Abstract

Environmentalists frequently urge restraints on human activity because that activity threatens the existence of some species or other. The author aims to find out how much strength there is in the argument that it is wrong, or at least prima facie wrong, to destroy species. The question is whether there is any value in species preservation over and above the consequences species preservation has for individual members of species. That species preservation is instrumentally valuable, the aesthetic object argument, and the intrinsic value of species preservation, as well as the claimed need for a new environmental ethic are considered.