Jenny: Hello, I'm Jenny Hickman.

Rebecca Nesbit: And I'm Rebecca Nesbit. Welcome to Cat Among the Penguins. Today, we're going to be tackling a very thorny and emotive question of, does nature have intrinsic value? And intrinsic value is value that something has in its own right, regardless of its impact on humans or on any other species. So this is very separate to the value that we have placed on something. This value would remain even if humans no longer existed.

Jenny: Yeah, it's a big one today. It's a big one. So we're to be approaching it from multiple angles. Does the value lie in species or ecosystems or in individual organisms? If so, which organisms or does it lie in all of these places?

Rebecca Nesbit: It is. For me, debates about intrinsic value became a bit of an obsession when I was researching for my book, Tickets for the Ark. I came across the field of environmental philosophy and realized how huge it was, yet it had been totally absent from my education and from most debates about conservation. However, I realized it underpins all our decisions about nature and the environment, and we just don't really realize the role that our values are playing.

Jenny: Yeah, it's definitely really absent from scientific education. It's not really something that's talked about or mentioned or considered, certainly not in a conscious way. It might be something that a lot of us have considered without really thinking, without really knowing that we have considered it. that's certainly what I found when Becky suggested this episode. So when we started to work on this, it definitely sent me spiraling. It sent me right down into the abyss.

Rebecca Nesbit: I wish I could explain to everyone the depths of this abyss and the franticness of the late night voice notes of, but now I've just thought of something else.

Jenny: Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate to say. on my journey into aforementioned abyss, I was introduced to lots of existing work. So this episode doesn't have any guests on today, but we are going to be drawing on the work of generations of Western philosophers and also on the outlooks of indigenous people. But we really feel this debate isn't just something that should be in the hands of philosophers or other people. This is a really, really personal thing that people will have their own personal viewpoints on. So we really wanna know what you think. So please make sure to send us your comments on our website, catamongthepenguins.com or add them below the episode on whichever platform you're listening on.

Rebecca Nesbit: I really want to hear this, including I want to know whether other people are going through the same abyss that we did. A website. I hope they are.

Jenny: I hope not. I hope they are, yeah. If you are, we're sorry. We take no responsibility.

Rebecca Nesbit: But we also have more resources on our website, some show notes with useful links, including to my book. So let's start by considering the perspective that individual humans have intrinsic value. This is the idea that each one of us has value simply because we exist. It's based on our ability to experience the world. I did once. bizarrely find myself live on national radio trying to justify the value of human life to Mary Lou Fostrop. That was a low moment wondering how on earth my life would become this. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think we're safe that this is a widely held view that most people consider each individual human to have value in their own right. And that's why, for example, the UN has drawn up some human rights that we all work towards. I would certainly agree with this outlook.

Jenny: Yeah, I mean, we both agree with this outlook. Individual humans have intrinsic value. That is not in question. It's good that we can agree on one thing. But there are complex links to conservation here. So often framings of conservation are very, very human centric and Western views often tend to see nature just as a resource.

Rebecca Nesbit: I'm very glad to hear that you feel that way too.

Jenny: Other framings disregard certain humans and human rights abuses are committed in the name of protecting nature. So for example, we intend to do future episodes about violent evictions of indigenous people from protected areas.

Rebecca Nesbit: Yeah, definitely. And I think one complexity here is that an anthropocentric view of nature protection focusing on humans sometimes actually focuses on economic growth and the benefits that nature provides to the most powerful people. So something that Jenny and I want to be clear on is that to us, intrinsic value lies in all people equally, and we shouldn't equate the understanding that individual humans have value with a belief of intrinsic value lying in economic growth. That's a complete sidetrack that actually I think we want to tackle in future episodes.

Jenny: for sure. And we also don't think that value lies only in humans. So this is where the discussion really starts. So what we're going to start by looking at is the idea of sentientism.

Rebecca Nesbit: So this is the idea that intrinsic value lies at the level of sentient individuals. So these are organisms that can suffer and feel pleasure or pain. They experience the world, so they've got needs that are morally relevant. And to me, I very much agree with this outlook that... lots of non-human animals can experience the world and their welfare is important and I think that this needs to come much more strongly into conservation.

Jenny: I think this is one that I also very much agree with. absolutely agree sentient animals definitely have intrinsic value and considering the needs of sentient beings comes with real practical challenges that we kind of need to face every day in all sorts of conservation scenarios. So the kind of situations we need to consider are that conservation will have a direct impact on animals. For example, culling introduced species Or sometimes the impact is a little more indirect, for example, predator reintroduction impacting prey. So all of these decisions we make will have impacts on the sentient animals. So for me, the difficulty I have with this perspective is drawing the line at sentience. So I fully agree sentient animals have intrinsic value. But to me, in my eyes, sentience is a very human construct. We've kind of decided what is and isn't sentience and we've drawn those lines around that. for me, valuing something based on sentience, that to me makes it a human value.

