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capable of rational decisions, the bioegalitarians also list autopoiesis, the
self-organisation characteristic of living systems, among the forms of
autonomous behaviour. On this basis they extend to them too the
validity of the categorical imperative: never consider living beings as
means, but only as the ends of our decisions. Does what we do under
the imperative of biological necessity, e.g., eating them, form an
exception? The bioegalitarians are happy to start a debate on this issue.
‘Their starting point is usually that a being with ethical self-awareness
has good reason not to behave according to the pressure of biological
necessity, but instead in the spirit of the unconditional respect of life.
Yet many claim that the bioegalitarian position leads to impossible
conclusions. It is the environmentalists themselves who hurry to draw
attention to this. For the adherents of the school called Land ethics by
Aldo Leopold, it is obvious that for environmentally conscious thinkers,
i.e., those who wish to preserve the unity, wholeness and beauty of life
on Earth, the utmost ethical value cannot reside in living individuals,
but only in their associations or the entirety of the living world itself.”
For the condition of the continuation and flourishing of life on Earth
is not the wellbeing or survival of individual organisms, but rather the
endurance of the spontaneous order of coexistence. The coexistence of
the species is determined by their place in the food chain, i.e., by how
they devour each other. Life does not respect life but rather ceaselessly
destroys and creates it. If the interests of the ecosystem come into
conflict with those of a living being or even a species, the former has
absolute priority, even if a multitude of individuals have to perish for
it.°° Bioegalitarians and ecocentrists are in heated debate on the issue
of hunting, for instance. The former condemn it as a sinful passion, while
the latter believe it to be not only part of man’s natural behaviour; it is
also indispensable from the perspective of maintaining the balance of
the ecosystem. Where man has remained the only apex predator, there
he has to intervene to, where necessary, thin or deplete an overgrown
population. In contrast, where spontaneous natural self-correction is
functioning, human measures in service of the wellbeing of individuals
is forbidden. ‘The decisions of the ethical committee of Yellowstone Park
are a good example of this approach: they prohibit the rescue of a bison
fallen into a ravine or the curing of the eye disease decimating the wild
5 Aldo Leopold: Land Ethics. In: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac. Oxford
University Press, 1949.
36 Mark Sagoff: Animal liberation and environmental ethics: bad marriage, quick divorce.
Osgoode Hall Law Journal 22.2. 1985.