The group well-being of an animal species

Introduction

The members of an animal species, such as the chimpanzee species, each lead lives that are higher or lower in well-being. Yet, we sometimes talk about the good, flourishing, or well-being of the species as a whole. Wiland (2022) has used the concept of ‘group well-being’ to denote what is good for or benefits a group of individuals. For example, those who support the well-being of a family, school, team, business, or nation seem to be aiming at this value. Wiland unpacks several preliminary questions about the well-being of human groups, focusing especially on the relationship between the well-being of individuals and the groups they comprise. In this essay, I use the concept of group well-being to analyse the group well-being of animal species. What (if anything) does it mean for the chimpanzee species as a group to possess well-being? And what is the normative significance of this value? I argue that the group well-being of a species is potentially distinct from the aggregate well-being of its individual members and from the flourishing of the species as a whole. In this way, I propose group well-being as a distinct type of value relevant to environmental ethics.

To achieve this, I first present Wiland's discussion of group well-being (section ‘Wiland on group well-being’). I then distinguish two notions of group well-being, one centring the parts of a group and the other centring the group as a whole (section ‘Two notions of group well-being’). Next, I consider holistic accounts of the well-being of a species (section ‘Holistic views’) and accounts on which the group well-being of a species is a function of the well-being of its members (section ‘Reductive views’). After this, I develop a third conception of the group well-being of a species according to which this includes the welfare of animals of the species insofar as this draws on structural features of the species (such as, potentially, the species’ survival and reproduction, ecological role, and social organization) as well as these structures themselves insofar as they support the welfare of individuals of the species. This is group well-being as the ‘common good’ of a species (section ‘The common good of a species’). I discuss how this account of group well-being relates to animal groups and populations as well as to the species (section ‘Groups, populations, and species’). Finally, I conclude by noting how group well-being as the common good of a species can serve alongside holistic and individual values as a focus for environmental concern (section ‘Practical implications’).

Wiland on group well-being

‘Well-being’ typically concerns what is good for or benefits an individual, with recent discussions referring interchangeably to well-being, welfare, self-interest, and prudential good (Crisp, 2021; Sumner, 1996). In turn, ‘group well-being’ concerns what benefits a group of individuals, such as a family, school, team, business, or nation. While Wiland (2022) restricts his analysis to groups of human beings (p. 3), I will also consider the well-being of animal groups, including animal species.

Wiland argues that the defining features of group well-being may vary based on the type of group (p. 3). For example, the well-being of a group in which members act for a common purpose (such as a sports team or wolf pack) might differ from the well-being of a group where members merely share a set of common features (such as school-age children in Japan or giraffes in American zoos). Similarly, there may be distinctive criteria for the group well-being of a biological population or species.

As Wiland contends, the well-being of a group need not be fully determined by the well-being of its members. While it is intuitive to think of the well-being of France as the average (or maybe total) well-being of its residents, it could be that the group well-being of a nation is not set by this function. If near-infinite well-being were granted to just one French person, it is unclear whether this should count as a dramatic increase in the well-being of France (cf. Bradley, 2015, cited in Wiland, 2022: 4). Accordingly, Wiland argues that the well-being of a group (if it has one) might depend solely, partly, or not at all on the well-being of its members. In turn, if the chimpanzee species has a group well-being, this might be the average (or sum) of the well-being of the world's chimpanzees or might depend, in whole or in part, on something else.

A final theme explored in Wiland's analysis is the possibility that the well-being of a group can directly or non-derivatively impact the well-being of its members. When the chimpanzee species fares well, this indirectly benefits individual chimpanzees if they have higher well-being by means of a more robust community. In contrast, this would bring direct or non-derivative benefit if the fact that the chimpanzee species is faring well, just on its own, counts towards the well-being of individual chimpanzees. ¹ In what follows, I focus less on this top-down impact from group well-being to individual well-being and more on the nature of group well-being for animal species. My account does not develop a specific theory of group well-being from Wiland's paper but is inspired by his close attention to the concept and his view that group well-being can represent a distinct type of value.

