Ethos: The Practical Ethics Blog

I recently finished an article on science, ethics and conservation. Entitled ‘Between Science and Ethics’ the chapter will appear in a forthcoming book, Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability, edited by David Lavigne. David is a renowned expert on seals, and the Senior Science Advisor for IFAW, the International Fund for Animal Welfare. My chapter examines how ethics is an indispensable counterpart to science in forming public policies around animal protection, wildlife conservation and ecological sustainability. Part of the manuscript analyzes what I call the ‘diversity crisis’. I thought some readers might find this interesting, so I have exerpted it here (without references).

cheers, Bill

Update, 01 Dec 2006. Gaining Ground was published in late 2006. If you are interested in reading the rest of the article, the citation is Lynn, William S. 2006. Between Science and Ethics: What Science and the Scientific Method Can and Cannot Contribute to Conservation and Sustainability, in Lavigne, David, Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability, Limerick, IRL: University of Limerick, 191-205.
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The Diversity Crisis

As Gary Snyder notes, our world is a vast system of flowing energy and cyclic matter, in his poetic vision, a ‘breathing planet’ nested in ’sparkling whorls of living light’. One of the signature elements of our world is its diversity. Our planet is alive with diverse forms of life and ways of living, human and non-human alike. This diversity is multiform — people, animals, plants, individuals, packs, tribes, populations, societies, ecosystems and cultures (to name but a few). And this diversity is found in a wide variety of places — in the sea, on land, deep underground, and in the air — each interacting with the other at varied scales, from the micro to the macro, from local to regional to global.

Tragically, we also live in a world facing a biodiversity crisis of global proportions. Modern human activity is accelerating the loss of species and ecosystems at a rate and scale unparalleled in natural or human history. With species already disappearing at many times the rate of natural extinction, up to a quarter of the world’s land animals and plants may be extinct or endangered by 2050. Conservation scientists have generated a substantial stock of knowledge regarding the factors diminishing biodiversity. The causes of this crisis include habitat degradation, landscape fragmentation, urban sprawl, human population growth, increasing consumption and pollution, and over-exploitation of resources. All of these causes are further complicated by the shifting context of global climate change.

Less understood are the normative values at stake — how humanity should value biodiversity, and how such values should inform our response to the crisis of extinction. Together, these constitute the non-instrumental and normative dimension of biodiversity. Some of these values are about nature itself. One hotly contested issue is whether non-human life is simply a resource for human use, or has a significant value of its own. Another issue is whether our concern for biodiversity should encompass more than wild flora and fauna, and include domestic plants and animals. Other values are about culture and the human interaction with nature. For instance, the cultural diversity of humanity makes cross-cultural norms for ethical decision-making difficult to formulate. Moreover, we have pressing needs to alleviate poverty, advance social justice and defend human rights. These and other particularly human values raise difficult issues about the different range of responsibilities of the world’s peoples for protecting biodiversity. Altogether, questions about these broader natural and cultural values go to the heart of ‘how we ought to live’ with non-human life, and how both human communities and the natural world can and ought to flourish together.

What this means is that we are in the midst of a diversity crisis. The diversity crisis is really two interrelated crises — a crisis of nature and a crisis of culture. The crisis of nature is driven by humanity’s ‘geographic agency’, our power to do good or ill to the living systems of the planet. The effects of this agency are the proximate cause of nature’s decline. Using the theories and methods of science, we can hope to measure and model these impacts, gain a measure of prediction and control over them, and thereby alleviate or reverse some of their most deleterious effects. It is for this reason we place a legitimate measure of hope and faith in scientific-technical approaches to wildlife conservation and ecological sustainability.

Unfortunately, our cultural crisis is a bit harder to comprehend. At its heart is a clash of ethics-laden worldviews. These worldviews describe visions of the good life, definitions of moral community, norms of conduct, and attributions of culpability. How we understand and respond to the natural world, not the physical consequences of our actions, is the focus of analysis here. This distinction is crucial. It is our worldviews and ethical sensibilities that not only inform human agency, but characterize the ultimate causes of the diversity crisis. And because the cultural crisis is so morally and socially complex, it spawns ramifications that complicate its resolution. Examples abound. The diversity crisis:

* threatens the cultural survival of the worlds Totemic Peoples whose modes of thought and livelihoods are rooted in the indigenous animals and resources of a region,

*creates a demographic trap whose cycle of spiraling population growth, increasing poverty and degrading habitats besets the so-called developing world, and

*exacerbates the kind of globalization that facilitates irresponsible consumption, the centralization of political-economic power, and the shifting of environmental burdens from areas of wealth to areas of poverty.

Whether humans are a part of the natural world, while at the same time, distinct enough as a species to take moral responsibility for their actions, is the pivotal problem on whose resolution rests any possibility for sustainability. And this has occasioned a global debate over the ecological, social and ethical values that ought to inform our thoughts and practices regarding animal welfare, wildlife conservation and ecological sustainability.

[From Lynn, William S. (2005) Between Science and Ethics: What Science and the Scientific Method Can and Cannot Contribute to Conservation and Sustainability, in Lavigne, David (ed) Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability, Limerick, IRL: International Fund for Animal Welfare and the University of Limerick. Forthcoming.]