Rebecca Nesbit: And I think this is where we differ because I don't believe that sentience is a human construct. I think lots of the debates around it and the science around it is very human, but I do believe that it's a property of the natural world. I do believe that some organisms can experience the world and some can't. Although I completely agree with you that we're not necessarily that close to knowing which organisms fit in both those camps. In terms of working out which organisms fall into each category, it's a big challenge. Back in 1975, Peter Singer in his famous book Animal Liberation said that somewhere between a shrimp and an oyster is as good a place as any to draw the line. decades later, I don't think we've come much beyond that. Yes, we've learned a lot about the details, but I am still not confident where to draw the line. However, I am happy that that line is very likely to exist somewhere between a shrimp and an oyster. We also have the challenge of how do we weigh up the welfare of a chimp with the welfare of a shrimp, for example? And even if we just consider individuals in one species, it's very challenging to know what is good for animal welfare. An animal's way of experiencing the world is very different to ours. So it's hard enough to know what's good for an animal, even if you're talking about, for example, a zoo or captive breeding. But it's really very complex when we're talking about wild animals living in ecosystems.

Jenny: Yeah, for sure. It's a super complicated topic. think for me, I worry that there's so much that we don't know about sentience and even within the lines that we've drawn, nature doesn't stick to those boxes. And I think my concern is that we're making a hierarchy of species based on very inconclusive and narrow science. So as we learn more about nature, we learn that the organisms we don't define as sentient, kind of display a lot of the traits that we would link to sentience. So trees are kind of always example, trees and plants in general, but obviously I have a very, a very deep love of trees. So I always go to trees. But for me, plants and trees are the key example of this because we learn so much about them. And now we know that they can communicate with one another. They can react and respond to kind of pain stimuli. They can even care for members of their own family. So anybody who isn't up to date on the latest in tree and plant communication, I will put some really cool links in the show notes because... Yeah, the more we learn about how responsive these organisms are, the more I think it pulls everything we've defined as sentience into question.

Rebecca Nesbit: I would definitely agree with you that there's fascinating science always coming out and that our understanding of sentience is woefully inadequate. However, I do still think we have enough science to guide us in our decisions. And in terms of me making decisions for conservation related to animal welfare, I'm still happy to draw that somewhere between oyster and shrimp. leads us to another philosophical debate. Are we focused on animal rights or animal welfare? So animal rights would be more akin to human rights. So it might be wrong, for example, to kill animal. And there's some branches of conservation that are taking this line of thinking. So compassionate conservationists, for example, think that it isn't right to kill an animal? Or are we more looking at animal welfare? So that's much more the perspective that I would take and I would look at how the animal might thrive when being alive rather than distinct rules as to how it would be wrong or right to treat it.

Jenny: And I think also a debate that was one of the things that was most difficult for me to get my head around here is that kind of when we talk about value, what are we talking about? Are we talking about rights? And that was, for me, what makes things a little bit, it's a bit of a gray area. But let's move on to the next concept. So the next one is biocentrism. So this is a stance where all individual living organisms have value in their own right. And for me, this is the one that I think really does resonate with me. It regards respect for living nature and it sees humans as an equal part of nature in which all beings are valuable in their own right.

Rebecca Nesbit: So interestingly, this one doesn't resonate with me. I don't consider all individual organisms to have intrinsic value, particularly when we talk about bacteria, for example, because I am really confident that they can't feel anything. They can't experience the world. So there's nothing special about the chemical processes that happen in what we term life. should individual bacteria have intrinsic value when a rock, a molecule, or a chemical reaction doesn't? What's the difference between the energy flows in my pot plant here to the ones in my computer?

Jenny: Yeah, and I think this is, goes back to what we were saying before about the sort of rights versus values to me, because I think if we're talking about something that is intrinsically valuable, then this to me is the one that makes the most sense. It's the only one that's truly intrinsic and it goes beyond any kind of human valuation, because nature values sentient and non-sentient beings equally. There's no hierarchy and everything is intrinsically valuable in the natural world.