Two notions of group well-being

In this paper, I will examine the well-being of groups that are concrete cohesive wholes. ² A cohesive whole is a group in which the parts bear substantive relations to each other and form a whole with certain attributes that result from the interaction of the parts (Smith, 2016: 20–21). For example, a family, a team, or a nation is a cohesive whole if the people who comprise it play certain roles, and their activities join in certain structured ways to form the whole. Similarly, I will analyse the group well-being of animal species viewed as cohesive wholes. An alternative metaphysical approach is to view groups as classes (or sets) whose members share common characteristics but do not necessarily bear substantive relations to each other. Species may also be classes, yet in what follows, I do not assume this and instead draw on their status as cohesive wholes to analyse group well-being.

At this point, let me distinguish two ways of viewing the group well-being of cohesive wholes not fully set apart in Wiland's account. When we refer to the well-being of France, are we talking about the well-being of the people of France considered as a group, or are we talking about the well-being of France itself considered as a further entity? I will call the first interpretation the part-first notion of group well-being, and the second, the whole-first notion. For any group G that is a cohesive whole with constituents m, the part-first notion views group well-being as what is good for m considered as part of G, while the whole-first notion interprets group well-being as what is good for G considered as a whole.

When discussing individual welfare, it is typical to describe well-being as what makes life go well ‘for the individual whose life it is’ (Sumner, 1996: 20). This final phrase is important to the concept as it marks off well-being from other values that are not as closely tied to the standpoint of an individual. In turn, when considering the well-being of France, we can construe this as what makes life go well for the people of France considered as a group (the part-first notion) or what makes life (or nationhood) go well for France itself considered as a further entity (the whole-first notion).

One reason to prefer the part-first notion of group well-being is that it is more modest about the class of welfare holders. When we examine the well-being of the people of France considered as a group, human beings are the subject of this well-being, albeit considered from a certain perspective (as part of France) and in a certain combination (as a group). In contrast, if we posit the well-being of France itself, then we have a new holder of well-being (France) that is not conscious, does not lead a life, and is quite different from paradigm welfare subjects.

At the same time, the part-first notion preserves group well-being as potentially distinct from individual well-being in the way discussed by Wiland. Some things that contribute to the individual well-being of French people may not be relevant to the well-being of those same people considered as part of France. For example, the near-infinite amount of well-being given to one French person in a previous example may be like this – especially if it arrives outside any operation of the French government, economy, culture, or society. Further, there may be group-level goods (such as peace and equality) that are not part of the well-being of any individual living in France, but which count towards the well-being of the people of France considered as a group. On either the part-first or whole-first notion of group well-being, it may be that group well-being diverges from the aggregate well-being of the group's constituents.

The part-first notion of group well-being is distinct from adding to each individual's well-being an extra value for their being part of a group. There might be a welfare good of ‘community’ or ‘affiliation’ that benefits people when they participate in certain social groups (cf. Nussbaum, 2000: 79–80). However, the well-being of the people of France considered as a group potentially encompasses not just this group-oriented aspect of well-being (if there is one), but other aspects of well-being insofar as they involve a person's status within the nation. As noted above, it may also include group-level goods that are not part of the well-being of any individual, but which benefit the people of France considered as a group.

The distinction between part-first and whole-first notions of group well-being can extend to animal species. According to the part-first view, the well-being of the chimpanzee species is the well-being of the world's chimpanzees considered as part of the species. On the whole-first view, it is the well-being of the chimpanzee species itself considered as a further entity. The whole-first interpretation raises the question of whether a species can possess well-being. The part-first interpretation is also of interest as it combines individualism and holism in a unique way. It references the well-being of individual animals but considered from the perspective of a biological whole (the species) and taken together as a group, and can, in principle, diverge from the aggregate well-being of the animals that make up the species. In what follows, I examine both interpretations of the group well-being of an animal species.

