BIOMOT is an interdisciplinary research project under the 7th Framework Programme,
Programme number 282625
Motivation for Biodiversity Action:
Action
Vocabulary,
ocabulary, theories and framework
BIOMOT DELIVERABLE 4.1
(formal deliverable title: “Common concepts
co
and framework
work BIOMOT”)
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L. Knippenberg (ed.), BIOMOT-WP4-team
BIOMOT
- Developed in cooperation other BIOMOT WP-teams
June 2013
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RU: Knippenberg, Luuk, dr., de Groot, Wouter, prof., Drenthen, Martin, dr. MU: O’Neill, John, prof., Scott, Michael, dr. UCL:
Dedeurwaerdere, Tom, prof., Popa, Florin, dr.,
dr. Rämer, Heike. UG: Ott, Konrad, prof.,Almut Beringer, dr. UEF:
UEF Määttä, Tapio, dr.,
Hiedanpää, Juha, dr. ZRC-SAZU:: Rado, Riha, prof.,
prof. Troha Tadej, dr., Tomšič, Samo, dr. CIRPA: Carrus, Giuseppe, dr. Marino Bonaiuto,
dr., Mirilia Bonnes, dr.,Fornara, Ferdinando, dr. Maricchiolo, Fridanna, dr. Scopelliti, Massimiliano, dr. LU:: Admiraal,Jeroen, PhD-student.
PhD
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List contributing authors (all BIOMOT teams)
Admiraal, Jeroen
Banerjee, Jit.
Beattie, Geoff
Beringer, Almut
Bonaiuto, Marino
Bonnes, Mirilia
Borgström, Suvi
Born, Riyan van den
Broggiato, Arianna
Carrus, Giuseppe
Cohen, Doron
Dedeurwaerdere, Tom
Drenthen, Martin
Fornara, Ferdinando
Groot, Wouter de
Henshall, Paul
Hiendanpää, Juha
Knippenberg, Luuk
Määttä, Tapio
Maricchiolo, Fridanna
O'Neill, John
Pavčič, Tanja
Popa, Florin
Scopelliti, Massimiliano
Scott, Michael
Smrekar, Aleš
Soethe, Natalie
Stephen, Francis
Suomalainen, Susanna
Tomsic, Samo
Troha, Tadej
Urbanc, Mimi
Warrington, Matthew
Wossink, Ada
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY in the framework of the BIOMOT project
Being an output of the BIOMOT project, this section elaborates on the position of the present
document in that project, responding as well to a number of recommendations voiced in the 18month review of the project. The general reader might prefer to skip this section and move
directly to the next, which is the general Preface.
The recommendations of the review pertained to the previous (September 2012) version of this
document, and concerned:
1. correct title, deliverable number etc.; coherence in tables etc. numbering
2. the use of the report after September 2012 in the project
3. more attention to governance and choices in the actor/structure dichotomy.
The technical requirements (recommendation 1) have been followed up in this version.
Recommendation 3 has resulted in the inclusion of a whole new chapter in the document.
As for the use of the report in the project after 2012, the following connections with the WPs
may be mentioned:
• The enumeration of types of motivation (see Common Frameworks, subsection 5) has
subsequently been discussed and has generated the 20 motivations as enumerated in the
revised 18-month report of the project, Annex 9, and checked for cross-WP
commensurability (Annex 8 of that report). These 20 motivations have subsequently been
transformed into 20 cards used in a sort exercise that is part of all interviews in WP 3, and
have also enriched the structure of the interviews in WPs 1 and 2.
• The literature review on values and motivations as presented here, with subsequent
discussions added and with the 20 motivations as a background check, has generated the
questionnaire items in the web-based survey of WP 3. This structure is such that also parts of
the common framework developed in the present document, e.g. the formula that M=V*C
(motivation = value x connectedness) can be tested.
• The exploration of the centrality of narrative, added to which the eudemonistic values
explored in this document, has led to formation and life stories as the central element in the
interviews of WP 3.
• The insights in governance and the position of actors and intrinsic motivations in collective
biodiversity action has been the foundation for the key structure (extrinsic/intrinsic
motivations; collective action) of the interviews in WP 2.
• The present document has also laid the basis for the critique on TEV and the Q-sort
structure of the interviews in WP 1, focussing on the discourses around formal and
collaborative, possibly more motivating, methods of biodiversity valuation.