Rebecca Nesbit: Yeah, I absolutely agree that nature has no hierarchy, but that's to me because the natural world has no capacity to value anything. That also means there's no intrinsic hierarchy between a tree, a bacteria, a rock, and this microphone. Nature as a whole can't value anything. However, an individual deer, magpie, or person does have the capacity to value things. And to me, that's what distinguishes sentient beings from all other organisms. I also have the practical concern that I can't imagine how to develop a moral code based on every single organism having intrinsic value. I don't plan to save bacteria by not washing my hands. And think if we stick to an idea of all organisms having value, then inevitably humans end up placing more value on the organisms we like. So we make it a human hierarchy, not one based on intrinsic value.

Jenny: ironically, I think that's where I struggle with the sentience is that that to me feels like a human hierarchy of the animals that we like. Whereas actually the outlooks that kind of really resonate with me are the sort of indigenous outlooks where all life is equally valued and humans are a part of that ecosystem. So we act as stewards rather than treating nature as a resource to be used. It does become complicated when we we equate this to what can and can't die because realistically that is how ecosystems work. As an ecologist, things have to die in order for other things to live. That is literally how it works. And in my head, including ourselves, exactly. And in my head, can wash our hands, but still understand that bacteria are valuable. And I think also the definition of whether or not the organism has the capacity to value something itself, that's...

Rebecca Nesbit: including ourselves.

Jenny: also goes back to our definition of sentience and I'm very sure that trees really really value the soil and the rain they just do it in their own very tree specific kind of way.

Rebecca Nesbit: I think this goes back to our different understandings of sentience and also my view of sentientism is that I am using an imperfect interpretation of something that is true. So I still think intrinsic value lies in sentient organisms. I agree that there is an inappropriate human hierarchy on that. It's just a best guess. But I also agree with you that respect for individual organisms is a good way to live. When I was a child, my parents have this story of me being absolutely inconsolable because I'd accidentally killed a fly. So I think that outlook both helps ensure that nature thrives and means that I live a more fulfilling life. Plants and fungi bring me so much joy just by me looking at them. So all these organisms have value to me simply because they exist. but that's a human value that's not the same as them having value in their own right. So I think it is interesting that to some extent you and I have come to quite similar outlooks despite our different understandings of whether or not all organisms have intrinsic value.

Jenny: Yeah, and as we know, we could talk about these outlooks forever. This is not something, yeah, exactly. This is not something that Becky and I have difficulty discussing. It's something that we have difficulty stopping. So we should do that now and move on to our next concept, which is whether or not species have intrinsic value. And this is where I think it gets super interesting.

Rebecca Nesbit: We're shortcut, but you won't get a PhD if we do that.

Jenny: And something that I think a lot of people may not quite realize is that the idea of species is not very well defined. There's no kind of one concept of what is a species. Scientists, often it depends on the type of science you do. The sort of most frequently used definition of a species is animals that can of produce fertile offspring. That's the biological concept. But then you've also got paleontologists who use more morphology because they can't really look at things like reproduction. They look more at the size and shape of the animal and kind of define that as a species. and then you have a different way of looking at things where it goes all the way down to the level of genetics and you can't really define a species by anything other than looking at its genetics. and there's so many incredible examples of this, know, as a marine biologist, especially you realize that there's so many weird things in the sea that are so hard to differentiate. There's deep sea sponges that you can only tell apart by smelling your, it smells sponges. Yeah. think, I can't remember it. I think it's one smells like a lemon and one smells like an orange. so that's the only way you can tell them apart. So, you know, what.

Rebecca Nesbit: People can smell sponges.

Jenny: What differentiates that as a species? And there's so many examples of this where even the sort of higher end of species like certain birds, certain big cats, they actually can produce fertile offspring. So that sort of blows up our whole concept of species. And even we know that humans have Neanderthal DNA to a greater extent than we ever realized. And we've started to realize that there's actually been multiple occasions of throughout our lineage of breeding with Neanderthals. So there really is no core concept of what is a species and how we define that.

Rebecca Nesbit: And I think that point of us all having Neanderthal DNA in us, I find that absolutely fascinating. And I would love to do a connected episode because to me it calls into question everything about what it means to be human and what is valued in nature. Those genes, is it a good thing that I am passing on genetic code from the Neanderthals? I... I not to get sidetracked into it, just a fascinating topic that my Neanderthal friend Jenny and I need to come back to.

Jenny: And we will, think that will make for a really, really cool episode. For now, there was a great video released on this the other day from the New Scientist, and we will put that in the show notes if you want to know more, because it's a super interesting topic. But also stay tuned for when Becky is allowed to go off on her tangent and gets a whole episode about it.

Rebecca Nesbit: Thank you.

Jenny: Yeah, so the problems come with this when we try to decide if a species has intrinsic value just because it exists and lots of people intuitively think that it should. But as we've just said, nature hasn't really outlined things in the same sort of way that we do. Nature doesn't work in these discrete categories. And when you get down to the level of things like microbes, it gets so complex. So if species isn't a property of the natural world, then how can we say that species have intrinsic value?

