Species damage arises from ecosystem loss, not individual animal harm

Evidence

The much bigger issue is that Nussbaum, unfortunately, focuses only on individual creatures, remaining more in the realm of animal rights than in a broader notion of ecological justice. Nussbaum argues that the capabilities approach, applied to nonhumans, insists ‘that no animal should be cut off from the chance at a flourishing life, and that all animals should enjoy certain positive opportunities to flourish’ (Nussbaum 2004: 307). Justifying this limited focus on individual animals, Nussbaum argues that ‘damage to the species occurs through damage to individuals’ (2006a: 357). Nussbaum may move away from liberal contractarianism, but she is still tied to a very individualist conception of liberal rights, where individuals, and in this case individual animals, are the only possible agents of justice. Yet damage to species, in fact, occurs mostly through loss of habitat, ecological support systems, symbiotic relationships, and, in a larger sense, damage to ecosystems as a whole. It is the functioning of a system, not an individual, which is at the heart of an ecological problem like species extinctions. … But almost all individual animals—human and nonhuman—need not just some others of their own species, but a full environment, including nonsentient life and ecosystem relations, as part of their capability set in order to flourish. It is simply not possible to talk about the flourishing of individual animals without reference to the environment in which this flourishing is to occur. Systems are living entities with their own integrity; atomizing nature into isolated animals devalues a form of life, and the way that this form of life flourishes. Nussbaum’s individualistic focus, then, unnecessarily limits the reach of a capabilities approach in a system of ecological justice. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 497

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that system functioning, not the individual, is the heart of extinction connects to ch97 claims about justice attaching to populations/species rather than individuals. — connects to: Rodent pest explosions actually stem from plant-community derangement — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 691; Ecological interdependence makes species destruction endanger all life including humans — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2519
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what does a capability list for a river or an ecosystem even look like — how is ‘flourishing’ specified for a non-sentient whole?

Broader Connections

• Ecological interdependence makes species destruction endanger all life including humans #expands (0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2519