Pacheco Faria, Catia Gisela2024-02-152024-02-152023Faria, C. (2023) "Vulnerability and the Ethics of Environmental Enhancement", Ethics, Policy & Environment, 26:2, 179-197, DOI: 10.1080/21550085.2023.22007252155-008510.1080/21550085.2023.2200725https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/101477In this paper, following the taxonomy developed by Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds of different sources and states of vulnerability, I claim that wild animals are inherently and situationally vulnerable. This is because they can experience suffering as a response to certain internal and external states and have a high exposure to, and a low capacity to cope with, harmful natural processes. From this it follows that we have a moral obligation to support and assist individuals who are occurrently vulnerable and to reduce the risk of dispositional vulnerabilities becoming occurrent in the future, by endorsing some form of what I call ‘environmental enhancement’. Finally, I pay critical attention to how to prevent interventions aimed at ameliorating vulnerability from paradoxically generating pathogenic vulnerabilities.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationaljournal article2155-0093https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2023.2200725restricted access179.3VulnerabilityWild animal sufferingEnvironmental enhancementAutonomyÉtica71 Ética