Is There a Prima Facie Duty to Preserve Genetic Integrity in Conservation Biology

AbstractSome conservation biologists invoke the concept of ‘genetic integrity,’ which they generally assume is a good worth preserving without explicit justification. We examine the question of whether or not there is a prima facie duty to preserve genetic integrity in conservation biology. We examine several possible justifications for the potential duty found in the conservation biology literature. We argue, contra a dominant trend of thought in conservation biology, that there is no prima facie duty to preserve genetic integrity and that any moral obligation to preserve genetic integrity in specific cases is merely derivative of other possible duties.