Rebecca Nesbit: Exactly, and it does feel like a very human trait to categorise organisms into species. We love neat categories, but nature isn't so fussed. I think another human trait is to assume that a species cares about whether or not it exists. So one of my favourite quotes of all time comes from philosopher Eliot Sober, who says, what species want? Do they want to remain stable in numbers, neither growing nor shrinking, Or, since most species have gone extinct, perhaps what species really want is to go extinct, and it is human meddlesomeness which frustrates this natural tendency. He's not saying that species want to go extinct, the point is that a species can't want anything.

Jenny: I wanna know if Elliott sober is British. Medalsumnist sounds like a very, very British word.

Rebecca Nesbit: It's a lovely word, isn't it?

Jenny: That's a great word. And yeah, this is a really, really important topic for our upcoming episode about whether or not it would be wrong to make human malaria extinct. If a species has intrinsic value, you might argue that it would be wrong to make malaria extinct. And this has a huge implication for human suffering.

Rebecca Nesbit: Absolutely, and I think it's really interesting that people use intrinsic value arguments to say that it would be wrong to make Malaya extinct, because that's not reflected in our conservation strategies. If we really believe that species have intrinsic value, so we need to prevent extinctions, then we should focus on the species that are cheaper to save, not on our favourite species. So much money goes to mammals and birds, yet they're a tiny fraction of the species on earth. Apparently, according to the mammal diversity database there are 6758 known mammal species yet we don't know to the nearest hundred thousand how many parasitoid wasp species there are and there could be millions of nematode worm species so if species have intrinsic value then we need to stop these extinctions and we need to forget this nonsense about birds and focus on these little species that are easier to save

Jenny: Yeah, I think this is an area where we definitely both agree. But I have a feeling that think a lot of people are going to disagree with us. so listeners, what do you think if you believe species have intrinsic value, then why is that?

Rebecca Nesbit: think you're right. I'd also love to know what listeners have to say about the next outlook we're considering of do ecosystems have intrinsic value? And this is known as eco-centrism. To me, this has exactly the same problem as species, both that ecosystems can't think or feel or have any kind of needs, and also defining ecosystems. If you thought defining a species was hard, defining an ecosystem is impossible and change is the one constant in nature. So, Past baselines are morally arbitrary. Why would you take some random snapshot in time and say, that's when an ecosystem had intrinsic value, that's what it should look like? Some people are tempted to say that it's related to the presence or absence of humans, but humans evolved as part of nature. So it's not somehow unnatural for us to have an impact on the ecosystems we're part of. There's no reason to think that ecosystems would be morally superior. if humans hadn't done anything to change them.

Jenny: Yeah, with this one, I agree and I disagree. It's definitely a gray area for me. I agree with us not trying too hard to engineer nature to take a particular form. But I do think that ecosystems have intrinsic value. think indigenous cultures have historically viewed kind of entire natural systems as beings. And this does support the viewpoints and beliefs of a huge amount of the population who have moved to protect. entire systems such as rivers, mountains, forests, and kind of have them recognized as sacred, have them recognized as beings, and have them recognized as having rights. So It's definitely something that we can draw on to shape conservation, inspired by these indigenous outlooks. And it's really, really fundamental to debate such as rewilding. Should we allow ecosystems to develop in new directions or should we shape them to have certain species in or to be as diverse as possible? Should we decide what these ecosystems look like or should we let them kind of do their own natural things?

Rebecca Nesbit: I really look forward to those debates because for me, rejecting ideas about intrinsic value of ecosystems was really liberating. from trying to recreate the past or from the belief that an ecosystem ought to take a particular form. And I say this because I really value ecosystems and I'm excited by the possibility nurturing them in new ways. Who knows what the future might look like? So I might not believe ecosystems have intrinsic value, but the value of ecosystems is huge. Sentient beings can only thrive as part of ecosystems, including humans. I should also say I am co-author on a paper that Jenny is currently writing about ecosystem-based management in offshore wind. So I'm very much pro that approach of seeing everything as a whole, valuing ecosystems, even though I don't believe that value is intrinsic.

Jenny: this brings us nicely onto our final possibility of whether biodiversity has intrinsic value. So biodiversity is the diversity of life. It's a very scientific sounding term. And that suggests, similar to the term species, that it has an exact meaning and that it can be measured objectively. However, there are really different ways of measuring this. Most measurements can include diversity at the genetic level, the species level, the ecosystems level.

