On associating extinction with death: Fatal implications for conservation?

There is a long and widespread history, from 18th century Enlightenment to the IUNC red lists, of associating extinction with death. But this association faces Epicurus’ challenge: death cannot be harmful because dead persons cannot be harmed; likewise, a species cannot be harmed through extinction because they are extinct. However, isn’t it obvious that both death and extinction are bad events and consider otherwise would be fatal for conservation? In this presentation, we elaborate some aspects of the analogy by focusing on the moral assessment of death and extinction and the inference of badness of extinction from the badness of death. We consider two opposite positions: one stating that death and extinction are not bad (for the same reason), and the other stating that death and extinction are bad (for the same reason). The idea is to expand arguments given for badness or “unbadness” of death to extinction. Instead of considering the metaphysical aspects of analogy between death and extinction, we look at the value questions and moral dimensions of this analogy and ask whether there is a case for the grounding the moral evaluation of extinction on its commonality with the moral evaluation of death. Against the Epicurean view, we will examine the deprivation view that aims to explain why death is (often) bad for the one who dies. The deprivation thesis is usually understood as a comparativist view. The actual life and death are compared to a counterfactual life that would have taken place if one had not died (when one did). It assumes that both dying and extinction can be “untimely” or “immature”. As for species, this assumption is highly problematic. Nevertheless, we claim it is more promising for serving the task of explaining the badness of extinction on something else than instrumental values of species.