• The document has also set the basic course for the multiple perspectives of the analyses of
the empirical material from WPs 1, 2 and 3 in WP 4, e.g. probing for the motivational weight
of de re versus de dicto visions of nature, of eudemonistic narratives, and of concepts that lei inbetween of the clear-cut dichotomies of humans and nature, individual and collective.
• And finally looking at the longer term in the project, the document has strengthened and
deepened many of BIOMOT’s first intuitions on values and motivations for biodiversity in
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various contexts, which is of great importance for later theory building and public messages.
The common framework as developed at present, for instance, even though presently
expressed in quasi-mathematical forms such as M=V*C, is a great conceptual vehicle not only
to be tested with the empirical material generated by the project but also to frame policyoriented theory, arguments and narratives.
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Preface
BIOMOT (Motivations for Biodiversity) is a research project funded by FP7 of the EU. Its aim is
to better understand why people, including governments, may act for nature, e.g. by establishing a
national nature conservation policy, decide to green one’s business, volunteer in an NGO to save
the whales, or work to get a butterfly-friendly corner in the neighbourhood park.
Strange as it may seem, no-one has any systematic knowledge on why people do this. Up to some
ten years ago, people were supposed to act for biodiversity for lofty altruistic reasons (e.g. the
‘intrinsic value’ of nature). At present, we are all supposed to be motivated only by economic
reasons (e.g. the ‘ecosystem services’ of nature). The BIOMOT project is set to generate a more
stable wisdom in this area. Hopefully one day, this will enable societies to be more aware and
more effective in the expression and activation of their own moral foundations to keep nature
with them in the course of their development.
BESAFE is a sister project of BIOMOT, with basically the same aims but with a more directly
practical orientation, focusing on the arguments used for biodiversity conservation. The picture
heading the present document was taken during a joint workshop, one of the subjects of which
was the identification of joint case studies.
BIOMOT explores the foggy lowland that lies between two towers of knowledge on human
motivation. One tower is that of ethics. Philosophers, typically, engage the full diversity of human
capacities, intuitions and reasonings but then - sadly, one could say - construct a tower of
knowledge on why we should act rather than why we do act. The other tower is the one of
rationality, constructed, typically, by economists and social psychologists, with biologists added
when they explain animal behaviour. Characteristic of this tower is its narrow foundation: human
action is supposed to be grounded only in deliberation, in which self-interested reasons hold
central place.
Somewhere in the foggy in-between land lies BIOMOT’s holy grail: a theory of action for
biodiversity that combines the empirical character of the rationality tower with the richness of the
ethics tower.
How to get there? What will be BIOMOT’s method? A few things are certain. (1) A foggy inbetween land requires a broad, flexible, underdefined vehicle to travel. For that reason, BIOMOT
engages a broad range of disciplines, such as philosophy, psychology and economics. (2)
BIOMOT needs help from others who have also set out to travel this land. Freud for instance
surmised that in the end, people are moved more by anxiety than by deliberation. Kahneman, to
take another example, states that people do use a system of deliberation but are moved primarily
by what he calls System 1, which is largely intuitive and partly unconscious. (3) Finally certainly,
BIOMOT has to move slowly. That’s always easy in international projects, the cynic would say,
but for BIOMOT it is necessary. BIOMOT has to take in much of the richness of different
paradigms, avoiding directing itself too early to one attractive light in the fog.
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The present document is the first deliverable of the project, and therewith starts out in a purely
explorative mode, going slow and broad rather than fast and narrow. These chapters serve as the
foundation for the construction of a narrower and more coherent framework that will
subsequently be used to build the protocols for the many interviews planned in the BIOMOT
project. This Framework forms the document's last chapter.
The explorative chapters have a structure (of sorts), aiming to prevent a total loss of the reader’s
way in the fog. We start out with some basic definitions and then move to the economic style of
reasoning on motivation for biodiversity, with ecosystem services central. Next come elements
from the ongoing discussion on the limitations of economic valuation, touching for instance on
the difference between the value of abstract categories and of concrete, named entities. The
longest chapter then goes into the proposals made mainly by psychologists on the deliberative
and broader motivations for human action, examples of which are identity and personal
significance. The follows a shorter contribution from governance science and, titled as ‘patterns
of a theory’, a number of carefree, intuitive exercises trying to define elements of what is finally
integrated into the Framework.
