Breaking down biocentrism: two distinct forms of moral concern for nature

Harmony with nature: Disentanglement the influence of ecological perception and adaptation on sustainable development and circular economy goals in country

From the perspective of ecosystem attributes, this research was conducted to explore the impact of people's adaptation and response to their perception of environmental risks on their preference for sustainable development strategies and the realization of a circular economy based on Social Judgment Theory and the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory. To achieve the goal, three substudies were conducted using questionnaire surveys-the first substudy aimed to examine the influence of ecological attributes on environmental risk perception (ERP). The second substudy attempted to understand the intricate connection between ERP and justice, while the third study explored the relationship between justice and SDS (sustainable development strategies) and CEG (realization of a circular economy). The results indicate the following: (1) The first substudy reveals that ecological attributes impact environmental risk perception (ERP), with different environmental values exerting distinct influences. (2) The second substudy suggests that ERP facilitates the realization of social, environmental, and ecological justice, but people's preference for a specific economic growth strategy will affect their tendency to realize justice. (3) The third substudy shows that sustainability strategies (i.e., sustainable production, consumption, and use) mediate the relationship between justice and circular economy goals (CEG). Among the three strategies, sustainable use plays the most significant mediating role. The research outcomes underscore the importance of prioritizing sustainable use in future research in theory and practice.

The Problem of Purity in Moral Psychology

Academic AbstractThe idea of "purity" transformed moral psychology. Here, we provide the first systematic review of this concept. Although often discussed as one construct, we reveal ~9 understandings of purity, ranging from respecting God to not eating gross things. This striking heterogeneity arises because purity-unlike other moral constructs-is not understood by what it is but what it isn't: obvious interpersonal harm. This poses many problems for moral psychology and explains why purity lacks convergent and divergent validity and why purity is confounded with politics, religion, weirdness, and perceived harm. Because purity is not a coherent construct, it cannot be a distinct basis of moral judgment or specially tied to disgust. Rather than a specific moral domain, purity is best understood as a loose set of themes in moral rhetoric. These themes are scaffolded on cultural understandings of harm-the broad, pluralistic harm outlined by the Theory of Dyadic Morality.

Hybrid theories, psychological plausibility, and the human/animal divide

A hybrid theory is any moral theory according to which different classes of individuals ought to be treated according to different principles. We argue that some hybrid theories are able to meet standards of psychological plausibility, by which we mean that it's feasible for ordinary human beings to understand and act in accord with them. Insofar as psychological plausibility is a theoretical virtue, then, such hybrid theories deserve more serious consideration. To make the case for this view, we explain what psychological plausibility is and why we might value it, why the human/animal divide appears to be an entrenched feature of human psychology, and why Robert Nozick's hybrid theory doesn't go far enough. Finally, we make the case that a more promising psychologically plausible hybrid theory, with respect to humans and animals, will be (at least) at tribrid theory-that is, positing three domains rather than two.

Intuitive biology, moral reasoning, and engineering life: Essentialist thinking and moral purity concerns shape risk assessments of synthetic biology technologies

The field of synthetic biology heralds a new era in our relationship with nature, as organisms are engineered to meet human goals. But little attention has been paid to potential cognitive constraints on reasoning about such technologies. Across four studies with American adults (N = 649), the present research investigates the proposal that essentialist reasoning and moral purity concerns conspire to shape risk assessments of engineered organisms. Moral purity concerns but not moral harm concerns predict moral wrongness judgments of adding a foreign gene to a plant (Studies 1, 2 & 4), as well as assessments of risk (Studies 1 and 2), and risk of harm from eating (Study 4). Adding a gene from a taxonomically distant organism is considered more morally wrong (Studies 2, 3 and 4), more risky (Studies 2 & 3), and more risky to eat (Study 4), than adding either a gene from a similar organism or a new-to-nature gene. Assessments of the risk of gene spread follow a different pattern, with the new-to-nature gene considered safest (Study 4). The findings support the proposal that gene change is reasoned about as essence change that threatens notions of moral purity, with direct implications for certain types of risk perceptions (eating), but not others (gene spread). The findings elucidate cognitive constraints on risk perceptions of synthetic biology, shed fresh light on essentialist and moral reasoning in a novel biological context, and demonstrate the need to differentiate between both risk context and risk type in cognitive accounts of risk perception.