Biology and Philosophy 12: 120, 1997.

c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

An Ecologically-informed Ontology for Environmental

Ethics1
DOUGLAS J. BUEGE 
2909 S. 101st Street
West Allis WI 53227 USA

Abstract. Since the inception of their subject as a distinct area of study in philosophy, environmental ethicists have quarreled over the choice of entities with which an environmental
ethic should be concerned. A dichotomous ontology has arisen with the ethical atomists, e.g.,
Singer and Taylor, arguing for moral consideration of individual organisms and the holists, e.g.,
Rolston and Callicott, focussing on moral consideration of systems. This dichotomous view is
ecologically misinformed and should be abandoned. In this paper, I argue that the organization
of the natural world, as viewed by some ecologists and evolutionary biologists, is structured
on various levels that are not reducible to one another. This hierarchical view, expressed
by Salthe and Eldredge, provides the most complete and accurate ontology for environmental
ethics.
Key words: environmental ethics, ontology, individuality, ecosystems, ecology

who can say where individuality begins and ends, whether the living
being is one or many, whether it is the cells which associate themselves
into the organism or the organism which dissociates itself into cells? In
vain we force the living into this or that one of our molds. All the molds
crack. They are too narrow, above all too rigid, for what we try to put into
them.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
:::

Environmental ethics has been plagued by many conceptual problems in

its history. One main difficulty has been defining the beings with which an
environmental ethic must deal, that is, developing an ontology. The quote
above, from one of the pre-eminent figures of modern philosophy of biology,
Henri Bergson, captures much of the feelings shared by contemporary theorists
in environmental philosophy. Various figures, from Peter Singer to Holmes
Rolston III, have offered radically different ontologies, exhibiting little agreement as to what beings are important to environmental ethics.
In this work, I attempt to draw some conclusions about what types of entities can possibly be morally considerable. A distinction should be recognized
between beings which are morally considerable and those that are morally
considered. The former are merely possible recipients of the respect of moral
 Ph.D. Independent Scholar

VICTORY: PIPS No. 94416

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agents; the latter actually do deserve this moral respect. I will argue for moral
considerability of various entities because this is an important philosophical
task which will provide a necessary foundation for actual theories of moral
consideration.
Elsewhere, I have argued that any ontology in environmental ethics must
meet two conditions: (1) it must reject the atomism/holism dichotomy and
(2) one must specify appropriate theories to inform that ontology (D.J. Buege
1993). In this paper, I propose an ontology informed by ecology and evolutionary biology which meets these criteria. This ontology will include entities
at several levels of organization. Thus, individual organisms and entities
which are commonly viewed as collections of organisms, e.g., ecosystems
and species, will both be entities in this ontology.
My main strategy will be to establish the individuality of these various entities. Traditionally, many general biological terms, e.g., ecosystem, deme,
and breeding population, have been treated as class terms that denote
classes. According to this view, a specific ecosystem is a class composed
of individual organisms. Classes are usually not considered to be possible
recipients of moral concern. Individuals, though, are the paradigmatic examples of beings to which moral agents can have duties. I will show that it is
quite feasible to maintain that entities traditionally viewed as collectives may
be seen as individuals.
Collections vs. individuals
My argument relies upon a distinction between two types of entities, collections (oftentimes called classes) and individuals. An individual is defined
as an entity whose potential value is not merely the sum of the value of its
parts, while a collection is defined as a grouping of groups or individuals
(but not always the same grouping, as collections can gain and lose members)
whose potential value is equivalent to the sum of these parts (whose value
might be the sum of smaller parts if it is a grouping of groups). Potential
value is the amount of value an entity would have if we were forced to quantify its value. An example of a collection is the spare change that can be
found in my pocket on any given day; it is a collection because the value of
that change is merely the sum of the individual coins cash values. (It may
be possible that one or more of the coins are rare coins whose value is much
greater than face value, yet this does not change the status of the coins as a
mere collection.)
Now consider a different type of entity, the St. Paul Saints minor league
baseball team. Are the nine players necessary to cover all the defensive
positions merely a collection of individual ballplayers? I would say it is