Three Annexes round off the document. They are annexed for the simple reason that they could
as yet not be integrated into the main text. For Annexes 1 and 3, this is only a technical matter.
Annex 2 however represents a harder nut to crack, speaking as it does mainly on the meta-level
of how representations of nature, including BIOMOT’s own, may in fact act as psychological
fantasies and ideological vehicles, serving only to reduce the loneliness of our own selves and
perpetuate the destructive ideology of our societies. The Framework responds to this challenge in
some degree, but more work has to be done to fully integrate it in BIOMOT's work. Fortunately,
we have a Work Package designed to do so.
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Table of contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BIOMOT PROJECT .................. 3
PREFACE ......................................................................................................................................... 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................. 7
1. BIODIVERSITY, NATURAL CAPITAL AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ............................. 10
BIODIVERSITY ................................................................................................................................. 10
NATURAL CAPITAL........................................................................................................................... 11
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ..................................................................................................................... 12
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND BIODIVERSITY............................................................................................................13
2. ECONOMIC CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES TO BIODIVERSITY VALUATION......... 15
ECONOMIC VALUATION OF BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEMS ........................................................ 15
THRESHOLD EFFECTS IN ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING .........................................................................................15
TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUE (TEV) ................................................................................................... 17
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES WITH VALUING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ....................................................................21
TEEB (THE ECONOMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY) ................................................... 22
3. CRITIQUE AND LIMITS TO ECONOMIC VALUATION.................................................... 24
ETHICAL LIMITS OF MONETARY VALUATION .................................................................................. 26
MONETARY VALUATION AND VALUE COMMENSURABILITY............................................................ 30
DE RE/DE DICTO VALUE ................................................................................................................. 32
HISTORICAL OR PROCESS-BASED VIEWS ON VALUES AND VALUING................................................ 33
VALUE, MONEY AND RECIPROCITY (SIMMEL’S ONTOLOGICAL RELATIONISM) .............................................37
4. DRIVERS & EXPLANATIONS OF MOTIVATION FOR BIODIVERSITY ACTION......... 39
A. TYPES OF MOTIVATIONS ............................................................................................................. 39
QUEST FOR PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE....................................................................................................................40
B. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOUR...................................................................................................... 44
1. INTENTIONAL AND REASONED ACTION ............................................................................................................44
2. HABITS AND AUTOMATICITY ................................................................................................................................44
C. IDENTITY-BASED MOTIVATIONS (SOCIAL AND LOCAL IDENTIFICATION) .................................. 49
LOCAL IDENTITY AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ......................................................................................49
D. PERSONAL ETHICS AND VALUES ................................................................................................. 51
APPRECIATION OF DIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABLE ORIENTATIONS ..................................................................51
BIOPHILIA.....................................................................................................................................................................52
E. WORLDVIEWS AND BELIEF SYSTEMS .......................................................................................... 54
THE VALUE-BELIEF-NORM THEORY OF PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOUR..............................................54
F. SOCIAL NORMS ............................................................................................................................ 57
SOCIAL NORMS AND IDENTITY ...............................................................................................................................58
SOCIAL NORMS AND (ENVIRONMENTAL) BEHAVIOUR ........................................................................................59
RECIPROCITY & SOCIAL NORMS ...............................................................................................................................59
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TRUST & RECIPROCITY...............................................................................................................................................61
INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ....................................................................................................................62
G. STORIES....................................................................................................................................... 62
SIGNIFICANT LIFE EXPERIENCES (SLE) ................................................................................................................62
H. COLLECTIVE ACTION AND SANCTIONS ...................................................................................... 63
IDENTITY & COLLECTIVE ACTION..........................................................................................................................65
CROWDING OUT..........................................................................................................................................................68
I. LEADERSHIP AND EMPOWERMENT ............................................................................................. 69
EMPOWERMENT ..........................................................................................................................................................70
5. SYSTEMS AND INSTITUTIONS ............................................................................................. 72
