Opinion: Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment

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• > vol. 113 no. 6
• > Kai M. A. Chan,  1462–1465, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1525002113

1. Kai M. A. Chan^a,¹,
2. Patricia Balvanera^b,
3. Karina Benessaiah^c,
4. Mollie Chapman^a,
5. Sandra Díaz^d,
6. Erik Gómez-Baggethun^e,^f,
7. Rachelle Gould^g,
8. Neil Hannahs^h,
9. Kurt Jaxⁱ,
10. Sarah Klain^a,
11. Gary W. Luck^j,
12. Berta Martín-López^k,
13. Barbara Muraca^l,
14. Bryan Norton^m,
15. Konrad Ottⁿ,
16. Unai Pascual^o,^p,
17. Terre Satterfield^a,
18. Marc Tadaki^q,
19. Jonathan Taggart^a, and
20. Nancy Turner^r

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A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches.

 

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Defining Relational Values

Few people make personal choices based only on how things possess inherent worth or satisfy their preferences (intrinsic and instrumental values, respectively). People also consider the appropriateness of how they relate with nature and with others, including the actions and habits conducive to a good life, both meaningful and satisfying. In philosophical terms, these are relational values (preferences, principles, and virtues associated with relationships, both interpersonal and as articulated by policies and social norms). They include “eudaimonic” values, or values associated with a good life (Fig. 1; also see dataset for additional references throughout, available at dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.5146.0560). Relational values are not present in things but derivative of relationships and responsibilities to them (Fig. 2). In this sense, an individual preference or societal choice can be questioned or reframed based on its consistency with core values, such as justice, care, virtue, and reciprocity.

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Fig. 1.

The difference between the instrumental and intrinsic value framings that dominate environmental literatures and relational values. Whereas intrinsic values (A) pertain only to the value inherent in an object, and instrumental values (A) pertain to the value of the object for a person, relational values (B) pertain to all manner of relationships between people and nature, including relationships that are between people but involve nature (e.g., a relationship of impact via pollution, which is mediated by a watershed).

Relational notions of values are prominent across a wide swath of humanity, including classic (e.g., Aristotelian), contemporary Western, Indigenous (e.g., Tsawalk, Sumak kawsay), feminist (e.g., care ethics), and Eastern philosophies (e.g., Confucian, Buddhist). Notions of a good life rooted in relationships are expressed in diverse worldviews, including Ubuntu in South Africa, the Gandhian Economy of Permanence in India, Buen Vivir in several Latin American countries, and North American “back to the land” movements. Moreover, the five “moral foundations” common to many people—purity/sanctity, authority/respect, in-group/loyalty, fairness/reciprocity, and harm/care (2)—are better understood through lenses of relationships and a good life than through instrumental or intrinsic values. Pope Francis’s widely reported encyclical On Care for Our Common Home was abundant in its expression of relational values (3).