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not merely a collection because once one gathers nine players together they
have a team which is ontologically distinct from a mere summation of
nine ballplayers. A team can partake in competition; an individual ballplayer
cannot unless shes on a team. This new capacity that arises when nine
ballplayers are brought together makes the team an individual in its own
right.
Lets take a further look at this example to see if we can find distinctions
of ethical import in regarding the team as an individual. Consider the loss
of individual ballplayers versus the loss of an entire team. The Milwaukee
Braves were a baseball sensation in the late 1950s. In 1960, the Braves traded
their star base stealer, Bill Bruton, after what one baseball historian considered
his finest year with the team (B.Buege 1988). This loss saddened loyal fans
of the Braves. But this sadness was eclipsed by the frustration and loss felt
by the fans when, five years later, management announced the teams move
to Atlanta. The loss of an individual ballplayer is often disheartening. The
loss of an entire team, though, amounts to much more than loss of individual
ballplayers; for Braves fans, it was the loss of baseball itself. An ethicist must
recognize the loss of a team as distinct from the loss of a mere collection of
ballplayers.
Thus, a team viewed as an individual is ethically distinct from a team
viewed merely as nine individual ballplayers. In this paper, I will present an
argument that shows that ecological entities like ecosystems are analogical to
baseballs team. The loss of an entire habitat is a much greater loss than the
loss of an equivalent number of individual organisms from various ecosystems
because ecosystems are not merely collections of living and non-living beings.
Thus, the intuition that higher level entities such as species and ecosystems are
more valuable than the individuals of which they are composed, an intuition
shared by many environmental ethicists, may be justified.
The reader may be ready to take issue with my implicit assumption that
only individuals are possible recipients of moral concern. Indeed, it would
not be logically inconsistent to maintain that what I term a collection, e.g.,
the odd assortment of change found in my pocket at any given time, deserves
moral consideration. One problem with viewing such collections as recipients
of moral concern is delineating concern for such entities (in the loose sense)
within a larger theoretical framework. One fact which makes individuals
the traditional focus of ethical concern is that we can delineate them with nonarbitrary conditions. A collection, though, as an arbitrary grouping of entities,
does not avail itself to definition as easily; it is difficult to find sufficient and
necessary conditions for finding that a particular collection of coins, e.g., the
set containing coins A, B, and C, is morally considerable without also finding
that all collections of coins, i.e., all groupings whose members are coins and

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only coins, are morally considerable. The claim of moral significance for
the collection relies merely upon the claim that individual coins are morally
considerable; the collection itself lacks any non-derivative value.
In a biological vein, if ecosystems are merely collections of animals and
plants and they are morally considerable, then it is very likely that all arbitrary
collections of animals and plants are just as morally considerable. By arguing
for the individuality of various ecological and genealogical entities, I hope to
alleviate these difficulties in arguing for the moral considerability of various
biological entities. Thus, the ecosystem as a specific collection of animals and
plants is morally distinguishable from other arbitrary collections of flora and
fauna.
Scale
Any ontology in environmental ethics must pay attention to what some theorists term scale. A beings scale is the position in which the being exists
in relation to other things. When we recognize the importance of scale, we
are careful to note the way our particular perspectives on the world shape our
understanding of the world. Human beings perceive the world in the way we
do because we come in a relatively narrow range of sizes, we have certain
faculties in common and we reason in certain ways. Just as feminist ethicists
hold that we must be aware of male bias in ethics, I argue that environmental
ethicists must recognize the biases we have which result from our particular
scale.
Recognition of scale is essential to developing an adequate ontology
because disregard of our privileged scale will result in an incomplete ontology,
an ontology that does not capture the complex structure of the world. Evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge writes:
There should be some distance between our ontological notions and
the purely epistemological problems of observing entities, though, of
course, it remains true that the ontology of the relatively large (relative,
that is, to the human spatiotemporal scale of existence) is tricky mostly
because we lack the methodology to see up as easily as we have been
able to see down (Eldredege 1985).
Past disregard for scale has helped maintain the atomistic paradigm in
ethics. From our scale, individual organisms appear to be whole beings that
are independent from one another. We have viewed species, ecosystems, and
other large scale entities as mere epiphenomena resulting from the interaction
of individual organisms.
Stanley Salthe maintains that human time frame focusses upon the physiological moment, or augenblick, roughly equivalent to the second (Salthe

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1985). Other levels of ecological or genealogical structure have different
physiological moments. For microscopic phenomena, these moments are
shorter than ours, while macro level phenomena may have considerably
longer physiological moments. The differences in time scale may lead us
to exclude some macro level phenomena from being ontologically significant
levels of organization because we cannot observe their structure and development. We need to take a closer look at these entities to see if they are
ontologically distinct beings.
Theories informing ontology
Philosophers of science have argued that ontology is determined by the
theories scientists choose. Michael Ruse is the key figure in philosophy of
biology arguing that theory determines ontology. He illustrates his point with
the following example:
Consider a chessboard. You can think of this as an individual, made up
of 64 parts, or as a class of 64 squares. It depends on your perspective as
to which makes more sense are you making chess-boards, or are you
teaching someone the rules of chess (Ruse 1987).
I will be maintaining that ones perspective on the world is what shapes
ontology and that certain ecologically-informed perspectives should inform
the ontology for environmental ethics.
There are a plurality of theories concerning the ontology of the biological
sciences, the most important for this current work being those employed in
ecology and evolutionary biology. I am not ignoring other important fields of
biological study, e.g., developmental biology, paleontology and morphology;
instead, I am assuming that any responsible ecological or evolutionary theory
will be informed by, and be consistent with, other biological sciences. This
fact, that both scientific approaches are inclusive of many other areas of
biology, is one reason why evolutionary biology and ecology are so important
in defining the ontology that will inform environmental ethics. In this section,
I present some theories in ecology and evolutionary biology, arguing that
some are better than others in determining an ontology for environmental
ethics.
I employ the terms ecological and genealogical to refer to two different types of organization. Ecological beings are those whose parts relate
to one another primarily through spatial relations and energy flow, e.g., ecosystems, individual organisms and bioregions. The genealogical entities are
those entities whose parts relate to one another through the transmission of
genetic information. Lineages, species and demes are examples of types of
genealogical beings.