INSTITUTIONS (FORMAL/INFORMAL) ............................................................................................. 73
INSTITUTIONS AND ADAPTATION ...........................................................................................................................74
LEGITIMACY .................................................................................................................................... 74
6. STRUCTURE.............................................................................................................................. 76
GIDDENS ON STRUCTURE AND AGENCY.......................................................................................... 77
BOURDIEU ON HABITUS, CAPITALS AND FIELDS ............................................................................. 78
7. GOVERNANCE ......................................................................................................................... 80
THE COLLECTIVE ACTION MODEL .................................................................................................. 81
NETWORK GOVERNANCE MODELS .................................................................................................. 82
BIOMOT: INTERPRETIVE APPROACH AND COLLECTIVE ACTION.................................................. 85
8. PRACTICES AS STRUCTURES VERSUS CHOICES AS PRACTICES.................................. 87
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................... 87
PRACTICES ....................................................................................................................................... 87
PRACTICES AS THE FLOW OF LIFE ............................................................................................................................88
9. TRANSITION MANAGEMENT .............................................................................................. 89
10. STEPS TOWARDS A COMMON FRAMEWORK .................................................................. 91
PATTERNS OF A THEORY OF MOTIVATION FOR NATURE - I .......................................................... 91
PATTERNS OF A THEORY OF MOTIVATION FOR NATURE - II ........................................................ 91
PATTERNS OF A THEORY OF MOTIVATION FOR NATURE - III ....................................................... 93
PATTERNS OF A THEORY OF MOTIVATION FOR NATURE - IV ....................................................... 94
PATTERNS OF A THEORY OF MOTIVATION FOR NATURE - V ......................................................... 94
11. COMMON FRAMEWORK BIOMOT...................................................................................... 96
1. BASIC STRUCTURE ........................................................................................................................ 96
2. SOME FURTHER ELABORATION ................................................................................................... 96
3. AN ELABORATION OF FORMATION ............................................................................................. 98
4. AN ELABORATION OF MOTIVATIONS .......................................................................................... 98
5. CLASSIFICATION OF MOTIVATIONS FOR BIOMOT ................................................................... 100
APPENDIX 1 - SOME PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON SOME CONCEPTS............101
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APPENDIX 2 - SOME FIRST EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL COMMENTS IN THE
MARGE ......................................................................................................................................... 103
A) REPRESENTATIONS OF NATURE ............................................................................................... 103
B) NATURE AS AN OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY
...................................................................................... 106
C) DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................ 107
SUMMARY AND FURTHER FRAMING .............................................................................................. 109
APPENDIX 3 - DUTY, BEAUTY & DELIGHT.......................................................................... 111
REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................113
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1. Biodiversity, natural capital and
ecosystem services
Biodiversity
There are many possible definitions of biodiversity. We will use the below mentioned one, for the
time being as working definition.
The variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other
aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within
species, between species and of ecosystems’. Definition by the Parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD).
The key attribute in this definition is variability on different levels between biological entities (1)
within species; (2) between species; (3) of ecosystems; (4) biodiversity as cause and consequence.
Biodiversity is variously defined as diversity of species, living resources of the planet, total
number of genetic lineages, array of organisms, biologically mediated processes and organically
derived structures out there on the globe. It refers variously to genes, to species and/or to
ecosystems and landscapes, i.e. biodiversity is conceptually understood on three spatial levels. At
times, populations are also included as a fourth aspect.
One problematic issue is that none of these four conceptualizations addresses individual
specimen. This is especially critical for environmental ethics, as the ethical argument for the
protection of biodiversity / nature frequently begins with the individual specimen – in the notion
of ‘intrinsic value’ (Ott 2007).
A second problematic issue is the notion of ‘variability.’ The CBD definition clearly articulates
“variability” as the essence of biodiversity. Yet what does this imply for practice? What are the
practical implications if ‘variability’ is the focus and goal of biodiversity protection?
Furthermore, analysis of the use of the term biodiversity shows that it alludes to descriptive and
prescriptive aspects (Takacs 1996 in Ott 2007). It is a constructed hybrid term
[wissenschaftsphilosophisches Hybridkonzept]. Takacs (1996 in Ott 2007) shows a
comprehensive development of the ‘biodiversity discourse’. He shows that ‘biodiversity’ was not
created for scientific, but for political considerations. The biodiversity concept includes various
guidelines for nature protection and allows for a broad coalition of supporters. Dissents can be
moved inwards and so become invisible to the public. The integrative function of the concept
should be recognized. It could be a paradigmatic example for a practical-political convergence.
The term ‘biodiversity’ stands for a comprehensive and integrative concept for nature protection
(Blab & Klein 1997 in Ott 2007). Whenever the term is used, its non-scientific, political aspects
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need to be kept in mind. It is an integrative concept for a practice that can unite stakeholders
with various, possibly competing interests. As such, it has motivational power.
