Browsing by Author "Colyvan, Mark"

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    Buying into conservation: intrinsic versus instrumental value.
    (Trends Ecol Evol, 2009-04) Justus, James; Colyvan, Mark; Regan, Helen; Maguire, Lynn
    Many conservation biologists believe the best ethical basis for conserving natural entities is their claimed intrinsic value, not their instrumental value for humans. But there is significant confusion about what intrinsic value is and how it could govern conservation decision making. After examining what intrinsic value is supposed to be, we argue that it cannot guide the decision making conservation requires. An adequate ethical basis for conservation must do this, and instrumental value does it best.
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    Voting systems for environmental decisions
    (Conservation Biology, 2014-01-01) Burgman, Mark A; Regan, Helen M; Maguire, Lynn A; Colyvan, Mark; Justus, James; Martin, Tara G; Rothley, Kris
    Voting systems aggregate preferences efficiently and are often used for deciding conservation priorities. Desirable characteristics of voting systems include transitivity, completeness, and Pareto optimality, among others. Voting systems that are common and potentially useful for environmental decision making include simple majority, approval, and preferential voting. Unfortunately, no voting system can guarantee an outcome, while also satisfying a range of very reasonable performance criteria. Furthermore, voting methods may be manipulated by decision makers and strategic voters if they have knowledge of the voting patterns and alliances of others in the voting populations. The difficult properties of voting systems arise in routine decision making when there are multiple criteria and management alternatives. Because each method has flaws, we do not endorse one method. Instead, we urge organizers to be transparent about the properties of proposed voting systems and to offer participants the opportunity to approve the voting system as part of the ground rules for operation of a group. © 2014 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of the Society for Conservation Biology.