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Due to their given scale and the way they choose to examine the world,
biologists do not have great problems claiming the existence of individual
organisms, organs, cells or chromosomes (recall Eldredges comment about
the ease of seeing down). There is some skepticism concerning the ontological status of the gene, the proposed basic component of the chromosome
(though this is not due to scale difficulties).2 And once we move beyond the
individual organism to more extensive groups, we once again find a considerable amount of skepticism as to the reality of species, ecosystems, breeding populations, demes, and other ecologically and genealogically defined
groups.
Some of the more popular theories in evolutionary biology and ecology
depend upon what is often termed reductionism, a term that may have
both ontological and epistemological connotations. A renowned example
of reductionism is presented in Dawkins book The Selfish Gene (1976).
Dawkins maintains that evolution is a process of genes vying to survive
and replicate, in effect, passing on their information eternally. What makes
Dawkins view reductionistic is that he explains a wide-range of evolutionary
processes by focussing on one level of organization, that of the gene. For
Dawkins, an understanding of the microbiological processes that occur at the
gene level allows one to explain many higher level biological events.
The relationship between ontological reductionism posed by theorists such
as Dawkins and environmental ethics is complicated. It is not obvious that
ontological reductionism involves a concomitant duty toward only those
entities at the explanatory level to which all events are reduced. But Dawkins
theory is not a good source of an ontology for environmental ethics because it
recognizes the existence of so few ecological and genealogical entities. The
choice of reductionist theories as informing our ontology is faulted because
it leads us to atomistic ontologies.
In ecological theory, there are two predominant schools, systems ecology
and community ecology. Community ecology takes organisms as a focal
point. Stanley and Barbara Salthe explain:
Community ecology : : : comes out of a confluence of Gausean studies
of competition between populations of different species and Darwinism.
: : : Its approach to ecosystems may be said to be nonexistent insofar
as it never actually deals with them, confining its inquiries to questions
about how there can be so many kinds of organisms living in a given
place, and to how, in detail, these organisms have achieved stable associations by means of inter- and intraspecific competition (S. and B. Salthe
1989).
Community ecologists posit theoretical entities, such as the niche, which
are the result of inter- and intraspecific competition. Anyone arguing from a

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perspective of community ecology will have difficulty claiming the existence
of ecosystems or other collective phenomena other than species populations.
Thus, community ecology alone is not adequate for determining the ontology
for environmental ethics, even though it might have some value as one theory
informing that ontology. This is one of the problems with Harley Cahens
views (1988). He accepts community ecology as the only legitimate viewpoint
that can inform environmental philosophy.
Mark Sagoff (1988), in an important article examining the history of
ecology, discusses what he views as the competing views of community ecology and systems ecology. Ecologists, in the past 60 years, have tried, and
for the most part failed, to develop mathematical models that could explain
and predict basic ecological structures in the world. The main problem for
ecologists has been dealing with the particular nature of communities and
ecosystems; it appears that the world is simply too complicated to capture in
our current models. Sagoff concludes that ecology, like medicine, is largely
a normative science that is knit together by the goals it seeks to achieve
rather than by the theories it seeks to establish and that systems ecology,
with its focus on particular communities and ecosystems, offers more useful information for environmental policy, ethics and law than community
ecology. Following Sagoffs reasoning, I believe that systems ecology offers
more promise for defining important ecological entities for environmental
ethics.
Hierarchical theories
Various theorists have proposed what have been termed hierarchical
theories of the structure of the evolutionary and ecological worlds. Eldredge
argues that the modern synthesis in evolutionary theory requires that we
accept the existence of some biological entities while ignoring (even denying) the existence of others; instead, he contends that a hierarchical structure
of evolutionary theory is necessary if that theory is to embrace all evolutionarily relevant biological entities (Eldredge 1985). His fifth chapter examines
the various problems with the modern synthesis refusal to recognize this
hierarchical structure.
Stanley Salthe (1985), arguing as an evolutionary biologist and a proponent
of systems ecology, also posits an ontology of hierarchically arranged entities.
He does not seek to disprove reductionist views in evolutionary theory,
but he does offer this alternative ontology because he views the world as
unlimitedly complex. The ontology he presents is a nested order where
adjacent levels are in a part-whole relationship to one another. Organs are
parts of the wholes they compose, organisms, while these organisms are parts
of the wholes they are found in, either populations or demes. Part and whole