William Lynn :: Oct.30.2004 :: Environmental Studies, Ethics, Human-Animal Studies :: 1 Comment »

Several months ago I attended the Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals. The committee is an arm of the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the administrative body of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). This act was passed by the US Congress in 1972, and is the companion (with differences) to the Endangered Species Act. The MMPA is distinct, however, in that it explicitly protects some marine mammals as both individuals and groups. This has highlihted the ethical issues swirling around marine anthropogenic impacts. It has also strained the credibility of those who want to deny ethics a place at the public policy table. For more on the MMC, MMPA and its ‘Sound Program’, see http://www.mmc.gov/.

The Advisory Commitee was set up to explore the impact of military and commercial ’sonification’ on marine mammals. Many marine mammals ’see’ using sonar, and the human use of sonar can prove disorienting, damaging and even lethal. While there is general agreement on this, specific scientific data is still being gathered.

This has led to an internal, somewhat implicit, struggle on the MMC. Should it base its judgements on risk analysis and wait to find out the impacts of sonification on marine life? Or should it act with precaution and take steps now to mitigate reasonably foreseeable negative effects? To help clarify such issues, I was asked to provide public testimony and written comments on the ethics that underwrites animal based research. You can read my written statement to the MMC below.

cheers, Bill

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Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals
US Marine Mammal Commission
Plenary Meeting Three, San Francisco, CA

27-29 July 2004

Dear Members of the Advisory Committee, Ladies and Gentleman.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the US Marine Mammal Commission’s Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals.

For the record, I am Bill Lynn (William S. Lynn, Ph.D.), Senior Ethics Advisor of Practical Ethics (www.practicalethics.net). Practical Ethics is an independent research, education and consulting practice dedicated to the well-being of people, animals and nature. I am here at the kind invitation of some of the environmental groups serving on this committee. My purpose is to help advise and facilitate a dialogue on ethics and marine mammal research.

I have two documents with me here today. The first is my prepared remarks, and the second is a resource list on the subject of research ethics and marine mammals. I will keep my verbal comment quite short, and ask the advisory committee to accept these two documents into its records.

I would like to begin with a caveat. I am not a marine scientist, and I will not presume to tell you how to practice marine science. That would not only be arrogant and foolish, but violate my deeply held commitment to honouring the insights and skills of colleagues from diverse fields of study. Rather, as someone trained in ethics and the human/social sciences, my purpose is to help clarify those elements in the overlapping domains of ethics and science, what we often call ‘research ethics’. I think I can be of most help in this regard by stepping back from the details of your discussion of acoustic impacts, and share a few thoughts on the whys and hows of research ethics. I mean these comments to be suggestive, not conclusive, and hope they may serve as a point of departure in future discussions. My take home point here is that ethics is indispensable to science of any sort, as it helps to ensure both the integrity and responsible use of research. Ethics helps science not only in its search for best practices during research, but in articulating the best uses of the knowledge gained from research. This is all the more important when we are speaking of research that may directly help or harm people, animals and their habitats.

When it comes to discussions of research ethics, we often labour with two misapprehensions. The first is what has come to be called the fact/value dichotomy. In this dichotomy science is associated with facts, reason, empirical truth and objective modes of analysis. Ethics on the other hand is associated with values, emotions, personal and social preferences, and subjective modes of interpretation. Facts and science are therefore ‘real’, while values and ethics are at best, not quite as real.

The reality of research ethics, however, is very different from the picture painted in the fact/value dichotomy. Science and ethics are in point of fact, mutually informing. Science is replete with moral norms (truth and trust being the two most important). Moreover, science has (or should have) a powerful voice in ethics, helping us distinguish and choose better from worse values to inform how we ought to live and meet our ethical responsibilities to others.

The second misapprehension is that ethics is a rigid or ideological worldview. There are people who use ethics to shame others, or score debating points. But this is not the tradition of ethics at its best. At its best, ethics is an exploration of ‘how we ought to live’ (Socrates in Plato’s Republic, Book 1:352d), a conversation about the values that ought to inform our beliefs and behaviour. Ethics may be informed and enriched by religion, spirituality, personal experience or social custom, but it is not reducible to these sources. Instead, ethics is a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue that uses reason and evidence in its search for those values that promote the health and well-being of people, animals and nature.

With respect to research ethics itself, there are two domains of significance that should be kept in mind. The first is the internal domain, that is, the methods of research and the production of scientific knowledge. We often hear this domain referred to in terms of ‘professional ethics’ or ‘codes of conduct’. Ethics in the internal domain helps ensure the integrity of research. While there are many ways of defining this integrity, it basically serves to uphold two core moral values of science — truth and trust. When speaking of truth, we are referring to the collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of research. With respect to trust, we are thinking about the practice of collegiality and the avoidance of conflicts of interest. Along with upholding truth and trust as core values, ethics also helps us define best practices for implementing those values in research. Common examples of best practices that promote truthfulness include prohibitions against plagiarism, falsification of data, or the manipulation of research results. Best practices that promote trust include guidelines on avoiding and/or disclosing conflicts of interest rooted in material self-interest, the prior restraint of knowledge, or organizational culture that encourage self-censorship.

