Question

"At an environmental conference in 1973, the philosopher Richard Sylvan proposed a science fiction thought experiment that helped to launch environmental ethics as a branch of academic philosophy. . . Sylvan’s thought experiment came to be known as the "Last Man" argument. The thought experiment presents you with a situation something like this: You are the last human being. You shall soon die. When you are gone, the only life remaining will be plants, microbes, invertebrates. For some reason, the following thought runs through your head: Before I die, it sure would be nice to destroy the last remaining Redwood. Just for fun. Sylvan’s audience was left to ponder. What, if anything, would be wrong with destroying that Redwood? Destroying it won’t hurt anyone, so what’s the problem? Environmental philosophers have been trying to answer that question ever since. . ."
And now. it is your turn-based on the readings this week, reply to what, if anything. would be wrong with destroying the last redwood. The purpose of this exercise is to practice identifying deep foundational principles that can be used to support your ethical positions. Strive, therefore, to base your response on a philosophical principle.

Answer 1

In order to answer this question, I will use two different perspectives of ethics: the consequentialist perspective, and the deontological perspective.

Consequentialism argues that the morality of an action lies with its consequences. This means that an action with bad consequences is an immoral action, and vice versa. In this case, killing the last remaining Redwood would not have any negative consequence on any being in the world, as no one benefits from it anymore. This means that the act is not immoral.

A deontological perspective states that there are principles that should be taken as rules, and which govern what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, rules and duties are central. For example, a principle might state that "all life is valuable." As the Redwood falls under the definition of life, killing it would be considered an immoral action.