Natural capital
The two concepts of ‘biodiversity’ and ‘nature’ are in practice often equated. There are, however,
important differences between the two. Biodiversity refers to living nature, it is a description of a
characteristic of living nature, but it is not a synonym of living nature itself. ‘Nature’ is a more
comprehensive concept that can include or refer to non-living elements, such as weather,
mountains and landscape in general.
Biodiversity is clearly not a synonym for biological resources. It is important to distinguish
between the two concepts, certainly for policy-making, and it makes clear why it is so important
to preserve diversity, instead of only resources. Biodiversity is seen as a characteristic of nature,
and the genes, species and ecosystems encountered in nature are a reflection of biodiversity.
As Wood (1997) argues, the genes, species and ecosystems are biological resources for humanity,
and biodiversity is both the source of these resources and an emergent property of them.
Moreover, it is an essential precondition for their long-term maintenance. Wood stresses the idea
that diversity itself has different values than resources have. He lists three values of biodiversity
(for humans). These are, in order of importance:
1. Biodiversity supplies humanity with biological resources.
2. Biodiversity facilitates adaptation and evolution, leading to a broader range of biological
resources.
3. Biodiversity augments itself in positive feedback cycles (a contested, but according to
recent research rather plausible hypothesis).
Biodiversity refers specifically to diversity amongst life forms. One can distinguish different
levels of diversity: genetic, species, habitats, and ecosystems. One can also distinguish different
kinds of diversity:
1. numerical diversity, e.g., the number of species;
2. dimensional diversity - the degree of separation, or distinction;
3. material diversity - difference in the substances and structural properties;
4. relational diversity, e.g., differences in the kinds of interactions that obtain between
organisms, such as those between predator and prey, parasite and host; and
5. causal diversity - differences in the way in which things have come into existence and
evolutionary process to which they are subject;
6. functional diversity - the diversity of species traits present in an ecosystem.
Functional diversity
Functional diversity is the diversity of species traits present in an ecosystem. During the last
decade, a consensus has been reached between ecologists that the provision of ecosystem
services is impacted not so much by species diversity in an ecosystem, but by the functional diversity
in an ecosystem. Functional diversity groups species or even individual organisms by the traits
they exhibit into functional groups, and provision is impacted by the diversity of functional
groups. A greater variety of functional groups will lead to a greater utility of resources in the
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ecosystem, and so potentially a greater services provision (Cadotte 2011). Functional diversity is a
more inclusive concept than species diversity in categorizing the effects of organisms on biogeochemical processes in ecosystems. Consequences re: conservation: conserve functional
diversity vs species diversity.
A species trait is defined as any feature of an organism that potentially affects performance or
fitness, and this trait can be physical, biochemical, behavioural or temporal (Cadotte 2011). The
argument goes that the identity, abundance and range of species traits in an ecosystem dictate the
functioning of that ecosystem and hence the provision of ecosystem services. Consequences:
preserve traits vs species. Questions: do humans have the obligation to preserve functional
diversity and species traits?
Ecosystem services
Colloquially, ecosystem services are the benefits that humans derive from nature. The term has
gained currency because it conveys the idea that ecosystems are socially valuable and in ways that
are not immediately intuited (Daily, 1997). Crucial is that ecosystem services and benefits are not
identical – ecosystem services are ecological phenomena and not the benefits obtained from
ecosystems as such. Services only generate benefits in a situation of need, significance, request or
demand (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007). These services do not have to be directly utilized and in fact
many are intermediate and contribute to multiple final services.
For a further understanding of their characteristics and functioning, ecosystem services are
commonly differentiated using the following categorization proposed by the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005):
1. Provisioning services—ecosystem services that combine with built, human, and social
capital to produce food, timber, fiber, or other “provisioning” benefits. For example, fish
delivered to people as food require fishing boats (built capital), fisherfolk (human
capital), and fishing communities (social capital) to produce.
2. Regulating services—services that regulate different aspects of the integrated system.
These are services that combine with the other three capitals to produce flood control,
storm protection, water regulation, human disease regulation, water purification, air
quality maintenance, pollination, pest control, and climate control. For example, the
storm protection services of coastal wetlands require the wetlands and the built
infrastructure, people, and communities to be protected. These services are generally not
marketed but have clear value to society.
