Like mk, I am concerned firstly with the extinction of humans; secondly with the extinction of other species (all of them) and with general non-existential harm caused to humans -- in either order, depending on the level of harm.

In this instance, the answer I come to after the requisite five minutes of thought is that I do not mind the extinction of the guinea worm. I don't see anything wrong with weighing the existence of the worm against the happiness of human beings and choosing the latter. I see a lot wrong with the indiscriminate destruction of species we see on a daily basis (or yearly, if Julian Simon is to be believed). What Carter is doing isn't that. Thus the mere fact that he is eradicating the worm deliberately matters a lot to me, odd as that may seem. [There's more to this that I can't fully articulate -- I spent eight hours on Interstate 10 today thinking about related issues -- as long as the pros and cons are carefully considered, I don't know that I'm automatically against the extinction of any nonhuman species. If you could show me conclusively that the mammoth and the sabre-tooth's deaths were necessary for proto-humans to get on the track that led to the first agricultural revolution, the founding of cities and nations, science and reason, etc, I would yield. But in 2014, I think that part of ascending to the heights we've reached means we are quite able to save the species around us, within reason, while still making progress for ourselves. And since we are, morally we should do it.]

I considered the feasibility of keeping a tiny sample population of the worm in "captivity" somewhere but I don't know enough about it to judge whether that would be of such minimal effort that it was worth it. I don't even know if it's possible, but if it is, it's worth considering.

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I wonder if I came to this conclusion in a subconscious attempt to keep my moral system stable -- is eradicating the guinea worm a form of just war?