Holistic views

Lawrence Johnson has defended the well-being of species in line with the whole-first notion of group well-being. Johnson (2003) argues that species are living things that organize and maintain themselves over time in relation to their environment. He asserts that a living thing ‘has an interest in whatever contributes to its coherent and effective functioning as the particular ongoing life-process which it is, with its own particular character’ (p. 479). Further, Johnson holds that the well-being of a species is not reducible to the aggregate well-being of its members. Rather, it requires the survival of the species and its ‘health and environmental balance’ (p. 480). In earlier work, Johnson (1991) elaborated that the well-being of a species implies ‘contact with the rhythms and priorities of its natural environment’ so as to uphold its ‘coherence and integrity’ as a species (p. 179). This connects the well-being of a species to its ecological role and implies a low well-being for species that survive only in captivity or face disruption to their place in the ecosystem.

One concern with Johnson's account is that it attributes well-being to an entity (the species) that is not conscious and so differs from the paradigm welfare holders of individual humans and animals. This issue will arise for any whole-first understanding of group well-being since wholes like families, nations, populations, and species are not conscious. Johnson's whole-first approach draws on biocentric theories that extend the scope of well-being to non-conscious organisms with a good of their own, such as plants. A downside is that this construal of well-being can struggle to capture what is distinctive of welfare as compared to other forms of values since it does not connect the ‘good for’ of well-being to the perspective of a conscious being for which things can matter (cf. Rosati, 2009: 225–226).

Even if Johnson is correct that a species is a living thing with a well-being, its nature is seemingly less unified than that of an organism given the variation that can arise for a species over time, both in terms of the attributes of its constituents (which evolve over the natural history of a species) and its shifting role in one or more ecosystems (Sandler and Crane, 2006: 4–5). These changes make it hard to fix what would count towards the well-being of a species or mark a decline in its welfare.

In response, those drawn to a whole-first conception of group well-being could seek an alternative account of the good of a species. Smith (2016) does not speak in terms of ‘well-being’ but defends a more minimal conception of species flourishing. Smith defines a sexual species by its reproductive isolation and origin in a speciation event that sets it apart from other species, and so he defines the flourishing of a sexual species as its ongoing survival in conditions of reproductive isolation (p. 81). In this view, a species is at risk of not flourishing if it is threatened by extinction or grows in a way which is unsustainable relative to the resources of its environment (pp. 82–83). ³ Smith holds that a species’ flourishing is distinct from the aggregate welfare of its members since ‘the species as a cohesive whole is constituted by its organisms and the relationships between the organisms that tie the whole together’ (p. 89). For example, the persistence of a species through reproduction constitutes its flourishing even when this process harms specific individuals who reproduce (pp. 90–91).

As with Johnson's view, Smith's account of the good of a species could potentially serve as a whole-first theory of group well-being (though Smith himself does not hold that species have well-being; pp. 67–68). What it means for a sexual species to possess well-being might be for it to persist over time in reproductive isolation. More generally, defenders of a holistic conception of species well-being can fill in the content of this well-being in a number of ways, whether this includes the species’ survival and reproductive isolation, the genetic diversity and population distribution that supports this, or the exercise of biological and ecological functions of the species in question.

Palmer (2009) raises the possibility of a species in which all members come to experience a very low level of individual well-being – such as unremitting pain and suffering – and will do so throughout the future of the species. With such low welfare for the species’ members, she questions whether the species as a whole can possess significant well-being, even if it continues to survive and reproduce (pp. 592–593). In this situation, a whole-first theorist could dig in and assert that the well-being of a species and its members are distinct forms of welfare that can come apart in this way. Or, some level of individual well-being for the species members could be added to other criteria as a requirement for the group well-being of the species. For this to be a whole-first account, we would say that the species as a whole fares well when it persists, carries out certain functions, and retains a certain level of well-being among its members.

The holistic good or flourishing of a species remains an important value in environmental ethics whether or not this is identified with group well-being. If a species possesses well-being when it flourishes (as Johnson holds), then two forms of value coincide. At the same time, the flourishing of a species might have intrinsic value even if it does not involve well-being (which is Smith's position). In this case, there will still be important questions about the good of a species and its normative significance, albeit outside the sphere of welfare. Having examined whole-first accounts, I now turn to part-first views of the group well-being of a species.

