II. Is Conservation Biology Value-Laden?
For those philosophers and biologists who insist that biologists ought to be advocates for the preservation of biodiversity, the thesis that conservation biology is value-laden is a major premise in their argument. There are however several different ways in which conservation biology, or any science for that matter, can be value-laden. In this section, I separate these ways and examine their relevance to questions of advocacy. Most biologists and philosophers would grant that conservation biology is valueladen. Biodiversity watcher David Takacs is a good representative of this point of view when he writes, Science is commonly thought of by the public and portrayed by its practitioners as an objective, cold, nonpartisan, value-neutral enterprise. Scientists discover facts, mediate truths about nature: on this image their continued prosperity is thought to ride. Yet a group of biologists have been as partisan as can be in their attempts to preserve biodiversity. Biologists speak for it in Congress and on the Tonight Show. They whisper into the ears of foreign leaders. They estol its virtues to the Harvard Divinity School. They transport 10 percent of the U. S. Senate to spend nights in the heart of the Amazon so that biodiversity will work its persuasive charms firsthand (Takacs 1996, 3-4).1
I will use Helen Longinos (1990) analysis of the values in science since some philosophers (for example, Barry and Oeschlaeger 1996) use her work and because it offer a perspicuous entry point. According to Longino, at least two types of value are found in science, constitutive and contextual (1990, 4). Constitutive values are those values which constitute the enterprise of science. These are the aims and goals which make science the sort of institution that it is. It is these values that "are the source of the rules determining what constitutes acceptable scientific practice or scientific method" (1990, 4). These sorts of values range from simplicity, empirical accuracy, fecundity, scope (generality) and, more generally, knowledge of the empirical world. Some of these values are intrinsic aims and some are instrumental. For example, if the fundamental aim of science is the attainment of significant empirical knowledge, then empirical accuracy would be an instrumental goal relative to the former aim. Likewise, for those for whom knowledge of the deep structure of the empirical world is considered practically unattainable, empirical accuracy is an intrinsic aim of science (van Fraassen 1980). The goals of science are coupled with implicit imperatives like, Prefer simpler theories to more complex ones, Prefer theories which are more empirically accurate to ones that are less so, and are sometimes made explicit. Of course, it is certainly true that much more must be said about what makes one theory more simple, general, accurate, etc. than another. Nonetheless, some philosophers of science consider theory choice nothing short of impossible without these values (Kuhn 1977).2
In some cases, these constitutive goals may include ethical aims. For example, medicine, insofar as it is a science, contains such ethical aims as the betterment of those who are afflicted by illness or disease. However, even when ethical goals are part of a science they are not sufficient to make that institution a science. Other non-scientific institutions or groups can have the same goals. In the environmental case, public interest groups as diverse as Earth First! and the Sierra Club have the goal of preserving species and yet they of course are not sciences or scientific groups unlike conservation biology. So some methodological aims are necessary for something to be a science. These persuasive constitutive values are not the only values in science. There are what Longino calls contextual values as well which arise from "the social and cultural environment in which science is done" (1990, 4). These values find themselves in scientific investigation through several different entry points. They may enter from the values individual scientists have, or they may enter through the social structure of science as a collective (for example, through the activity of the National Academy of the Sciences or the NSF). Lastly, they may also enter from the society at large as science is informed by the needs and amenities of the public.
These contextual values are often relevant to questions concerning advocacy in conservation biology. We can easily find examples of them in the discipline. For example, conservation biologist Reed Noss states that his [S]trongest feelings about nature are still just that direct joy. I mean, I guess its an aesthetic appreciation where Im literally just brought sometimes to tears just by looking at a piece of moss or some other thing in natureand [that] is what has motivated me to become a conservationist (Takacs 1996, 276). This is clearly an example of an individuals values which forms the context for their work (see Noss and Cooperrider 1994). Thomas Kuhn recognized these factors as well, [T]hese motives and others besides also help determine the particular problems that will later engage [a scientist] (1970, 37).
There are also examples of norms which are found in science as a collective and which are pervasive in conservation biology. Soule writes, These normative postulates are value statements that make up the basis of an ethic of appropriate attitudes toward other forms of lifean ecosophy (Naess 1979). They are shared, I believe, by most conservationists and many biologists, although ideological purity is not my reason for proposing them (1985, 42). Examples of these supposed collective norms are diversity of organisms is good, ecological complexity is good, evolution is good, and biotic diversity has intrinsic value (Soule 1985, 42-45).
Conservation biology also provides good examples of how the values of society at large influence biological theorizing in powerful ways. One of the important theoretical tasks that conservation biologists have labored over is population viability analysis (PVAs) (Soule 1987, Burgman, Ferson, and Akcakaya 1993). Biologists devise mathematical models of population growth, which are utilized analytically or more often simulated by computers, to better understand how and why populations and species go extinct. On the basis of these models, they attempt to estimate the effects of genetic and catastrophic uncertainty, demographic and environmental stochasticity on population and species longevity. They then try to project the mean time to extinction for these taxa. These techniques have been used for grizzly bears and northern spotted owls with success.
Population viability analysis has a normative or evaluative component. In order to determine what a minimum viable population is for a given taxa, one must determine the appropriate fraction of the population or species we want to keep around and the desired time of persistence. For example, do we want at least 90% or 95% of the population to persist for 100 years or 1000 years? There will be different risks and costs attendant to these different population sizes and time frames and these are ultimately determined by the publics values and preferences. Thus, societys values enter directly into conservation biology (Grumbine 1992). The values of society at large can often be necessary to consider in a conservation biologists field and mathematical work. Thus, there are several different sorts of values which are found in the sciences. First, there are constitutive values. These values concern the fundamental aims of science and how to attain those aims. Philosophers of science typically do not find the existence of these values as controversial.3 One way of understanding these aims is that an aim is constitutive of science if it is necessary for something to count as science that it must have that aim either intrinsically or instrumentally. There are also contextual values which arise from the context in which science is practiced. Some of these values are what we might term endogenous; i.e., they arise from individual scientists or science as a collective. Likewise, there are what we might call exogenous values which arise from outside of science. The distinction between endogenous and exogenous contextual values is difficult to make precise but it serves to locate what sorts of mechanisms can generate values in science.4
Is conservation biology value-laden? Absolutely. It is value-laden in the same sense that other sciences areafter all, it is a science. More importantly for us, it is laden with ethical values (the commitment to the preservation of biodiversity) which arises from a multitude of sources. However, it is important to notice that from the fact that there are values in conservation biology it does not follow that biologists should be advocates of these values. First, there must be ethical values present for them to advocate, non-ethical constitutive values will not do it. Second, even though there are such values concerning the preservation of biodiversity, it still does not follow that they should advocate them. Those values might be morally suspect, as some political conservatives believe. Likewise, those values might be morally sound but the consequences of such an advocacy might be disastrous to the public image of the biological sciences and in the balance unacceptable. Thus, from the fact that conservation biology is value-laden it does not follow that biologists should be advocates for the preservation of biodiversitymore is needed.
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