Rebecca Nesbit: And we've already seen the challenges associated with species and ecosystems having intrinsic value and adding genetics into the mix just makes the problem even worse. If we think it's hard to define species or ecosystems, this is even harder when considering genetics, particularly as lots of DNA doesn't even code for a gene. So is every mutation that's ever existed valuable? Even the ones that have no impact on the organism at all or ones that cause disease? Plus the definition of biodiversity has an additional problem. There are inevitable value judgments. How important is genetic diversity relative to species diversity, for example? think the term biodiversity is usually used incorrectly. Very rarely is anyone talking about diversity at all those three levels. And it's not clear whether they're looking at protecting local or global biodiversity. So with that in mind, I would really like to have an episode where we discuss the issue of do we need to ditch the term biodiversity? Because I think there's a strong argument that this term is unhelpful.

Jenny: Yeah, and for me, it's the term that kind of makes the biodiversity one really, really tricky, because absolutely a balanced, healthy ecosystem is one that's really rich with different organisms and different types of organism. But like you say, the term biodiversity in itself is not always very well defined, but it's lent on really heavily in science and conservation. But there are different ways of using it. So very commonly, it's used simply as just how many species are in one defined area. but that actually doesn't really tell us anything about the ecosystem or about how healthy it is. There might be hundreds of species of worm in one place, as you mentioned earlier in the episode, hundreds of species of nematode worm in one place. But if they're all performing fairly similar roles and they're all kind of doing the same sort of thing in the ecosystem, is that a healthy ecosystem? There can be situations where the diversity, the measure of diversity doesn't change much between an area that's really heavily impacted by humans and one that isn't. But that doesn't mean that the ecosystems are comparably healthy or performing similar ecological functions. So for me, the term biodiversity is a bit broad and overused.

Rebecca Nesbit: I agree. I think it's overused and also misused as a bit of a trump card. And that's a lot of my problems related to beliefs in intrinsic value that scientists come out with an assumption that that's going to protect biodiversity and that somehow trumps alternative ways of seeing the world, alternative ways of managing an ecosystem. And that really isn't the case. So that is why I'm keen for scientists to dig down in themselves and to think about what has intrinsic value and whether just because they value something doesn't necessarily mean they have a trump card of saying, absolutely, that is what has value. And I know that because I've studied it.

Jenny: so in conclusion, I think my beliefs can kind of be summarized as intrinsic value lies in all living beings and potentially in ecosystems too. Personally, I would like us to move away from a very anthropocentric way of thinking and more towards traditional views of us as a part of nature, a part of the ecosystem and recognizing the rights of nature, which historically it just is not done by Western science. I'm worried that not seeing certain species as having intrinsic value will devalue them even further than they already are. And that that kind of gives us a bit of a longer leash to just burn everything down even more than we are.

Rebecca Nesbit: I agree that that leash is already far too long and I think we need to shorten that leash and re-evaluate the damage we're doing to nature in light of the fact that I believe all humans and all sentient beings have intrinsic value. The current destruction of nature is bad for people and it's bad for animals and that is a reason that it needs to change. I also think that many organisms with intrinsic value are currently being disregarded and I'm particularly talking about sentient animals. And if we assign intrinsic value in the wrong place, then I'm worried we will justify doing bad things and ignoring all these very important beings. And policymakers continue to forget the value of individual animals, see them only as the way they contribute to a species, not as important beings in their own rights.

Jenny: Okay, well, we've run out of time for the episode and I think, Becky, I can feel really proud of us that we've managed to keep this to a sensible length and we haven't spiraled into a seven hour overnight debate about this. And we would really like to continue this conversation on with you guys, the listeners. So what do you think about this conversation? Where do you think intrinsic value lies and why? What questions do you want to challenge us with?

Rebecca Nesbit: Don't worry, that's coming tonight.

Jenny: And we'll be discussing all your comments in the wrap up episode for this series. So make sure you don't miss that.

Rebecca Nesbit: Absolutely, I can't wait to see your comments on the Catamong and Penguins website. You can also check out the show notes there for lots more information, including a link to my favourite book, which has helped shape my thinking on this topic. Biodiversity by Jonathan Newman, Gary Varna and Stephen Lindquist. Thank you very much for listening and see you next week.

Jenny: See you next time!

Rebecca Nesbit: Thank you very much for listening to Cat Among the Penguins. We'd love to hear your take on the issues we've discussed today. Head over to our website, catamongthepenguins.com, to see the show notes and leave us your comments. We'll be discussing these comments in the final episode of our series. To make sure you don't miss it, please click like and subscribe on your podcast platform or follow us on Instagram. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you. See you next week.