Reductive views

For any group G that is a cohesive whole with constituents m, the part-first notion interprets group well-being as what is good for m considered as part of G. Accordingly, the part-first approach construes the group well-being of an animal species as what is good for the animals that comprise it considered as part of the species and taken together as a group.

One variant of the part-first approach is what Wiland (2022) calls a reductive account, where the well-being of the group is a mathematical function of the well-being of its members (p. 5). If the well-being of the chimpanzee species is set by the average (or total) welfare of the world's chimpanzees, this would be a reductive account. The biocentrist Taylor (1986/2011) speaks of the good of a ‘species-population’, rather than a ‘species’, to make clear that he is referring to the well-being of the members of a species considered as a group and not the good of the species as a whole (p. 69, n. 5). Taylor defines the good of a species-population as the median welfare of its members but does not give an argument for this standard as compared to other options, such as the average or total well-being of the animals that make up a species (p. 69).

We are seeking an account of the group well-being of a species, not a more general account of well-being or good of any kind. Even if there are reasons to promote the total, average, or median well-being of the members of a species, this may not be what defines its group well-being. It can help to imagine a government agent or conservation manager with a mandate to support the well-being of a species, such as the chimpanzee species. Let us stipulate (with a dose of optimism) that other people are working to secure the holistic survival of the species and a basic level of well-being for all individual chimpanzees. Above and beyond these efforts, if someone were tasked to promote the well-being of the chimpanzee species, what would this involve? This may turn up a blank in our intuitions, but as Wiland notes, we often talk of supporting the welfare of groups like a family, team, or nation. If a coach should support a team's well-being (among other goals), and a legislator should act with concern for the well-being of the nation, what would it mean for a conservation manager to promote the well-being of a given species?

Identifying the well-being of a species with the total well-being of its members would imply that an endangered species has a dwindling level of welfare, approaching zero at the point of extinction. But this less plausibly implies that a very numerous species can have a high well-being simply on account of its numbers. Alternatively, defining the well-being of a species as the average welfare of its members is vulnerable to counter-examples when a small number of species members drive up or down the average, possibly through some unusual circumstance. This is like the scenario in which one French person is granted an extraordinarily high level of well-being, but it is doubtful whether this greatly increases the welfare of France.

Taylor's proposal of tying the group well-being of a species to the median welfare among its members may work well for a species with a normal distribution of well-being among its members. It would set to the side those outliers experiencing a windfall of well-being or a severe misfortune and instead determine well-being from among those individuals living a life more typical of the species. However, by focusing on just the median level, this view leaves out too much. A new disease might severely degrade the well-being of 20% of chimpanzees that were weaker and lower in well-being to start with and yet have only modest impact on the welfare of the world's median chimpanzee as ranked by the level of well-being. The group well-being of the chimpanzee species is presumably set back significantly by this event, but that is not reflected in the median standard. The species as a whole might be positioned to survive such a catastrophe, but we are now considering a part-first conception on which group well-being concerns what is good for chimpanzees considered as part of the species and taken together as a group. From this standpoint, the severe decline in well-being for one in five chimpanzees seems to imply a significant lowering of group well-being. If a new disease were seriously harming 20% of chimpanzees, this would be evidence of a major decline in group well-being and not require further investigation into how the world's median chimpanzee is faring.

The common good of a species

The difficulty of establishing a reductive account of species well-being combined with reticence about the whole-first strategy of attributing well-being to a species as a separate entity may lead some to believe that there is no such thing as group well-being for a species. According to this view, which Wiland (2022) calls eliminationism about group well-being (pp. 7–8), we would talk only about the welfare of individual animals, or possibly the well-being of animal groups that intentionally coordinate their activity (such as a wolf pack), but not the species. Before assuming this stance, though, let us turn to consider a non-reductive part-first account. This would be a view on which the well-being of the chimpanzee species is the well-being of individual chimpanzees considered as part of the species and taken together as a group, yet which does not reduce group well-being to the aggregate welfare of individuals. Instead, the phrase ‘considered as part of the species’ will limit, shape, or augment how the well-being of individual chimpanzees is brought in for the purpose of determining group well-being.