3. Cultural services—ecosystem services that combine with built, human, and social capital
to produce recreation, aesthetic, scientific, cultural identity, or other “cultural” benefits.
For example, to produce a recreational benefit requires a beautiful natural asset (a lake), in
combination with built infrastructure (a road, trail, dock, and so on), human capital
(people able to appreciate the lake experience), and social capital (family, friends, and
institutions that make the lake accessible and safe).
4. Supporting “services”—services that maintain basic ecosystem processes and functions
such as soil formation, carbon fixation, and habitat for animals. These services are
“necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services” (MEA 2003, p. 78). Those
services affect human well-being indirectly by maintaining processes necessary for
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provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. They also refer to the ecosystem services
that have not yet been combined with built, human, and social capital to produce human
benefits but nevertheless underlie these benefits. For example, net primary production is
an ecosystem function that supports carbon sequestration and removal from the
atmosphere, which combines with built, human, and social capital to provide the benefit
of climate regulation. Some would argue that these “supporting” services should rightly
be defined as ecosystem “functions”, since they may not yet have interacted with the
other three forms of capital to create benefits. We agree with this in principle, but
recognize that supporting services/functions may sometimes be used as proxies for
services in the other categories, such as when the benefits cannot be easily measured
directly.
Note the distinction between (a) final ecosystem services, i.e. provision of goods or values to
humans, regulating and cultural services, and (b) underpinning (MEA: supporting) services, i.e.
ecological and environmental processes within ecosystems. In economic valuation and in
management the focus often is on A at the cost of B. If the question is what is the value of an
ecosystem (to humans) this would be correct as including the supporting services would lead to
double counting. However once this assessment of the value of the final services has been made
the supporting services should take center stage in management in order to maintain the
ecosystems.
Ecosystem services and biodiversity
With a multi-layered relationship approach Mace et al. (2012) propose a scheme that takes into
account the complex interactions of biotic and abiotic ecosystem components:
(i) Biodiversity as a regulator of ecosystem processes: biodiversity is a factor controlling the ecosystem
processes that underpin ecosystem services. For example, the dynamics of many soil nutrient
cycles are determined by the composition of biological communities in the soil.
Biodiversity as a regulator manifests itself through functional diversity and ecosystem
functioning. Ecosystem functioning: the mechanistic links between organisms and the
productivity of biogeochemical processes. Ecosystem functioning manifests itself through the
traits of the organisms present. The relation between functional diversity and species diversity,
however, is still not very well understood (Hooper et al. 2005). A study of enzyme activities and
bacterial communities in soils samples conducted by Frossard et al. (2012) demonstrate, that
communities and their functions can be disconnected in specific contexts.
Further limits of the regulating role of biodiversity on ecosystem processes are listed in Bullock et
al. (2011), e.g.:
• The increase in ecosystem processes often reaches a plateau at moderate species numbers;
• Rare species frequently targeted by conservation efforts often have minor effects on
ecosystem processes, whereas more common species can have a dominant role;
• Studies examining how the variation of ecosystems across landscapes affects service delivery
are only now beginning.
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Hooper et al. (2005) give a very comprehensive overview about the current knowledge
concerning the role of biodiversity as a regulator of ecosystem processes.
(ii) Biodiversity as a final ecosystem service: biological diversity at the level of genes and species
contributes directly to some goods and their values. For example,the potential value of wild
medicines. Biodiversity can be a potential source of health and well-being for human beings.
Recent studies (see Scopelliti et al., in press) suggest that the level of biodiversity impacts
psychological restoration, that is the recovery of cognitive resources and stress levels.
(iii) Biodiversity as a good: here, biodiversity itself is the object valued by humans and this role of
biodiversity therefore resembles the conservation perspective outlined
above. Many components of biodiversity have cultural value, including appreciation of wildlife
and scenic places and spiritual, educational, religious and recreational values. Humans value
places with a diversity of species, especially the more charismatic animals and plants, and
retaining a full complement of wild species is important to many. Therefore, biodiversity is a
good in itself with a distinct value.
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2. Economic concepts and approaches to biodiversity
valuation
Economic valuation of biodiversity and ecosystems
Economics as a profession has had some difficulty articulating why biodiversity loss matters and
in finding tools that allow to address this in a satisfying way. The problem is with linking
economic modelling of human behaviour to natural systems. There are two main reasons for this.
