ECOCENTRISM AND ANTHROPOCENTRISM: MORAL REASONING ABOUT
ECOLOGICAL COMMONS DILEMMAS
KATHERINE V. KORTENKAMP AND COLLEEN F. MOORE
University of WisconsinMadison
Abstract
When do humans extend their ethical scope to include nature? Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism are two ways of understanding an extension of ethics to nature. In an anthropocentric ethic nature deserves moral consideration because how nature is treated a¡ects humans. In an ecocentric ethic nature deserves moral consideration because nature has intrinsic value. In two experiments participants (n=91 and 84) generated moral reasoning responses to ecological moral dilemmas. The reasoning was coded as ecocentric, anthropocentric, or nonenvironmental (i.e., social contracts, truthfulness). Individual di¡erences and situational variables were examined in relation to moral reasoning about ecological dilemmas. Pro-environmental attitudes were related to more ecocentrica nd anthropocentrica nd less nonenvironmental reasoning. The presence of information about the impact of ecological damage on the environment, especially a more ‘‘wild’’ environment, elicited more ecocentric reasoning, while the presence of a social commitment elicited more nonenvironmental moral reasoning. The implications of the research for con£icts over environmental commons dilemmas are discussed. # 2001 Academic Press
Ecocentrism and Anthropocentrism: Moral
Reasoning about Ecological Dilemmas
There is as yet no ethicd ealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. . . The extension of ethics to this third element in human environment is. . .an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity. (Leopold,
1949, pp. 238^9)
Aldo Leopold, sometimes called the father of environmental ethics, expressed these ideas over 50 years ago in his revolutionary essay ‘‘The Land
Ethic.’’