As a cohesive whole, an animal species, such as the chimpanzee species, is a group in which individual animals bear substantive relations to each other and form a whole with certain attributes that result from their interaction. These attributes are structural features of the chimpanzee species as it persists over time and might include the survival and reproduction of the species, its genetic diversity and population distribution, the evolved physiology and psychology of the chimpanzee, the ecological role of the species in various ecosystems, and the organization of chimpanzees into groups and populations. Aspects of the individual well-being of chimpanzees that draw on these features of the species (embodying them or being supported by them) contribute to the well-being of chimpanzees considered as part of the species. Further, structural features of the species which support the well-being of individual chimpanzees are part of the group well-being of the species, even if they are not part of individual welfare when considered on their own. For example, a certain population distribution of chimpanzees over their range is of only instrumental value to the individual but might be a direct component of the well-being of chimpanzees considered as part of the species. That is, when assessing the well-being of individual chimpanzees – considered as part of the species and taken together as a group – it is good for them to form part of a well-balanced geographical distribution.

In this account, the group well-being of a species is akin to the common good of a human society, where the common good ‘may refer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve common interests’ (Hussain, 2018: para. 1). The notion of a common good does not make human society itself a holder of well-being, nor is the common good reducible to the aggregate well-being of the members of society. Rather, it denotes a set of structures within society and the well-being that people derive from their participation in these structures. Due to these similarities, the account of group well-being for a species sketched above can be called the common good of a species.

There are major differences between the common good of a human society and the common good of an animal species. I am not developing an argument from analogy, where since a human society has a common good, an animal species must have one as well. For one thing, the common good of a human society is maintained through the agency and political action of its members, while the group well-being of a species is a largely natural phenomenon. In addition, the animals that compose a species tend to be more widely dispersed and less directly in contact with each other than the members of a human society. It is a unique type of value that I am defending. What makes it similar in structure to the common good of a human society is that there is a good of the group which is partly composed of the well-being of each individual as this draws support from the group and partly composed of structures of the group itself.

The main argument for this account of the group well-being of an animal species, like most arguments about well-being, is an appeal to considered judgement and reflective equilibrium. It seems appropriate to talk about the group well-being of a species – that climate change is bad for the chimpanzee species, that well-designed conservation programmes help the species, and that people can care for ‘the chimpanzees’ as a group. These statements might be an imprecise way of speaking, but as the kind of judgements they express are initially credible, widely used, and fit well into broader normative frameworks such as first-order environmental ethics, it is worth investigating whether there is a theory of group well-being that can accommodate them. I have identified problems with some existing theories and suggest that group well-being understood as the common good of a species fits well with typical judgements about the concept. Climate change is bad for the chimpanzee species because it harms many individual chimpanzees, not incidentally, but by striking at structural features of the species, such as its genetic diversity, population distribution, and role in the ecosystem. Well-designed conservation programmes help the species by supporting these features, and by means of them, the well-being of chimpanzee populations and individuals. Lastly, when people care for the chimpanzees as a group, they seem to register concern for the well-being of individuals and also for how this is supported by the broader flourishing and integrity of the species unit.

To summarize, I hold that:

The group well-being of an animal species at a given time consists in the individual welfare of all animals of the species insofar as this draws on structural features of the species (excluding or discounting instances of welfare that lack connection to these structures), as well as these structures themselves insofar as they support the welfare of individuals of the species.

This general scheme I call ‘group well-being as the common good of a species’. A key concept that requires specification to give content to the view is ‘structural features of a species’. By stipulating that species are cohesive wholes and not just classes (or sets), it is implied that the animals of a species bear substantive relations to each other and that certain structures arise as they interact over time to form the whole of the species. Some structural features may be those which provide the biological definition of a species (survival and reproductive isolation, or ecological role, or something else, depending on the correct account). But there can be other structural features as well, which do not define the species but are a real part of its evolution and operation as a cohesive whole. The structural features of an animal species might include its survival and reproduction, its genetic diversity and population distribution, its evolved physiology and psychology, the ecological role of the species in various ecosystems, and its organization into groups and populations. In this paper, I do not give a definitive account of what things count as the ‘structural features’ of a species, and my theory of group well-being as the common good of a species can be used by thinkers who reach different answers to this question. The theory makes a general claim about how the group well-being of a species should be understood, which can be filled in with concrete details about the structural features of a given species. My view does not require that a structural feature of the species must affect the well-being of every individual in it and allows that structural features can vary in their impact and expression over time and among populations of the species.

