Why Wake the Dead? Identity and De-extinction
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Why Wake the Dead? Identity and De-extinction Christopher Hunter Lean1 Accepted: 5 November 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract I will entertain and reject three arguments which putatively establish that the individuals produced through de-extinction ought to be the same species as the extinct population. Forms of these arguments have appeared previously in restoration ecology. The first is the weakest, the conceptual argument, that de-extinction will not be de-extinction if it does not re-create an extinct species. This is misguided as deextinction technology is not unified by its aim to re-create extinct species but in its use of the remnants of extinct populations as a resource. The second is the argument from authenticity; the populations produced by de-extinction technologies will be inauthentic if they are not of the extinct species and, therefore, will not be valuable. I argue authenticity is not required in conservation as the value of authenticity varies between people and cultures, and the novelty of de-extinct species will be equally desirable in many cases. The third argument is from retributive justice; we need the de-extinct population to have the same species identity as we owe a moral debt to the extinct population. I find the case for retributive justice unconvincing and argue that acting as if we have a duty to resurrect extinct species will result in a world with less species. Ultimately all the arguments that connect de-extinction technology to species identity fail, leaving us to consider a more complex calculus for the justification of de-extinction in conservation. Keywords De-extinction · Identity · Environmental ethics · Restoration ecology · Conservation · Authenticity
Introduction The Lazarus Project is an evocative title for a de-extinction project. A group of scientists, working under the moniker of the biblical resurrectee, is working to ‘resurrect’ the extinct Gastric Brooding Frog. This fascinating Australian frog gestates its own tadpoles within its stomach, ‘giving birth’ from its mouth to small frogs. Using * Christopher Hunter Lean [email protected] 1
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists are inserting cells, extracted from the extinct frog’s frozen tissue samples, into the embryos of related frog species. They hope to produce a living clone of a dead individual from that extinct species. The product of this ambitious process will undoubtedly be very similar to a Gastric Brooding Frog but is it of the same species? This is a reasonable question to ask. De-extinction is sold as the re-creation of a lost species. The act of de-extinction is thought to be deeply entwined with the question of species identity. When scientists like Beth Shapiro (2015), public policy figures like Jacob Sherkow and Hank Greely (2013), or philosophers like Helena Siipi (2014), Ronald Sandler (2014) and Douglas Campbell (2016, 201
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