Should Trees Have Standing? Revisited: How Far Will Law and Morals Reach? A Pluralist Perspective
Author(s)
Stone, Christopher D.
Abstract
Stone returns to the scene of his pioneering article on the legal rights of nature, now with the luxury of developing a full-scale argument for a position he terms “Moral Pluralism”: “moral activities are to be partitioned into several distinct domains, each governed by distinct principles and logical texture”. Stone focuses on the toughest possible test case for environmental ethics: can we ascribe “legal consideration” to entities he calls Ds – disinterested entities, i.e., entities without any sentience at all. He argues that legal consideration is not a problem from a logical point of view; but the question remains whether it is a rational, wise, or moral policy to undertake. To answer this question we require a moral theory that can take account of Ds, and this he thinks is moral pluralism: treating different entities differently, for they are located on different moral planes. This is a complex and important paper. The challenge to Stone’s moral pluralism is its tendency to degenerate into a kind of relativistic intuitionism.
