Passage Summary: An ethicist suggests that if you want to protect the environment, you should argue that nature is beautiful rather than claiming it has moral rights, because everyone agrees on beauty but people argue about morality.

Conclusion: Arguments for environmental preservation based on beauty are more logically sound than those based on inherent moral value.

Reasoning: While the moral value of nature is philosophically controversial, the beauty of nature is an undeniable fact, making beauty-based arguments less open to objection.

Analysis: The ethicist is advocating for a pragmatic approach to argumentation: use the premise that is hardest to deny. The underlying principle is that when you have two possible paths to a conclusion, the path starting from an 'undeniable' premise is superior to the one starting from a 'disputable' one. You are looking for a principle that favors arguments based on widely accepted observations over those based on controversial theories. It is a classic 'play it safe' strategy for logical persuasion.