No Place

…leads us to ask what the purpose of treatment is: is the goal equality, and if so, equality of what kind?

‘Best’ and ‘worst’ could, at a minimum interpretation, be understood to mean healthy, but in the past the definitions also included traits like intelligence, race, and physical ability. The concept of eugenics is intertwined with the ideals of Social Darwinism: the belief that society would filter out those unfit to survive and that only those who were naturally the best would prosper.

In the examination of these issues, we will consider ethical theories which would reject Aristotle’s ontological Scala Naturae (Ladder of Nature), by granting equal moral value to non-human entities: this is the definition of environmental ethics in this essay. The extent to which the theories grant moral value to non-humans, and their underpinning motivations, differ.

In discussing this topic, a method of ethical evaluation will be proposed based on three values: Respect, Survival and Diversity