Conservación de la biodiversidad y sus vínculos utilitaristas: cercanías y distancias con Peter Singer y Gifford Pinchot

Abstract

In this article, our objective is to analyze the linkages, distances and closeness between certain proposals of utilitarism and conservation biology, in light of other environmental ethics. We had chosen two authors for this analysis: Gifford Pinchot, a forester and politician, who has been pointed as the “father” of the Resource Conservation Ethic, and Peter Singer, known by his Animal Liberation Movement. Our results show than Pinchot’s “resource conservation” have been widely incorporated in conservation biology, mainly through the concept of ecosystem services. However, Singer’s “animalist” ethic has shown controversies within conservation biology because of the different valuation of the biological hierarchy levels. The utilitarian perspective would be present in the actual environmental sciences, not without showing some contradictions that should be analyzed through different voices and knowledge.