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relationships depend upon whether one is speaking of the genealogical or the
ecological hierarchy. I will have more to say of this below.
Hierarchy is an accepted property in evolutionary biology, admitted by
even Dawkins. The basic structure of the hierarchy is presented in Salthes
pond example, where he explains how a cell, its genome, and a pond interact:
The genome is the cells guide through the pond. A molecular system is
being used by a cellular system to negotiate an ecosystem. The molecular
system has the requisite informational entropy from the point of view
of the cell so that it can store information about the environment-cell
interaction (Salthe 1985).
This example illustrates the basic triadic structure of Salthes theory of hierarchy. The genome of the cell presents initiating conditions to the cell;
initiating conditions are lower level constraints that generate processes at
the cellular level. The pond ecosystem presents boundary conditions; these
are higher level inputs that regulate the processes of the cell. The cell itself
represents the focal level, the level of interest to the person examining this
interaction. For any level of Salthes hierarchy we examine, there will be
initiating and boundary conditions that determine the processes occurring at
that level. This contrasts with reductionism which focusses primarily upon
the initiating conditions, ignoring the ways in which higher level phenomena
regulate focal-level processes.
Salthes ontology calls for an infinite number of levels in both directions
(higher and lower level phenomena). We are epistemologically blind to micro(subatomic) and macro-level phenomena, but in theory these levels do exist
in a type of infinite regress. He recognizes two separate hierarchies, the
genealogical and the ecological. The definition given above concerning the
terms genealogical and ecological is used to determine in which hierarchy
an entity belongs.
This hierarchical approach to ecology and evolutionary biology is a
promising approach for determining the ontology for environmental ethics.
It recognizes the various entities upon which humans impact. We can destroy
bioregions and ecosystems; we do so every day. Recognition of a hierarchical
structure to the world allows us to formulate an ontology that is pluralist,
recognizing both individual organisms and larger biotic systems, and which
takes seriously the relations between parts and wholes.
Defining individuals
What does it mean to call an entity an individual? The term has been
contested for some time in philosophical circles. David Hull (1976) offers

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some direction with this problem in his discussions of the individuality of
species. His argument involves several points: (1) individuals are spatiotemporally defined beings, (2) any being picked out by a proper name must be an
individual because proper names cannot serve as definitions, (3) classes,
composed of members, are essentially different than individuals which
are composed of parts, (4) levels of organization from macromolecules,
organelles, and cells to organs, organisms and kinship groups are all related
to the [level] above by the part-whole relationship, not class-membership
so we should be consistent and view the species as the whole of which individual organisms are parts, and (5) theory determines ontology. Following
a discussion of Hulls criteria, I will examine similar criteria presented by
Salthe and then offer some comments.
Hulls individuals
Spatiotemporality It is clear to us that individual organisms have relatively
well-defined spatial and temporal boundaries. Conception and death, even
though these concepts may be difficult to define precisely, demarcate the
beginning and the end of an entitys existence. Our observation of organisms,
for the most part, allows us to know where the organism begins and ends in
space. Philosophers have additionally attempted to posit some essence, some
biological property, that remains constant for an individual organism throughout its life. Hull points out that this essence is problematic because individual
organisms do not retain an identical phenotype, genotype, or cellular composition throughout their lives. Indeed, individual organisms are constantly
changing, yet retaining their identity. Once we admit that these changes may
occur yet the organism retains its identity, we see that a species can also be
viewed as spatiotemporally defined.
Proper names When we want to pick out particular human beings, we
commonly employ proper names. We also do this with pets, research subjects, geographical locations, etc. Proper names serve to pick out individuals.
Hull (1976) writes, The name Gargantua denotes a particular organism
throughout its existence and not some feature or features of that organism.
Proper names are not definitions as they lack intensionality.
Giving something a name, though, does not necessitate its being an individual. It is feasible to give the random collection of coins in my pocket the
name Bob; to do so violates no rules of naming I know of. Thus, the proper
name condition given by Hull is insufficient for determining whether or not
an entity is an individual.
Individuals versus classes Individuals are necessarily distinguished from
classes. A class is normally defined as a collection of other groups or individuals. Classes do not cease to exist even though they may be empty. For