When an animal species becomes endangered, the group well-being of the species will collapse in closely to the welfare of individual animals. Structural features of the species that support the welfare of its members (such as its survival and reproduction, ecological role, and social organization) are placed under stress and break down. These features that ordinarily operate in the background come to the fore and play a central role in the individual struggle for well-being. James (2024) explains that the declining population of an endangered species will increase the instrumental ‘progenitive value’ of its members, as each potentially plays a more decisive role in the continuance of the species (pp. 301–303). Similarly, with fewer remaining members, the activity of each plays a larger role in determining the group well-being of the species and in sustaining the structures by which the species persists and sustains its members. That being said, group well-being can vary among endangered species with a similar number of members. In some cases, the group is diminished, but still integrated in structural features such as genetic diversity, population distribution, and ecological role. In other cases, these structures have been almost entirely destroyed and the survivors (in or out of captivity) are much more isolated.

The view of group well-being as the common good of a species has some similarity to the account of harm to a species developed by Claudia Card. As Card (2004) explains, ‘The destruction or endangering of an ecosystem or species […] refers to (1) certain kinds of direct harms to individual organisms that embody processes definitive of the system or species and (2) cutting short the processes’ future’ (p. 38). As Card elaborates, ‘Suppose we explain the life of an ecosystem or species as the definitive meanings, shapes, and values that the system makes possible for its members’ lives… Harm to the ecosystem is not thereby reduced to independently specifiable harms to individual members. On the contrary, the ecosystem makes possible harms, as it makes possible lives, that would not have existed without it’ (pp. 39–40). Card holds that a group harm suffered by an endangered species is the loss of meaning in the lives of its members entailed by the diminution and possible extinction of the species. This type of meaningfulness is not part of my account of group well-being, though there are other similarities to Card's view. As in her theory, I hold that benefit or harm to a species is an impact on the well-being of individuals considered not in isolation, but as part of the species, and that this group well-being is tied to the structures by which a species supports the good of the animals that comprise it.

Groups, populations, and species

An animal species is a meta-population composed of one or more populations with their own internal dynamics. These populations may be isolated from each other at a given time or partially overlapping. I have defined the group well-being of a species by reference to its structural features and their role in supporting the well-being of individuals. In some cases, the populations that compose a species possess the same kind of structural features. For example, just as the chimpanzee species persists through the survival and reproduction of its members and requires genetic diversity to flourish over time, a population of chimpanzees in a given forest perpetuates itself by survival, reproduction, and genetic diversity. In this case, we can also speak of the group well-being of an animal population as its common good. The group well-being of the species will take up, to an extent, the group well-being of the populations that compose it, and will also be informed by substantive relations among populations (such as the genetic diversity among chimpanzee populations, which is not a structural feature of any one population but instead of the species).

While there is often a similarity in form between the group well-being of an animal species and the populations that compose it, there can be additional forms of group well-being shared among animals that act intentionally for a common goal. For example, a wolf pack hunting together may be just one part of a larger, inter-breeding population, but when it joins together in the hunt, it has a group well-being defined by its goals as a hunting pack. This type of group well-being can take varying forms depending on the intelligence, coordination, and goals of a group of animals acting together, but I will not analyse it further here. It may seem surprising that there are so many forms of group well-being in the same vicinity, but it fits with common judgements about well-being. Something can harm an animal group, an animal population, and an animal species, so there is plausibly a group well-being that matches each level.

