Abstract
The concept of nature in Western thought has been informed by the assumption of a categorical distinction between natural and artificial entities, which goes back to John Stuart Mill or even Aristotle. Such a way of articulating the natural/artificial distinction has proven unfit for conservation purposes mainly because of the extent and the pervasiveness of human activities that would leave no nature left to be conserved, and alternative views have been advanced. In this contribution, after arguing for the importance of the concept of naturalness as a guide for conservation, I will try to provide an account of the natural/artificial distinction suited to contemporary conservation framing. Focusing on a particular kind of objects that I suggest to name “environmental objects”, I propose and defend the view of “naturalness as independence” according to which the more or less an environmental object's identity conditions and survival depend on human intervention, the more or less that object is artificial or natural, respectively. According to this view, conserving environmental objects will equate to maintaining or improving their naturalness (vis-à-vis their artefactualness) or even originating artificial objects that may become new natural objects. This view has the advantage, on the one hand, of providing a rationale for a distinction which is not only part of how people think, but also pervasive in conservation practices and policies and, on the other hand, of accounting for the global pervasiveness of human intervention in the so-called natural world.
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Notes
In John Stuart Mill’s formulation, the second and third meaning will become as follows: “In one sense, [nature] means all powers existing in either the outer or inner world and everything which takes place by means of those powers” while, in another sense, “it means, not everything which happens, but only what takes place without the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man.” ([1874] 2006, p. 375).
See also Dussault (2016) and DesRoches (2018). A specific form of the dilemma can be found in ecological restoration, a “conservation strategy” (Jordan 2003, p. 13) consisting of restoring natural entities and systems in the aftermath of anthropogenic damage (Garson 2017). Restoration has been accused of being “a big lie” (Katz 1992), a way of “faking nature” (Elliot 1992), based on the argument that something is natural if it is not created or manipulated by humans, otherwise it becomes an artefact, endowed with a lesser value than its natural counterpart. Accordingly, restoring ecosystems or other natural entities would amount to producing more artefacts. In Katz’s words, “The re-created natural environment that is the end result of a restoration project is nothing more than an artefact created for human use” (Kats 1992, p. 392).
See, for instance, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine—the “Oviedo Convention”, in particular art. 1 and 13.
ESUs, ESPs, and MUs are units other than species specifically individuated for conservation purposes (mainly to recognize major elements of intraspecific diversity, see Funk et al. 2012). An ESU (Evolutionary Significant Unit) is a set of populations considered of particular evolutionary significance (normally because of its genetic distinctiveness, see Casacci et al. 2013). ESUs have been criticized as redundant since they often end up coinciding with phylogenetic species and it has been proposed to replace them with smaller units (Ryder 1986), i.e. ESPs (Evolutionary Significant Populations). MUs (Management Units) are instead populations with a significant divergence of allele frequencies, regardless of the phylogenetic distinctiveness of the alleles (Moritz 1994).
de Queiroz (2007), Casetta and Vecchi (2019). The concept of “gene-phene pool” is defined, in analogy with Mayr’s concept of “gene-pool” (i.e. “The totality of the genes of a given population existing at a given time.” Mayr 1970, p. 417), as “the totality of the genetic and phenotypic properties of a given population or metapopulation existing at a given time” (Casetta and Vecchi 2019).
I.e. “The application of science, technology, and engineering to facilitate and accelerate the design, manufacture, and/or modification of genetic materials in living organisms” (Piaggio et al. 2017, p. 100).
For instance, it is currently under study the possibility of implementing a synthetic biology solution to the problem of invasive rodents by “manufacturing” mice producing only male offspring thanks to the insertion of a gene from the Y chromosome onto chromosome 17. Piaggio et al. (2017).
For instance, the IUCN explicitly states that its criteria “can be applied to any taxonomic unit at or below the species level” (IUCN 2012, p. 4), and for the purposes of the Endangered Species Act, an entity, once listed, “becomes” a species, regardless of whether it was originally listed as a species, a subspecies, or a distinct population segment (i.e. a population or group of populations that is discrete from other populations of the same species and that is considered to be significant in relation to the taxon to which it belongs, for instance, based on the genetic difference between it and the rest of the species; Kelly 2010).
There is also a more technical sense in which a place may be said to have a location, i.e. that every place is located exactly at itself (this is the so-called axiom of conditional reflexivity; Casati and Varzi 1999).
See below the second case study.
The ascription of gradable properties may lead to the famous Sorites paradox. For a possible semantic treatment, see van Deemter (2006).
This solution assumes that species and places are 3D entities that extend in the three dimensions of space but not in time (endurantism). However, a different, Lewisian view is possible, i.e. that species and places are 4D entities, namely, that they extend in both the three spatial dimensions and in the temporal dimension (perdurantism). A perdurantist would see species and places not as changing their naturalness/artificialness through time, but rather as hybrid objects, i.e. the mereological sums of all their temporal parts or stages—some of which are fully natural, some other fully artificial. For a discussion on the endurantism/perdurantism debate applied to biological species, see Reydon (2008).
BirdLife International 2017. Todiramphus cinnamominus (amended version of 2016 assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T22725862A117372355. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T22725862A117372355.en. Downloaded on 08 May 2019.
For a discussion, see Lowe (1989).
The identity criteria conditions are relative to the species concept adopted or, to put it differently, to the kind of species at issue. For instance, “not being able to interbreed with other species of the same genus” clearly will not be among the asexual species’ identity conditions.
Prima facie, extinction may be defined as the death of the last organism of a species. However, this is not uncontroversial because of the possibility of de-extinction (Finkelman 2018).
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Acknowledgements
I thank the audience at the IHPST seminar in Paris (in particular Caroline Angleraux, Philippe Huneman, and Sophia Rousseau-Mermans) where the ideas proposed in this article were presented and discussed for the first time; Claudio Calosi, Tina Heger, Stefano Tiozzo, Davide Vecchi for incisive feedback and suggestions; and the two anonymous reviewers for their fundamental inputs. I acknowledge the financial support of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (BIODECON R&D Project Grant PTDC/FER-HFC/30665/2017) and of MIUR Department of excellence project 2018–2022 awarded to the Department of Philosophy and Education at the University of Turin.
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Casetta, E. Making sense of nature conservation after the end of nature. HPLS 42, 18 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-020-00312-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-020-00312-3