Some Inconvenient Implications

Abstract

This chapter steps back to take a broader view of commonly held beliefs about the “good” of biodiversity. It derives from them some implications that undermine the plausibility of the premise that biodiversity is a key to nature’s value. Section 7.1 explores the discomfiting implication that egalitarianism with respect to biodiversity’s categories lets all the bad boys into the club along with the good. Section 7.2 examines how embracing biodiversity as an unalloyed good authorizes science projects, which seek to build “snow-globe” worlds detached from, and even antithetical to, the natural world. Section 7.3 fills in many considerations that are routinely omitted from, and bias discussions of, how the value of biodiversity and the possibility of an ongoing “great extinction” relates to human timeframes. Section 7.4 attempts to get a handle on endemic confusions, including attempts to squeeze some value out of biodiversity by conflating biodiversity with what it is not. Finally, Sect. 7.5 suggests that the various considerations of this chapter present a cautionary sign for philosophers, scientists, and environmentalists who stake their defense of nature’s value on its biodiversity.