The last person and the kelp forest: does nature matter when no one is left to value it?
Last month, on a long dive in the kelp, I found myself thinking about Richard Routley's "last man" thought experiment from 1973. Imagine you are the last human being. You're dying; nobody will come after you. Before you go, you set out to destroy every remaining forest, reef and wild place. Have you done anything wrong?
Strict anthropocentrism has to say no. If nature's value is entirely its usefulness to people, there is no one left to be harmed. Most people find the act monstrous anyway, and Routley took that reaction as evidence that we really do think nature has value beyond its use to us. Holmes Rolston III built a whole environmental ethic on that thought.
My own reaction is complicated. Underwater I feel the value of a kelp forest as obviously as I feel cold. But I know feelings are not evidence of much. The best anthropocentric reply I know says the intuition is really about the person: someone disposed to wanton destruction is vicious, whether or not anything is wronged.
Which of these do you find more convincing? And does it matter in practice? Conservation policy everywhere is written in anthropocentric language (ecosystem services, natural capital) even by people who privately believe the forest matters for itself.