up in large part of
beings that aren't themselves accorded moral status? Any thoughts here would
be much appreciated.

In addition, another reason that I think animal rights is essential to
ecological ethics is this: I think sentience _and_ intelligence are both
hopelessly faulty criteria for moral considerability. I would like to
consider an "entropy criterion," one that brings all biology into the fold
along with the inanimate world on which it depends. The criterion is
ecological at its core. The goal is to honor the process of living as it
transpires (dialectically) for all living things, to honor the entropic flow
of matter-energy which all life depends on, whether animals, barnacles,
plants, whatever.

I don't mean to imply that I think this means that carnivores shouldn't eat
meat. We should of course all do  what it is we are best suited to do. But
animal rights need to be addressed squarely, especially for an herbivorous
species like the human one.

Adam


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