Rarity and endangerment: Why do they matter?

Simon P James

Environmental Values, 2024, vol. 33, issue 3, 296-310

Abstract: It is often supposed that valuable organisms are more valuable if they are rare. Likewise if they belong to endangered species. I consider what kinds of value rarity and endangerment can add in such cases. I argue that individual organisms of a valuable species typically have instrumental value as means to the end of preserving their species. This progenitive value , I suggest, tends to increase exponentially with rarity. Endlings, for their part, typically have little progenitive value; however, I argue that they may nonetheless have persistence value because, merely by existing, they postpone the numerical extinction of their species. Finally, I propose that a sentient endling can have higher lifeworld value than it would have had were it not the last of its kind. This, I argue, is because when a sentient endling dies, very little of its lifeworld is preserved – and this, I suggest, can be a bad thing.

Keywords: Rare; endangered; species; extinction; conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envval:v:33:y:2024:i:3:p:296-310

DOI: 10.1177/09632719231171836

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