Question

Case Study – Does a Turtle Have More Rights Than a Human?

Resolving Controversial Environmental Issues

• As you have learned in the first chapter, you need to identify the issue, conclusion, and reasons when reading an article. Identifying the argument in the following essay will help you better understand and evaluate it.

• Ethical norms are ideas that guide our behavior. Everyone generally agrees that ethical norms are positive ways of behaving. Some examples of ethical norms are honest, cooperation, and individual responsibility.  If I ask you, “Do you value honesty?” you would probably say “yes.” If I ask you, “Do you value loyalty?” you would probably say “yes.” But how do you behave when those ethical norms conflict? For example, you discover that your best friend, who is also your co-worker, is stealing money from your boss. If you are loyal to your friend, you cannot also be honest to your boss.  Which ethical norm guides your behavior?

Ethical norms often conflict in the law.  Four ethical norms that often arise in legal controversies are freedom, justice, security, and efficiency. Try to think of more ethical norms that might guide you thinking. When you read an article, you should try to identify the ethical norms that are guiding the authors thinking. This task is difficult because the author typically will not tell you his or her ethical norm preferences. Consequently, you must infer the preferences through the reasons. Can you identify which ethical norms seem to be present in the reasons and conclusion provided in the following editorial? Which ethical norm is in conflict with the authors preferred ethical norm?

Does a Turtle Have More Rights Than a Human?

Who should be allowed to bring a case in a court of law? One might respond with the following simple answer: Anyone who has been wronged. Environmentalists claim that when environmental wrongs occur, it is often difficult for those who have been wronged to bring a  case because of a perceived lack of legal standing – the legal right to bring a lawsuit.

However, environmentalists actually have had an advantage in lawsuits. Environmental groups have been permitted to file lawsuits alleging underenforcement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA); in contrast, property owners could not file suit against overzealous regulation. Environmental groups had standing whereas property owners did not. Imagine a scenario in which an individual’s property use is restricted because of an endangered species living on the property. Who seems most directly injured – the property owner or the environmental group? The proper owner, of course. Yet the property owner has been unable to bring a suit against the overzealous regulation.

Luckily, the Supreme Court has rectified this unfair situation. A recent ruling gives legal standing to people with an economic stake in land and water restrictions that allegedly protect endangered species. It is about time we give legal protection to those who are truly harmed.

After all, courts have now offered legal standing to animals protected by the ESA. For ex., turtles have been successful plaintiffs in cases. Furthermore, some environmentalists claim that legal rights should be extended to forests, oceans, and rivers.  We should not even consider extending rights to inanimate objects until all people have rights. Why should a river have more rights than a property owner? A person’s rights must come before the perceived concern of a river or a lake.

I argue that the Supreme Court made the right decision by allowing property owners to bring cases against overregulation. Most environmental laws are like the ESA in the sense that they allow citizens to bring suits. The Supreme Court ruling should allow property owners to bring suits under these other environmental laws. Environmental protection has gone too far when a turtle has more rights than a person. Let us not lower the protections for people while raising the protections for animals and inanimate objects.

Question:

3. Which ethical norm seems to conflict with the author’s preferred ethical norm?

Answer 1

There is increasing evidence that a failure to respect and protect property rights undermines environmental stewardship, particularly on private land. This is important in a country like the United States in which a majority of land is privately owned. This problem is most evidence in the context of endangered species. A majority of those species listed as endangered or threatened rely upon private land for some or all of their habitat. If these species are not saved on private land, they may not be saved at all. Yet the Endangered Species Act, in effect, punishes private landowners for having maintained their land in a way that is beneficial for listed species. The end result, as empirical research has shown, is a decline in endangered species habitat on private land. Greater protection of property rights could actually enhance species conservation.

Whatever the benefits of property rights for environmental protection, they are no panacea. Where property rights are a particularly effective way of aligning incentives for resource conservation, the application of property-rights approaches to pollution problems is more difficult. In principle, a commitment to property rights should entail a commitment to protecting people and their property from unprivileged or unconsented to invasions. Imposing waste or emissions on another's land should be recognized as a violation of their rights. In practice, however, this can be difficult to do. Whereas it may be relatively easy to adjudicate disputes between neighboring landowners, such as when one neighbor's activities generate odors or smoke that interfere with the other, it is more difficult to address those pollution problems that involve numerous parties on either side of the equation, particularly if one believes tort litigation, in the form of common law nuisance actions, is the best way to address pollution problems.

In the case given above, from the perspective of environmentalists it can be said that the turtle has more right than private owner because it is a justice to the endangered species under the Endangered Species Act,but from the view of property owner it is a denial to his freedom by restricting his property usage.So we can say that the ethical norms that are under conflict in the case are justice and freedom.