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WrongBot comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) Part 2 Discussion Thread - Less Wrong
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Yes.
No. You're claiming that Bella should place a higher value on members of scarce species than on members of more common species. But she could instead assign value to other entities based on their intelligence, or in inverse proportion to their tastiness, or by any other standard. Economics doesn't have anything normative to say about ethics.
But the descriptive part of economics definitely pairs up with ethic's normative statements. It seems like if wolves are more valued by others than deer, the statement "destroy as little of what other people value as you can" needs to have an answer of the economic question "how much do other people value my options?" to function properly.
I disagree with PhilGoetz that wolves are valuable due solely to their scarcity- I think that some things, like smallpox or mosquitoes, should be endangered or extinct - but I think it's pretty trivial to put together the argument that killing a wolf for pleasure is much, much more wrong than killing a deer for pleasure.