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example, the class carnivores denotes a collection containing all the animals
whose diets include, in part, other animals. Consider a devastation that erases
all carnivorous animal life from the face of the Earth. The class carnivores of
Earth would still exist; it would simply denote a collection with no members.
It is possible that new carnivorous life forms may evolve so that the collection
would once again have members.
Individuals are significantly different from classes. Once a particular individual ceases to exist (through death, extinction, or whatever cause) that
individual will never exist as the same individual again. This distinctive identity is part of what it means to be spatiotemporally defined. If some species
came into existence that had the same genotype and phenotype as the extinct
Carolina parakeet, this species would be a completely new species, regardless
of the resemblance to past species.
Elsewhere, Hull (1980) identifies a third alternative to individuals and
classes, what he terms groups. He writes:
The term group as biologists use it is halfway between individuals and
classes. Groups tend to be spatiotemporally localized and their members
considered part of the group because of their location and not because
of any internal organization.
His concern is primarily that groups do not function as what he terms replicators in evolutionary theory. In this work, I am assuming that his groups
do function as interactors, that is, they are primarily ecologically defined
beings and should be treated as individuals if they meet the criteria given
below. The entities I examine are not groups because they do have an internal
cybernetic organization.
Members versus parts Classes are composed of members. Something is
a member because it has some salient quality in relation to the class. Hulls
example is of an atom being a member of the class gold because it has
atomic number 79. Gold is defined as a particle with atomic weight 79.
Hull maintains that the definition of a class is always in reference to some
scientific theory. Atomic theory defines the property necessary for an item to
be gold.
Individuals, in contrast, are composed of parts which may have very
little in common. Lungs, skin cells and pacemakers are all possible parts
of mammalian organisms. They do not share some common essence, as
members of a class do; instead, they have an organizational relationship
within a spatiotemporally defined body.
In reference to evolutionary theory, taxonomists have been unable to find
simple sets of qualities that allow animals and plants to be sorted into species.
Instead, they define species polythetically. This leads Hull to argue:

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If Cygnus olor cannot be defined in the traditional way, it cannot be
because of ignorance or informality of context. Our inability to distinguish most species by sets of necessary and sufficient conditions follows
from evolutionary theory just as surely as quantum indeterminacy
follows from quantum theory (Hull 1976).
Since we cannot provide simple necessary and sufficient conditions for
species, we are left with two options. We can accept polythetic definition,
or we can view species as individuals. Hull accepts the latter tack, stating that
[s]pecies names cannot be defined in the traditional manner because they
cannot be defined at all. They are proper names introduced by a baptismal act
denoting particular chunks of the genealogical nexus (Hull 1976).
Theory determines ontology Since Hull maintains that ontological status
is always dependent upon scientific theory, his final task in arguing for the
individuality of species is to show that species function as individuals in evolutionary biology. Species and populations evolve, making them both actors in
natural selection.3 Thus, we must conclude that, according to evolutionary
biology, species are indeed individuals with species names serving as proper
names for those individuals.
Salthes individuals
Individuality, as defined by Salthe, is similar in some ways to individuality
as presented by Hull. Entities are spatiotemporally bounded, that is, they
are discontinuous from their environments. Salthe adds the condition that
entities are bigger or smaller in relation to some other entities (the scale
condition). Third, he requires entities to be integrated cybernetic systems,
agreeing with much work in ecology. The fourth requirement is that entities are
spatiotemporally continuous. When these conditions are brought together, we
have the following definition: An entity is something of a given size distinct
from its surroundings which, if more of less complicated, is a cybernetic
system some parts of which, if it seems to us to have detectable duration,
co-vary in time (Salthe 1985). An individual is a particular entity that is
picked out by a proper name.
Individuals in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The main difference between Hulls definition of individual and Salthes
is that Salthe has looser requirements upon what it means to participate in
evolution than Hull. Species are individuals for Hull in part because they
evolve. Hull writes:
Organisms possess the degree and kind of organization necessary to
compete with other organisms and be selected. : : : Entities at various

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levels of organization can function as units of selection if they possess
the sort of organization most clearly exhibited by organisms; and such
units of selection are individuals, not classes (Hull 1976).
When we consider the individuality of higher taxa, though, the situation is as
follows:
If higher taxa must be monophyletic at the species level, then they possess
the requisite spatiotemporal continuity [for being individuals]. : : : But
integration by descent is only a necessary condition for individuality; it is
not sufficient. : : : A certain cohesiveness is also required, a cohesiveness
which is problematic even at the level of species and populations (Hull
1976).
Hull requires integration by descent because his views are influenced by
evolutionary theory, where descent is an accepted property of entities that
participate in evolution. This descent requirement is not necessary for
ecological entities. The certain cohesiveness he requires is not discussed
by Hull, leaving the reasoning behind his argument for the non-individuality
of higher taxa extremely vague.
Salthe agrees that individuals as defined in evolutionary theory must
participate in evolution but he recognizes other ways of participating in
evolution that are important. For example, ecosystems might not evolve but
they do provide boundary conditions for populations made up of individual
organisms; they are the contexts in which evolution occurs. The ecological
and genealogical hierarchies are inextricably braided together, claims
Salthe. Thus, ecosystems indirectly take part in evolution so they should
be considered, by Hulls standards, to be individuals.
Of the certain cohesiveness that Hull finds necessary for higher taxa
being considered individuals, Salthe would most likely say that differences
of scale impair our ability to see the cohesion in higher level entities such as
ecosystems. Early in the book, he points out that whether a thing is readily
viewed as an entity or not depends on its scale with respect to ourselves
(Salthe 1985). I believe that Hull would agree that we are somewhat blind
to the processes that produce cohesion in higher level entities. Higher taxa
may indeed be cohesive in ways our methodology cannot detect. On the other
hand, this certain cohesiveness may be identical with Salthes conception
of cybernetic integration.

