Analysis Of Gary Varner's Environmental Ethics, Hunting, And The Place Of Animals

In “Environmental Ethics, Hunting, and the Place of Animals,” Gary Varner examines how two varieties of sentientism, animal rights and animal welfare, “could address the specific ways in which they are alleged to be at odds with sound environmental policy” (Varner 858).Environmental ethics surfaced as a response to claims that anthropocentric thinking in ethics is the “root cause of environmental problems” (Varner 855). Sentiest views such as animal welfare and animal rights were favorable to some environmental ethicists to “counter anthropocentrism” (Varner 855), but many believed “that an adequate environmental ethic had to be holistic; [meaning] it had to attribute intrinsic, noninstrumental value to entities such as species and ecosystems … [unlike] both animal welfare and rights views, [where] only the lives of conscious individuals have intrinsic value” (Varner 855). Furthermore, environmental ethicists “claim that
The United Nations reports “livestock production is now one of three most significant contributors to environmental problems, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water pollution, and increased health problems” (qtd. In Ilea). Varner could have argued that because these detrimental environmental impacts are occurring as a result of the current rates of meat consumption among humans, mass vegetarianism would actually be environmentally beneficial. It may even be additionally argued then that sentiests as well as environmentalists could potentially agree on or share this concept of vegetarianism, from anenvironmentally beneficial standpoint. Instead, Varner largely focuses on Callicott’s first three claims, but particularly focuses on Callicott’s view of