Self-study
Environmental ethicist: Since Support whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, Support the survival of any one whooping crane is much more important to the preservation of its species than the survival of any one sandhill crane is to the preservation of its species. ██████ ██ ████ █ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██████
Summary
The author concludes that we have a greater duty to protect the life of an individual whooping crane than we do to protect the life of an individual sandhill crane.
Why?
Because the survival of an individual whooping crane is much more imporatnt to the preservation of the whooping crane species than the survival of any one sandhill crane is to the preservation of the sandhill crane species.
And that’s because whooping cranes are endangered, whereas sandhill cranes are not.
Notable Assumptions
The conclusion asserts that we have a “greater duty” to protect individuals of one kind of species more than individuals of another kind of species. But the supporting statements don’t tell us how to compare our level of duty to protect animals. We want to connect the supporting statements to a conclusion about comparative level of duty. For example:
The more important an individual animal is to the preservation of its species, the greater our duty to protect the life of that animal.
23.
The environmental ethicist's reasoning conforms ████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
a
Any duty to ███████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ████████
(A) separates the duty to protect an individual animal from the duty to protect that animal’s species. This undermines the argument, because we now have less reason to think that we have greater duty to protect a whooping crane than a sandhill crane.
b
The more important ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ████████████ ██ █ ████████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ████████ ██████████ ████████
(B) builds a bridge from the premise to the conclusion. Since an individual whooping crane is more important to preservation of the whooping crane species than an individual sandhill crane is to the preservation of the sandhill crane species, (B) establishes that we have a greater duty to protect the lives of individual whooping cranes than we do individual sandhill cranes.
c
The fewer species ██ ██████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ████████
The concept of how “closely related” one species is to another has nothing to do with the reasoning of the argument.
d
There is a ███████ ████ ██ ███████ █ ███████ ██ █ █████ ████ █████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████
The argument doesn’t involve a comparison between the importance of protecting the species to the importance of protecting individuals of that species.
e
There is a ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ████
(E) establishes what’s necessary (”only if”) in order for there to be a greater duty to protect one kind of animal over another. But that doesn’t help us establish that we do have a greater duty to protect one kind of animal than another. (If you think it does, you’re confusing sufficient and necessary conditions. “X only if Y” NEVER allows us prove that X is true. So “Greater duty only if Y” NEVER allows us to prove that we have a greater duty.)