Ecosystems as individuals
Hull does not consider the individuality of ecosystems or other ecologically
defined entities in his discussion. He maintains, in personal correspondence,

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that higher taxa, entities in the genealogical hierarchy, probably lack the ability
to function in the evolutionary process, though they are spatiotemporally
limited and connected entities. In the remainder of this paper, I attempt
to argue that other ecological and genealogical entities can and should be
understood to be individuals by applying roughly the same criteria used
by Hull. The primary difference between my use of individuals is that I
recognize both ecological and evolution theory as informative, whereas Hulls
work on species was only concerned with theory in evolutionary biology.
I do not intend to argue for the individuality of all the ecological and evolutionary entities, existing at varying levels of structure, that Salthe addresses
in his book. Many of these entities are beings which are of great importance
in my theory of intrinsic value, e.g., populations, demes, species, and biogeographical regions. I will argue for the individuality of ecosystems. Once this
argument is accepted, I believe that the reader will understand how I could
give similar arguments for other entities. One reason I choose to argue for
the individuality of ecosystems is that the ecosystem is traditionally used in
systems ecology, not evolutionary biology, and is representative of Salthes
ecological hierarchy. Another reason is that Hulls argument for individuality
focusses on the species level which is in Salthes genealogical hierarchy. I
believe it is important to examine an entity from the ecological hierarchy.
A third reason for examining the individuality of ecosystems is that ecosystems are not easily delineated, posing problems for proving that they are
spatiotemporally defined. I will begin with a discussion of this problem.
Spatiotemporality
The existence of ecosystems has traditionally been attacked on the grounds
that researchers cannot discover naturally existing boundaries that delimit
ecosystems (Engelberg and Boyarsky 1979; Simberloff 1980). Ecologists
have had difficulty defining and delimiting ecosystems. Raymond Lindeman
(1942) defined his ecosystem as Cedar Bog Lake in Minnesota, deriving
his results concerning energy-availing relationships from this rather arbitrary
ecosystem. In the 1950s and 60s, cybernetic interpretation of ecosystems
became influential. Bernard Patten (1982) has argued that the environ
(roughly equivalent to ecosystem) should be the elementary particle for
ecology, just as the cell is for the cytologist, or the gene is for the geneticist.
Stanley Salthe (1983) interprets Pattens work to determine that energy flow
analysis can give us the basis for detecting and delimiting the boundaries of
an ecosystem. Both Patten and Salthe depend upon the cybernetic nature of
ecosystems.
The cybernetic approach to ecosystems is an important starting point
for determining whether or not ecosystems are spatiotemporally defined.

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Elements of Salthes ecological hierarchy are defined as beings whose parts
are related to one another through flows of energy. This ties in with Salthes
insistence that individuals be integrated cybernetic systems, a condition Hull
does not employ. Determining whether a system is cybernetically organized
requires more than examining the spatial relationships of that systems components. Salthe offers four basic arguments for the spatiotemporal individuality
of ecosystems.
The first argument offered maintains that astounding symbiotic relationships arise at the ecosystem level of organization. Cited are several cases
including the sloths relationship with the sloth moth and cowbirds whose
parasitic use of other birds nests protects the host birds young from bot fly
attacks. Symbiotic relationships such as these are best interpreted under a
theory of ecosystems. Salthe writes:
These relationships had to evolve in detail and the organisms involved
certainly have become coadapted for coexistence. This implies a stable
relationship in a more or less stable context for some reasonably long
period of time (Salthe 1985).
He concludes that only a stable ecosystem could allow for the development
of these relationships.
Secondly, Salthe argues that the fossil record shows a continuity of community patterns; that is, there seems to be a similar structure to communities
observed over geologic time. Communities, as represented in the fossil record,
also have noticeably stable niche structures. This is evidence that some entity
must remain stable. Hence, we conclude this entity is the ecosystem.
His third argument contends that ecosystems go through negentropic
processes, e.g., secondary succession, that are directly comparable to
processes individual organisms undergo. Negentropy suggests that there is
greater organization than may be easily observed. This similarity to organisms
entails that ecosystems are particular open systems and should be treated as
individuals.
Finally, Salthe takes evidence that communities share several ecological
equivalents as suggesting that there is some type of community convergence.
These ecological equivalents, species pairs, guilds, or whole vegetations,
suggest that different local ecosystems have an underlying similarity of
deep structure (Salthe 1985). This deep structure is due to organization of
the community as a spatiotemporal unity.
Salthe believes that current work in ecology, if continued, will allow us
to define ecosystems. Of determining the spatial and temporal boundaries of
these systems, Salthe concludes:
: : : boundaries could be set upon functioning ecosystems in one way or
another once we have accepted their probable individuality. It is clear

