PrepTest 87, Section 3, Question 23
Environmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, 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. Hence, 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.
Environmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, 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. Hence, 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.
Environmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, 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. Hence, 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.
Environmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, 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. Hence, 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.
The environmental ethicist's reasoning conforms most closely to which one of the following principles?
Any duty to protect the life of an individual organism is entirely independent of the duty to protect the species to which that organism belongs.
The more important the survival of individual members is to the preservation of a species, the greater the duty to protect the lives of that species' individual members.
The fewer species an endangered species is closely related to, the greater the duty to protect that species.
There is a greater duty to protect a species as a whole than there is to protect any individual member of that species.
There is a greater duty to protect one individual organism over another only if the former organism is a member of an endangered species and the latter organism is not.
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