Critical Review: “Why We Should Preserve the Spotted Owl”

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Critical Review: “Why We Should Preserve the Spotted Owl”
In his article titled “Why We Should Preserve the Spotted Owl,” Amartya Sen shares his views on environmental issues from a Northern perspective. In his article, Amartya Sen addresses the issue of living a sustainable lifestyle and balancing it with the loss of freedoms it produces. Amartya Sen approaches this subject from a Northern perspective, making it evident that the freedoms of people are more valuable than environmental progress. Amartya Sen feels that environmental laws should not be based on how it affects an individual’s standard of living, but, on how it affects an individual’s freedoms and values.
To begin, the title of Sen’s article does not correspond with the main point. The image of a spotted owl is strategically used to appeal to the reader’s sense of humanity. As stated by Sen, the spotted owl should be preserved, not because it contributes to maintaining a certain standard of living, but because humans have an influence over the lives of other living things (3). Judging from the past, however, humans have misused this power to their advantage, at the expense of living things.
Sen’s argument is based on a comparison of what individuals need to live as instead of what they value to live. Sen is of the opinion that too many individuals focus on environmental policies for the sake of the environment instead of focusing on environmental policies for the sake of the individuals inhabiting the environment (2). Sen’s argument is rational; however, it is humans who destroy the environment, to begin with. Humans have shown that they value material things, going as far as clearing pristine forests and clearing off the natural settlements to establish human-made structures. It is because of this desire to advance that we cannot restore nature ...