In Nature’s Interests? Interests, Animal Rights, and Environmental Ethics.
1998 · New York
by Varner, Gary E.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Octavo, blue boards (hardcover), viii + 154 pp. Very Good+, with light foxing (age darkened spotting) to page edges and tidy former-owner signature to title; in a Fine, mylar protected dust jacket. From dust jacket: This thought-provoking book is a carefully argued response to what author Gary Varner characterizes as “two dogmas of environmentalism”: the assumptions that animal rights philosophies and anthropocentric views are each antithetical to sound environmental policy. Beginning from the view that all and only entities with interests have moral standing, Varner defends a biocentric individualistic stance with affinities to both animal rights and anthropocentric views. He argues that every living organism has interests which ought, other things being equal, to be protected, but that some interests take priority over others. In particular, he defends a sentientist principle giving priority to the lives of animals with conscious desires and an anthropocentric principle giving priority to certain very inclusive interests which only humans have. He then shows that these principles are not only consistent with, but provide significant support for, the goals of the environmentalist agenda. Along the way, Varner surveys problems facing attempts to develop a holistic envrionmental ethic, provides a careful analysis of the notion of desire and its scope in the animal kingdomj, and improves upon available arguments for the claim that nonconsious organisms possess morally significant interests. (Inventory #: 61079bd)