The second domain is external, and refers to the use of scientific knowledge, especially applications of its theories, methods and associated technologies. We often hear this domain referred to in terms of ‘animal welfare’, ‘environmental ethics’ or ’social justice’. The reason for this external domain is that science, for better or worse, has direct and indirect impacts on the health and well-being of people, animals and nature. These impacts have consequences at a number of distinct if interconnected scales — individual, population, species, and community — in both natural and social systems, in geographic space, and historical time. Ethics helps elucidate the best uses of science by noting how the research practices and knowledge products of science produce more or less well-being in the world. This is not an easy assessment to make, requiring the wisdom of many fields, as well as the insights of many individuals. Even so, it is necessary if science is to preserve its integrity and credibility in a wider social environment.

Even when we have a firm appreciation of ethics’ domains of significance in science, we can fail to incorporate this knowledge into wildlife policy and management. The reasons for this are partially rooted in a well-intended if fallacious focus on ’sound science’. Sound science is supposed to be the empirically grounded, theoretically rich, and methodologically rigourous basis for wildlife conservation and environmental management. Using sound science we can model natural processes and determine rational plans of action within acceptable margins of risk. Thus we tend to approach animal welfare and environmental issues as technical problems that can be fixed with the right combination of knowledge and technique.

While I heartily endorse the use of rigourous science as a foundational element in policy and management, it is a mistake to place our faith in science alone. Questions of animal welfare and environmental protection are not only or primarily about science. This is a keystone point. Instead they are frequently confusions and conflicts over the values our society should be trying to promote. The ongoing national debate over the disposition of wildlife in terrestrial and aquatic military zones is a case in point. It raises value-laden questions about our compassion for sentient animals, our commitment to preserving endangered species and the integrity of ecosystems, and our legitimate concerns for national security. Science strives for causal knowledge about the systems affected by disputes over values, and this is very helpful. Nonetheless, it is ethics that provides us the moral knowledge to make discriminating judgments between those values we ought to promote or reduce in importance.

A related reason is the potential for ‘values gridlock’. As noted above, some of the stickiest problems in wildlife research have little or nothing to do with empirical data, quantitative models, or management techniques. Instead, they are deeply rooted ethical conflicts over whether and how to coexist with a diverse array of marine life, with all its accompanying needs, some of which are not aligned with human priorities. To resolve such problems, we must face our conflicting values directly. This involves a process of identifying the moral values at stake, clarifying how those values are served (or not), and evaluating possible courses of action consistent with our ethical sensibilities. This is a point of importance when identifying and pursuing research agendas. We must be mindful to address the ethical questions up front when setting research agendas, rather than treating them as an after thought. More specifically, ethical considerations should be considered during all phases of research design and implementation. This should include a consideration of alternatives methods and mitigations when invasive and/or potentially harmful methodologies are being entertained.

To conclude, I am not advocating that we throw the baby out with the bath water. Both science and ethics are powerful tools for understanding our place and our responsibilities in the world. They are especially important when discussing issues as complex as that before this committee. What I would suggest, instead, is an integrated approach, one that combines both science and ethics in the search for the best practices and outcomes in marine mammal acoustics research and conservation.

William S. Lynn, Ph.D.
Senior Ethics Advisor
Practical Ethics
williamlynn@practicalethics.net
www.practicalethics.net

William Lynn :: Oct.15.2004 :: Environmental Studies, Ethics, Human-Animal Studies :: No Comments »

Hello. And welcome to the Ethos: The Practical Ethics Blog!

A blog is short for ‘weblog’ — an online journal or diary where you share ideas and images with other people. This blog features notifications of press releases, white papers and other relevant information from Practical Ethics, as well as commentary on current events and issues by Bill Lynn and guest writers.

Practical Ethics had been around in various forms since 1997. Dedicated to the well-being of people, animals and nature, it provides values-relevant research, products and services for individuals, as well as the independent, public and private sectors.

I hope you find the information and opinions of this blog helpful as you reflect on what it means to seek the well-being of people, animals and nature. Please do not hesitate to contribute your insights, for together our wisdom is greater than the sum of our individual insights.

So too, pursuing a fruitful conversation takes good will and honest work on the part of all participants. The following netiquette guidelines may be of help to all of us.

* We are only human: be forgiving of other people’s mistakes.
* Be polite and civil always, gracious if you can.
* Know where you are in cyberspace, and act appropriately.
* Respect other people’s privacy, time and bandwidth.
* Share your insights and expertise, and be open to those of others.
* Do not abuse the power and privilege of blogging.
* Do not write in ALL CAPS. Its akin to shouting.
* Do not respond immediately to a posting that upsets you.
* Do not flame others. Instead, help douse flame wars.
(adapted from www.onlinenetiquette.com)

Finally, for notifications of copyright and disclaimer, please see the links on the right-hand side of this page.

cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Oct.01.2004 :: Practical Ethics :: No Comments »