Human Beings have a Moral Responsibility to preserve Biodiversity on Earth

Thank you Ryft. I accept the burden in this debate only insofar as it is my job to show that commonly used justifications for preserving biodiversity fail, as well as any justifications my opponent may bring up in the next round. There are many... The arguments in favor can be broken down into two main categories: diversity (or other species) are valuable in themselves or it, and they, are valuable to human survival and human goals. I think the first category can be safely dismissed, as nothing is intrinsically valuable and there is no reason for humans to value something that does not benefit them in any way. The second category offers several justifications: -->New drugs are often discovered in nature first. For example, antibiotics derived from fungi. There are at least 120 substances used therapeutically that began life as plant products{1} While in the past, we had to depend on plants to produce our chemicals for us, this is no longer the case. In fact, current chemists, rather than discovering molecules in nature that are bio-active, are simply synthesizing chemicals at random and testing them for biological applications.{2} There is then no need to depend on nature or hope that evolution has discovered the molecules we need already; we can produce them ourselves. -->If life is valuable, we have a responsibility to preserve and protect it. This is especially salient as earth may be the only place life exists The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe is for another debate. However, even assuming it is true, that implies that humans are the only intelligence in the universe. And while there are millions of other species (our current best estimate is at 10 million){3} we are the only ones who display this quality. Thus to handicap ourselves for the sake of diversity is actually to deprive the universe of intelligence even while filling it with life. -->We depend on nature's bounty for our existence. The extinction of one species in an ecosystem leads to several others, and so on. All life is interdependent. If we allow some lifeforms to die, others that depend on them will do so as well, and eventually some species that we depend on as a food source will go extinct. I believe this to be the strongest argument for preservation of diversity but it is by no means ironclad. First, the extinction of species could just as likely benefit us rather than harm us; imagine if certain strains of bacteria simply disappeared altogether? But more importantly, while it is true that we depend on nature for our survival, the only way we get any benefit from it is by using it. We grow food, leeching nutrients from soil. We mine the earth for mineral, and the forests for trees, to create the various trappings of modernity. We must disrupt nature to derive any benefit from it. We cause many species to go extinct through habitat destruction. In this way we out-compete our rivals for resources. Perhaps an argument can be made that we should use these resources more slowly, but to say we mustn't disturb nature is to say we mustn't continue to live. Remember, it is not the diversity itself we depend on here, but certain species that eventually consume. Our needs could just as easily be provided for by farming or controlled "preserves" where we raise desired species in a controlled ecosystem created by us and isolated from the rest of the world. Finally, a note on morality since my opponent seems to take issue with my use of the term. While I think a full explication of the concept is outside the scope of this debate, I ask my opponent to consider two assumptions with I consider fully reasonable and in line with my argumentation thus far: 1. The moral value of entities that are not moral agents (ie capable of reasoning about right and wrong){4} is not equal to that of moral agents. This means that while we may owe *some* moral consideration to non-rational beings, this consideration is ultimately trumped by the needs of the only true moral agents on earth, human beings. 2. A moral obligation is an act prescribed by a set of values. {5} Thus my argument that we do not have a moral obligation to preserve diversity, since the objects of that diversity are not moral agents and cannot override the interests of humans. 1. http://www.rain-tree.com... 2. http://employees.csbsju.edu... 3. http://www.wri.org... 4. http://en.wikipedia.org... 5. http://en.wikipedia.org...