As noted in the previous section, my account of group well-being as the common good of a species does not require a complete answer to the question of the biological definition of a species. Holistic accounts of the group well-being of a species sometimes rest on a detailed account of what makes something a species, as the strategy is to first identify what a species is and then determine what would preserve or fulfil its nature as that kind of thing. For example, Johnson (2003) views a species as a living thing that organizes and maintains itself in relation to its environment and so proposes a holistic account of species well-being on this basis (p. 479). In contrast, the view which identifies the group well-being of a species with its common good can remain open-ended on the question of what defines a species. The view implies that a species has certain structural features that support the welfare of individual animals, such as the species’ survival and reproduction, ecological role, and social organization, but does not need to affirm any set of these as the biological definition of a species. They are attributes that arise from the substantive interaction of its parts (whether or not they are the essence of the species) and so can play a role in group well-being.

It might be thought that the group well-being of a species is not a distinctive form of value if it often overlaps with the group well-being of its populations. However, I view this as an acceptable implication. Group well-being as the common good of a species seeks to ‘drive down’ our attention from purely holistic attributes of the species and connect these to the lived well-being of individuals. And there can be structural features which pertain to the species as a whole and not to any one population, such as the genetic diversity of the species or its population distribution across multiple groups and ecosystems. Cline (2018) describes how it is contested whether the Galápagos giant tortoises form several distinct species, or one species divided into various subspecies found in different islands and regions of the archipelago. In either case, there is a concern to preserve the unique population on each island, and we can speak of the group well-being of each island grouping as its common good. This is another situation where the potential similarity between the group well-being of populations and species is intuitive. The overlap between the group well-being of populations and of species is not a problematic form of double-counting, since we are not adding up all these group well-beings for any normative purpose. Instead, different forms of value will be relevant in different roles and situations.

Practical implications

The analogy to the common good of a human society illustrates how the group well-being of a species can take on normative significance. The group well-being of animals considered as part of a species will not be the ultimate basis for environmental ethics, just as the common good of society is not the ultimate basis for ethics in human affairs. Individual welfare, and quite possibly the holistic flourishing of the species and ecosystem, are essential values. Still, in the human case, there are significant actions, virtues, roles, and initiatives oriented towards the common good of society which take collective enterprises and institutions as their object rather than the well-being of individuals considered in isolation. Similarly, it is appropriate to foster these modes of response to the group well-being (or common good) of an animal species.

For example, a pluralistic theory of environmental virtues may include virtues oriented towards different values in nature, such as the well-being of individual animals and the flourishing of ecosystems (Sandler, 2007). Similarly, such a framework could include virtues directed, at least in part, towards the group well-being of animal species, such as the virtues of ecological sensitivity and respect for nature. A person cultivating these virtues towards the group well-being of a species would become aware of the structural features of a species that support the well-being of animals within it, feel certain positive emotions towards these structures, and be disposed to support and protect them in appropriate circumstances.

Those working in conservation roles already orient much of their work to the structural features of a species that support group well-being. For this reason, my thesis does not imply a revisionary change in how to help animal species but instead clarifies a value already implicit in conservation work. However, this clarification can be of significance to the public in better understanding the protection of endangered species. There is sometimes a tendency in popular culture to fixate on the number of animals in an endangered species and an aim to keep up this number by any means necessary. In contrast to this outlook, the group well-being of a species consists in the animals of a species faring well (living lives of well-being) as part of a biological whole, supported by features of the whole, and considered together as a group. This is a richer, more biological conception of the good of a species.

There are times when the group well-being of a species conflicts with the individual well-being of some of its members. ⁴ An animal may flourish in ways that are destructive to the common good of the group, and at times the structural features of a species, such as its mode of reproduction, harm or destroy certain individuals. In these cases, it is an open question how to balance the welfare interests of animals against the well-being of the species. There is no reason to assume the group well-being of the species takes absolute priority over the good of its members. Yet, with the well-being of individual animals so closely intertwined with structural features of the species, some attention to group well-being is merited.

Dispositions to respect the common good of a species can help people better perceive and support the ways animals in a species depend on each other in their natural environment and live well together as a group. As human societies come under stress and require more thoughtful social coordination in the face of environmental challenges, we can be mindful of a similar common good at work in the group well-being of other species and seek to safeguard them with care and attention to it.