Is Species Integrity a Human Right? A Rights Issue Emerging from Individual Liberties with New Technologies

Miller, Lantz Fleming

doi:10.1007/s12142-013-0287-x

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…One is genetic modification. It interferes with the self-regulative capacities of a species and has been argued to violate species integrity in the case of Homo sapiens (Miller 2013), but it may also improve the adaptive capacity. This raises the question whether (and what kind of) genetic modification would be morally justifiable to protect species from climate change 20 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Species Have Capabilities, and What if They Can?

Kortetmäki

2018

J Agric Environ Ethics

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In this article, I apply the environmental or expanded capabilities approach to species and examine whether species as wholes can have capabilities and what are the implications if they can. The examination provides support for the claim that species as evolutionary groups can possess capabilities. They have integrity, which refers to the functionings that enable the self-making and development (evolvement) of species, and it is conceptually possible to identify capabilities that essentially enable or contribute to species integrity. One central capability for species can be identified from conservation literature: adaptive capacity, the ability of species to react to environmental changes by self-regulative evolution. After constructing the main argument that species can have capabilities and that they possess the capability to adaptive capacity, I shortly expound on the implications of these claims. It turns out that there are at least three different ways to apply the notion, and that the claim 'species have capabilities' does not entail that species are necessarily recipients of justice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Species Have Capabilities, and What if They Can?

Kortetmäki

2018

J Agric Environ Ethics

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“…There is much in the academic and popular literature concerning the culture-leveling effects of globalization (Diamond, 2012; Miller, 2013, 2014a). One great, if not the greatest, concern has essentially been aesthetic: the end-result of globalization, over the process of decades, is tending toward a convergence in the way the physical culture appears worldwide – say roughly like suburban USA with its expressways and rectilinear subdivisions – with a concomitant convergence in cinema, music, professional sports and other cultural activities.…”

Section: Ethical Assessment Of Pan-institutional Racismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Certainly, given the book’s date (2011), its author may have lacked access to literature discussing explicitly how a notable number of forager groups are actively doing all they can to avoid the mere contact with industrialized people (Miller, 2013, 2014a; Survival International, 2011a). One likely motivation for these self-determined peoples is that they have seen or understood the results of such contact and how it often leads to loss of their culture, eventual attrition, anomie, and degeneration into alcoholism and domestic abuse (Lee and Daly, 1999; Miller, 2016).…”

Section: Introduction: the Newest Faces Of Racismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This ideology holds that industrialized societies, such as those of western Europe, North America, Japan and increasingly China and others, represent a zenith for humanity, to be followed by ever-heightening zeniths (Miller, 2014a). Further, the concept holds that these zeniths are good for those group members living in these societies, that those not yet in the privileged circle want it or would want it if duly instructed in its benefits.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Persisting pan-institutional racism

Miller

2017

Philosophy & Social Criticism

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Which types of group-typing amounts to racism? The answer seemingly has to do with deeper physical or cultural traits over which an agent has no deliberate control but which are formative of the agent. In this article, I look to the cultural or ethnic bases of division of humans into races, albeit of a specific type: a basis that sees humanity climbing in a certain, presumably improving, direction. Those ethnicities that appear not to opt for this climb are commonly presumed – if tacitly – inferior. This outlook is so common, particularly in industrial, governmental, economic-developmental, academic and other intellectual and influential, high-profile institutional settings, it is hard to descry. This article aims to bring this racism, referred to as ‘pan-institutional’ because it extends from local to national and international institutions, into fuller light. The article argues that prominent pan-institutions, including government, academia and industry, work together to propagate this racism, even while these institutions aver they are spreading benevolence to less fortunate cultures, in the cause of cultural, economic and social globalization. In this way, these pan-institutions follow precisely in step with earlier colonialism and missionarism. The article ethically assesses this covert racist pan-institutional movement, reveals the quandaries that many indigenous cultures, especially foragers, face as this movement encroaches on them, and analyses how it is best understood as a refurbishing of colonialism in the name of benevolence. The argument ends by describing how such benevolent globalization builds upon misanthropy and it analyses the moral implications and why this most covert and widespread movement is, like more visible and standard racisms, wrong-headed, unethical, fatal, misanthropist and perhaps self-hating.

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“…Human-rights theories and declarations have built upon the foundation of what the human is as a particular kind of being. If having the 'best' genes possible were to become a human right, and that were considered a universal right, then we could be railroading over human rights to reproduction, to assembly and personal relations (as freely pursued sex would be outlawed because it could endanger offspring's acquisition of the 'best' genes), and to group rights as guaranteed by United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, United Nations 2007)since many groups the world over have opted not to join industrial culture, and UNDRIP guarantees them that right (Miller 2013a(Miller , 2014a.…”

Section: Related Normative Issues Concerning Hive and Volitional Evolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipating the ultimate innovation, volitional evolution: can it not be promoted or attempted responsibly?

Miller

2015

Journal of Responsible Innovation

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The aspiration for volitional evolution, or human evolution directed by humans themselves, has increased in philosophical, scientific, technical, and commercial literature. The prospect of shaping the very being who is the consumer of all other innovations offers great commercial potential, one to which all other innovations would in effect be subservient. Actually an amalgam of projected technical/commercial developments, this prospective innovation has practical and ethical ramifications. However, because it is often discussed in a scientific way (specifically that of evolutionary theory), it first calls for examination in terms of common scientific approaches to evolution. Yet, as evolutionary-theory controversies point up, evolution may be considered as neither a directed nor a directable processa problem for the ontology of volitional evolution. One challenge for theories and programs aiming to implement the proposed innovation is then whether it is theoretically coherent. While I offer responses to the challenge in the form of objections, these in turn remain problematic. Two central issues of responsible innovation arise: (1) If this prospect were feasible, would it be responsible to implement it, and (2) if it is not even theoretically coherent, is it responsible for innovators, even this early-on, to keep promoting it as if it were?

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Is Species Integrity a Human Right? A Rights Issue Emerging from Individual Liberties with New Technologies

Cited by 7 publications

References 20 publications

Can Species Have Capabilities, and What if They Can?

Can Species Have Capabilities, and What if They Can?

Persisting pan-institutional racism

Anticipating the ultimate innovation, volitional evolution: can it not be promoted or attempted responsibly?

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