An Analysis of Potential Ethical Justifications for Mammoth De-extinction And a Call for Empirical Research

Abstract

We argue that the de-extinction of the mammoth cannot be ethically grounded by duties to the extinct mammoth, to ecosystem health or to individual organisms in ecosystems missing the mammoth. However, the action can be shown to be morally permissible via the goods it will afford humans, including advances in scientific knowledge, valuable experiences of awe and pleasure, and perhaps improvements to our moral character or behaviour—if and only if suffering is minimal. Finally, we call for empirical research into how the possibility of the technology affects our behaviour or our character to help the debate transcend duelling intuitions.

Keywords:

• De-extinction
• mammoth
• conservation
• technology
• genetic engineering
• extinction

Acknowledgements

We thank the participants of the International Society for Environmental Ethics 2015 meeting, where these ideas were first presented, for their valuable feedback. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions. Finally, we thank the Center for Humans and Nature for putting the question to us and encouraging us to think about the ethical groundings for de-extinction.

Notes

1. If a rogue scientist brings back some individuals, then the rest of us will suddenly have obligations to those individuals. This situation is analogous to a woman’s decision to bring a child into the world. Once she does, we all have moral obligations to the new person.

2. Dale Jamieson notes ‘the language of health is value-laden’. (1995, p. 334).

3. Note that this rubric has its own problems. In the United States, more than two out of three adults are considered to have an unhealthy weight, according to the National Institutes of Health. Here, the norm is considered unhealthy. The counterargument to this is that the norm is not the conditions in one country today, but a global average throughout time. But of course, that fix has its own problems: go far enough back in time and the norm is undernourishment and malnutrition.

4. See Marc Ereshefsky (2009) for objections to the idea that there is a meaningful conception of normality provided by science when it comes health. These objections, if successful, raise a further problem for the concept of ecosystem health.

5. Often, the mere fact that there is a substantial change is used as evidence for harm, but change is not equivalent to harm. Humans change radically as they grow from children to adults, for example, and this is not considered unhealthy.

6. Jamieson (1995) makes a similar point when he notes ‘Ecosystems don’t mind being diseased, not because they have reached a state of remarkable tranquility, but because they are not the sorts of things that can mind anything’ (p. 337).

7. Not everyone believes in a ‘moral character’. Situationists deny that a character is stable or global in any given person (Doris, 2002). However, we think our argument works just as well when framed in terms of moral behaviours. Our hypothesis is that people who see mammoths will be more likely to vote for conservation funding or take ‘green’ actions.