The thread on Reason.com on limiting human population growth (whether or not to) prompted me to express some fundamental thoughts about the relationship between 'us' - Western civilization, you know, the tough guys, macho - versus some weaker groups that exist or have existed in nature, such as the animals and the indigenous people of continents 'we' overtook.

Julian Fondren made a decent case asserting that the survival of animals is up to people. He implies (without justifying) that all corners of the planet must be owned, and that if any species are to survive, it must be through directly serving humanity - i.e., the owners of the territory the animals occupy.

What about when a species needs a vast territory, such as the Atlantic, in which to flourish? We're currently seeing a tragedy of the commons, with fish species being overfished to extinction, that only someone owning the entire ocean could prevent.

Julian is making a biblical presumption that humans are morally different from animals and that animals, in so far as they have rights, have such rights only in so far as it serves humans. That's a fairly popular view which I think is fundamentally unjust, except if one admits that one is only recognizing the freedom and ownership rights of other humans for strictly selfish and utilitarian reasons - i.e. because you're not powerful enough to ride roughshod over them; or if you are powerful enough, because you want to benefit from other people's creativity and such is not forthcoming unless the people in question feel they are free. On the other hand you don't have any creativity-based economic results to gain from animals, and as opposed to humans you can ride roughshod over them, so you do, and you don't feel bad about that at all.

I would say that such an attitude makes one a rather unappealing character, but if you admit to such views and ask me "so what?", I guess I'll have to live with you, since I too can't ride roughshod over you.

So, what do you say? Are animals independent creatures whose well-being should be respected as a terminal value of its own, or are animals dependent creatures whose well-being is at best an instrumental value subservient to the whims of humans?

If it is a terminal value, which I would subscribe to, then I think we need to consider fair outcomes for animals, too.

On the other hand, if one sees the welfare of animals as merely instrumental to that of humans, then I guess one's logic would be: if enough humans care about animal welfare, they should band together and buy the Atlantic Ocean and enforce cod preservation fishing quotas there. But if there are not enough such humans, then they should accept the scarcity of their numbers and just face the extinction.

On the other hand, this is basically similar to the moral dilemma of Europeans coming to other continents and taking the land for themselves after slaughtering most people there into submission. Don't the indigenous people, although technologically inferior, have the right to that land, too? Or do they have to move aside willy nilly, simply because they are weaker?

Now substitute indigenous people for other species that we're driving to extinction, and it is the same moral dilemma. In both cases it is a strong group conquering the territory of the weaker one, or even eating it to extinction, because it can. But just because the stronger group can, should it?

I have some respect for the law of the strongest. It is the law of nature. But if all we do is follow the law of the strongest, then what are libertarian principles, such as respect for other people's property, based on? If it's merely on their being human, then (1) you are biased against animals with no explanation (at most a bad rationalization), and (2) you need to explain what happened to indigenous people everywhere.

If on the other hand our respect for other people's property is based on the practical concept that we can all kill and steal from each other so let's agree not to, then I understand that, and then I can see how it follows that animals and even indigenous people are subservient to us. They are weak, so they are no threat if we plunder and steal from them as much as we want, and even drive them to extinction. They can't do much about that anyway. So it's fine.

Right?

One might not like what one sees in the mirror. But that is the consistent view.

See also Fake Justification. Just because you think your reasons are based on lofty principles, that doesn't mean that they are.