First, all the descriptions of phenomena that fall within the domain of biodiversity involve well
defined spatial and temporal scales. In contrast, most economic models, whether static or
dynamic, do not have meaningful spatial dimensions (Fujita et al., 1999). Second, economic
models treat temporal effects in a fundamentally different way from what the biological science
envisions. Economic models are based on dynamic optimization of people responding to
constraints or changing preferences. As a result economic models imply forward-looking
behaviour, which is generally incompatible with the perspective for human behaviour in natural
science systems models.
As highlighted by Heal (2007), this state of affairs changed with the introduction of the
environment as natural capital in keeping with what happened in other areas of economics where
alternative form of capital became important (viz. human capital, social capital and intellectual
capital). This natural capital has a biotic and abiotic component that when interacting — possibly
together with built, human and social capital — provides services to humans (ecosystem
services). This vision of ecosystem services and associated natural capital has been very important
as it allows bearing on the economics of the natural environment a set of techniques from
mainstream economics. It enables changes in biodiversity and final ecosystem services to be be
evaluated in a way consistent with usual benefit-cost analysis in economics. The associated
approach of Total Economic Value (TEV) has become popular in valuation economics.
For ecosystem valuation to be meaningful for a policy perspective, Turner (2010) has listed five
considerations that are seen as critical by economists. These are:
(i) spatial explicitness,
(ii) use of marginal values and macro-values,
(iii) preventing double-counting,
(iv) nonlinearity in service provision and
(v) threshold effects in ecosystem functioning.
Threshold effects in ecosystem functioning
Valuing ecosystem services through Total Economic Value implies valuing marginal changes in
ecosystems. Valuing marginal changes in ecosystems is problematic because erratic, unforeseen
changes occur in ecosystems that are pressured by exploitation of ecosystem services.
Ecosystems exist in basins of attraction in which the system (the variety and abundance of
organisms and the energy and nutrient flows) exists in an equilibrium over time. In shorter time
spans, biological systems can have seasonal changes, and the structure of the system also depends
on the generation times of the species present, but can remain resilient to change over longer
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time spans. Exploitation of an ecosystem can cause a sudden regime shift, in which the
ecosystem itself changes to another basin of attraction, in effect to another ecosystem. The
threshold, or Safe Minimum Standard (Fisher, 2008) after which a regime shift occurs is hard to
predict because of the existence of feedback loops in ecosystems. Feedback on pressure on an
ecosystem is in many cases not instantaneous, but works through the seasons and generations of
organisms, even after the pressure on the ecosystem has been reduced. Thus an ecosystem can
approach and go through an unexpected regime shift.
Fig. An economic framework for ecosystem service provision (Fisher, 2008). DES(M) = marketed benefits, DES(MNM) =
marketed plus non-marketed benefits, SMS = safe minimum standard of ecological structure before collapse.
Scale problems
Another problem in using marginality for ecosystem services is spatial scale. To do a Total
Economic Valuation of an ecosystem, the scale over which the marginal change is calculated
needs to be set. Ecosystem services work from local to global scales, and ecological elements
such as habitats differ in size, from the minuscule to the continental. The elements of ecosystems
responsible for ecosystem services likely differ for each ecosystem service, and policy decisions
too can differ in spatial scales they affect.
As indicated by Costanza (1997), large-scale estimations are limited in their spatial explicitness.
Global valuations are extrapolations of value from point estimates, while ecosystem services have
a spatial heterogeneity. There is no one-on-one connection between ecosystem functioning and
ecosystem services (Raudsepp-Hearne 2009). Thus the value of a certain biome, defined by the
ecosystem services it provides, differs per location and requires location-specific management.
According to Turner (2010), any model of ecosystem services appropriate for policy decisions
requires a contextual analysis of the biophysical structure of the ecosystem service and local
economic, political and cultural parameters. Global estimations lack this analysis, and suggest the
same level of conservation effort for every aspect of ecosystems (Toman, 1998). According to
Toman (1998), an aggregation of local estimates into a larger estimate does not motivate
policymakers, because the larger estimate does not discriminate the directions of change in
ecosystem services and their relative importance. Such estimations are “not linked to any
17
particular values experienced by particular people in a particular place and at a particular time”,
and therefore failing to raise awareness for the value of ecosystem services. Marginal values and
higher spatial scales
Arriving at aggregate marginal values by scaling up the economic effects of local changes in
ecosystem services involves another conceptual problem. When on a local scale calculating the
changes in value of an ecosystem service as a result of small changes in an ecosystem, the
assumption is made that other aspects of the world remain unchanged. Subsequently scaling up
the marginal costs of changes, presupposes that ecosystem services can be seen as discrete units
similar to private goods, and adding their compensation measures together leads to a correct
compensation cost for their losses. But in moving to a greater scale, relationships between
ecosystems come in play, where some ecosystems can either complement or substitute each other
in ecosystem services, or biological or chemical feedback cycles between ecosystems must be
taken into account (Bockstael, 2000).
