ABSTRACT
Environmental ethics offers normative guidance on our moral relationship with wildlife that can help managers, policy-makers, and conservationists alike. This chapter reviews wildlife ethics both by looking at how various approaches in environmental philosophy treat wildlife, and by unpacking the normative dimensions of wildlife conservation in the modern world. It discusses the traditional ethical concerns regarding wild animals and offers a look at wildlife debates in light of novel environmental and conservation challenges. Wildlife ethics is far less occupied with individual welfare. Individualism is the view that only individual beings have interests; therefore, only they can be said to be moral patients. The holistic tradition holds that obligations may be directed at, and values may be located in, the biotic community, ecosystems, or species. The aesthetic dimensions of wildlife conservation provide yet another area of debate, particularly concerning the nature of wildness and charisma.