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that, since we cannot directly detect entities at these large scales we
must attempt to construct our view of them statistically. This means that
epistemological matters must come into our consciousness as matters of
primary concern even in the process of description (Salthe 1985).
I accept Salthes conclusions, agreeing that current trends in ecology will
allow us to define ecosystems. These epistemological matters should certainly
be addressed in future work.
Without a definitive theory of ecosystems, we can still act as if an area
is an ecosystem. While ecologists may want a strict definition for the term,
this definition is not necessary for environmental ethics. It might even be
plausible to believe that a very scientific definition of ecosystem may be
a hindrance to ethical theory. Environmental ethics can benefit from a more
pragmatic use of ecosystem, one that helps in making ethical, rather than
scientific, decisions. As ecological science develops, environmental ethicists
may revise their ecosystem accordingly.
Proper names
Commonly, we do not use proper names to pick out ecosystems. Some terms
may pick out ecosystems incidentally, e.g., Cedar Bog Lake, the back 40,
Joes stomach and Lakeside Park. We do not necessarily intend to refer to
these areas as ecosystems; rather we may have recreational, agricultural, or
other intentions related to these names.
But if we intend to speak of a specific ecosystem, we would pick that place
out with the equivalent of a proper name. To denote a single ecosystem, we
require some way to communicate the exact location and/or identity of that
ecosystem. I may speak of types of ecosystems such as bog-forests which
would not be picked out by proper names. But bog-forests are not precise
ecosystems; they are a type of ecosystem, just as plumbers are a type of
people. If I speak of a particular bog-forest, I would refer to it by an exact
term that would pick it out without the possibility of confusing it with another
ecosystem. This is the same way proper names work ideally. Thus, proper
names would be appropriate for areas we define as ecosystems, be it for
ecological or ethical reasons.
Ecosystems are composed of parts, not members
Before arguing that ecosystems are not classes, that is, they are not in a
relationship of class to member with their components, it is important to
examine why biologists have been so comfortable identifying beings such as
species and ecosystems as classes. This examination delves into the role that
laws have played in the history of biology.

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David Hull distinguishes between historical entities and genuine classes
in his work (Hull 1978). This division is important because historical entities
and classes are treated differently by scientific laws. Hull writes:
Scientific laws are supposed to be spatiotemporally unrestricted generalizations. No uneliminable reference can be made in a genuine law of
nature to a spatiotemporally individuated entity (Hull 1978).
Scientific laws do not concern historic entities. Species had originally been
conceived as natural types designed by a divine creator; taxonomists believed
that each species had a discoverable essence that defined it, making species
spatiotemporally unrestricted. This commitment to the Platonic idealism of
species ended around the time of the publication of Darwins Origin of Species
(Simberloff 1980). For some reason, though, many philosophers and biologists still cling to this idealism. Hulls arguments for individuality of species
entail that species be viewed as historical entities. Thus, there are not general
laws that can mention individual species.
In related work, Arthur Caplan and Walter Bock (1988) criticize Platonic
idealism when arguing against Ernst Mayrs and Michael Ghiselins contentions that species are individuals. They write:
Both Ghiselin and Mayr are at great pains to show that the view that
species are classes is intimately connected to a virulent version of essentialism that would long ago have released its grip upon the animadversions of evolutionary biologists but for the misguided efforts of a few
philosophers who keep breathing life back into it. : : : [They] warn that
the concept of class can only be understood as positing the existence of
immutable, ineffable essences (Caplan and Bock 1988).
Caplan and Bock insist that classes should not be construed so strictly. There
are other positions on essentialism besides Platos typological essentialism.
Wittgenstein and others have shown classes can be defined by groups or
clusters of properties without having to claim the necessity of immutable
essences.
Hulls arguments for individuality do not rest upon the anti-Platonism that
Caplan and Bock question; he rejects all forms of essentialism because none
are adequate for delineating species. Hull employs Platonic ideology as an
explanation of contemporary positions in evolutionary biology. We need not
concern ourselves with Platos Ghost when accepting Hulls arguments for
individuality of species.
Ecologists have also wanted to formulate laws for ecosystems. Thus,
ecosystems have been perceived as spatiotemporally unrestricted classes
rather than historic entities. Such a view of ecosystems leads us to expect
predictable properties shared by all or most ecosystems, but such properties
have not been discovered. The complexity of the world has seriously curtailed

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ecologists attempts to formulate laws. This may be because ecosystems function like individuals in that they are spatiotemporally restricted and distinct
from one another.
It is important to point out that I am arguing that the term ecosystem
is a class term. The specific ecosystems that are members of the class are
individuals. Specific ecosystems are composed of individual populations.
The class ecosystems is composed of all those things that are specific
ecosystems or are more specific types of ecosystems. Types are class terms as
well. In the following argument, I present a reductio to show that particular
ecosystems are composed of parts, not members.
Eldredge and Salthe (1984) maintain that individual ecosystems are composed of populations of different species plus abiotic components of the
environment. If we are to understand these various populations and abiotic
components as members of the ecosystem, where an ecosystem is understood
to be a class, then we must be able to posit some essence or family resemblance that includes all these members. But ecosystems vary greatly. Even
accepted types of ecosystems, identified by a few representative species,
may have extremely different species compositions. Abiotic elements will
also be heterogeneous in relatively similar ecosystems. Since ecosystems
are so complex, it makes sense to view species populations, plus the abiotic
elements, as relating to their ecosystems as organs relate to the organism;
they share an organizational relationship within a spatiotemporally defined
body, the ecosystem.
Viewing ecosystems as classes also commits us to the problematic position
that ecosystems can come in and out of existence. Consider a pond ecosystem
that is approaching senescence, that is, it is drying up and becoming more boglike. Succession is a property of ecosystems; just as the caterpillar becomes
a butterfly, a pond can become a bog while retaining its identity as a specific
ecosystem. Now consider someone draining the pond, filling it in with sand,
and making a parking lot. If, over a long span of time, this pond were to
be re-instated by some well-intentioned naturalists, would it be the same
ecosystem? A commitment to ecosystems as classes would require us to
respond affirmatively. It is only if ecosystems are not classes that we can
recognize the history of the pond as a spatiotemporal unity. We can then say
that the ecosystem ceased to exist once someone drained the water and paved
it over.
Ecosystems are historically defined. They are the product of geological processes, migration of species, changes in soil chemistry, competition
between species, as well as a multitude of other processes and phenomena of
interest to the ecologist. In order to understand a specific ecosystem, one must
know something of the history of that ecosystem. Even though there may be

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laws that describe how ecosystems develop, there will not be laws that refer
to individual ecosystems because ecosystems are historic entities.
Theory determines ontology
As claimed above, environmental ethics should be informed by both ecology
and evolutionary biology. The things that these sciences determine to be real
are the things that can receive moral consideration in environmental ethics.
The elements of Salthes genealogical hierarchy (genes, integrated genotypephenotypes, demes, species, monophyletic lineages, historical biota and the
total biosphere) and ecological hierarchy (molecules, organisms, populations,
ecosystems, biogeographical regions and the surface of the Earth) are all
morally considerable (Salthe 1985). I do not intend this list to be complete and
unalterable. Furthermore, there are exceptional cases to this list. Asexually
reproducing organisms are not considered to have demes or species. Also, we
may want to observe a cellular level of organization for eukaryotic organisms.
The organ level is also a significant level of organization in highly-developed
organisms.
I do not suggest that environmental ethicists should accept Salthes levels
of organization uncritically. My goal is merely to show that specific ecosystems, as well as specific cases of the other levels of organization, can be
considered individuals in an ontology informed by ecology and evolutionary
biology. Salthe offers arguments for other levels of organization in his text
to which I refer the inquisitive reader. His arguments succeed because his
criteria for entification and individuality are similar to those of Hull.

Conclusion
I have met the two criteria that I raised in the beginning of this paper. I
have avoided the atomism/holism dichotomy by finding a plurality of levels
of organization that are ontologically significant to environmental ethics
and showing that these entities may be considered distinct individuals. The
theories I have chosen have allowed this. Salthes hierarchal theory, informed
by ecology and evolutionary biology, is an appropriate theory to inform this
ontology. Thus, I have shown that ecology and evolutionary biology, properly
understood, can provide an adequate ontology for environmental ethics.
Many entities at many different levels of organization can be considered
individuals according to theory in ecology and evolutionary biology. Once
we take scale into account, we realize that it is problematic to claim that
the higher levels are merely collections of individual organisms or species.
Salthe points out many properties that suggest that ecosystems and other

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higher level entities are distinct from their parts, just as a team is distinct from
the individual players composing that team.
Environmental ethicists have not been clear as to how ecology and other
sciences should inform their ethics. This basic ontology is a starting point; if
these beings are individuals, as I have argued, then they are the types of beings
to which we may have moral dutiesthat is, they are morally considerable. If
we treat them as mere collections, we are misrepresenting the structure of the
world as presented in current ecological theory.
In order to show that biological entities are actually morally considered, one needs to develop an ethical framework which details why they
are considered. In my own doctoral dissertation, I further an argument that
moral agents have duties toward various entities which attain certain levels
of organic unity. Under that theory, moral agents have greater duties to
beings with greater degrees of organic unity. Thus, the ecosystem deserves
greater consideration than the individual animals or plants found within that
ecosystem. Eminent environmental philosophers, e.g., Holmes Rolston III,
have offered other accounts requiring moral consideration for a variety of
ecological and genealogical beings. Now such accounts can be made with
support from the evolutionary and ecological sciences.

Notes
1

I send thanks to Tim Allen, Mark Davis, David Hull, John Martin, Bob Richardson, Chris
Gauker and especially Karen J. Warren for making this work possible and being needed partners
in conversation at key times. And I also remind Katy Gray Brown, Curt Webb and Lisa Bergin
that I appreciate their providing shelter while I worked on this project.
2
See van Fraassen (1980) for an anti-realist account that questions the reality of elementary
particles that are not directly observable.
3
Hulls argument for this is more involved but, for brevitys sake, I will assume that all readers
can accept this short-cut.

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