Total Economic Value (TEV)
TEV is the total net value (all benefits minus costs) derived from a marginal change in ecosystem
conditions (loss or protection). In this approach, the benefits that people obtain from nature are
monetized in expressions of value. For valuing marginal changes in nature, all expressions of
value associated with the marginal change are taken into account, including use values and nonuse values, hence the name Total Economic Value.
The TEV distinguishes between use and non-use values to show that there is an additional value
of biodiversity apart from direct and indirect use. While the use values correspond to the
traditional economic concept of benefits, the non-use components are driven by ethical
considerations. Use values are placed on natural goods that are either consumed directly
(harvesting, recreation) or used indirectly derived from ecological functions, like flood control or
as an input in production (regulating services provided by wetlands for example). Non-use or
passive values refer to the existence of a value even though individuals do not intend to use the
resource but feel a ‘loss’ if it would disappear.
This was first introduced by Krutilla (Krutilla, 1967). Non-use values are determined by: (a) the
value of keeping a resource intact for one’s descendants (bequest value); (b) the fact that people
derive benefits from the mere knowledge about the existence and assured survival of habitats or
species (existence value). Between use and non-use we have the option value, the value of the
future information or the resource itself will offer but is that presently unknown. This value will
become a use value in the future, e.g. new drugs or crops based on the genetic information of
wild species. For biodiversity conservation the option value is probably of most concern in the
public and policy discussion.
Figure: Definition of Total Economic Value
18
Source: Bräuer (2003).
TEV is calculated by measuring
ing the change in flow of ecosystem services from nature to society
(Q1.., Q2, …, Qn) associated with a marginal change in the ecosystem conditions and attaching a
value to it (P1xQ1, P2xQ2, …, PnxQn). The focus here is necessarily with the final ecosystem
ecosyste
services as mentioned above as including the supporting services would lead to double counting.
See Figure X. Another important characteristic is that the value of a specific final ecosystem
service is contingent on particular human activities or wants.Thus
wants.Thus services are benefit specific and
spatially explicit (they cannot be transported from one location to another). If there are no
“takers” of the final service at a specific location it has no value.
Figure X Ecosystem services and economic benefits
benefit of a water body
Benefit
— Angling +other
recreation
— Commercial
fisheries
— Drinking water
Final service
—
—
—
—
River space
Fish population
Stream banks
Quantity & quality of
water
Intermediate component
(Supporting service)
Water bodyy and its processes
Source: Adapted from Boyd and Banzhaf (2007).
Using Total Economic Value to measure the value of ecosystems for humans can only be done in
the way of valuing marginal change, for the total value of ecosystem existence is infinite
(Bockstael
Bockstael et al., 2000). We cannot live without it. However, the connectivity and complexity that
gives ecosystems its resilience, makes even the valuation of marginal changes a daunting task.
Also, the different pathways and connections between biotic and abiotic elements in an
ecosystem often constitute non-convex
non convex sets of elements, which is problematic for the economic
price mechanism (Dasgupta 2003; Brown et al., 2011).
Thus, despite its formal simplicity, the TEV computation process is difficult and economists
ec
are
well aware of the limitations (Vatn and Bromley, 1994). On the other hand there is also a more
pragmatic view:
19
“ So, although ecosystem valuation is certainly difficult and fraught with uncertainties, one choice we do not
have is whether or not to do it. The decisions we make as a society about ecosystems imply valuations
(although not necessarily expressed in monetary terms)”. (Robert Costanza et al., Nature, 1997, p.
255)
The quote above highlights that the central problem in economics is with the allocation of scarce
resources in such a way as to get the greatest possible ‘net social benefit’ from these resources.
This includes public goods such as biodiversity and ecosystem services. What distinguishes
economists from others who think about social objectives is that they find it necessary to
consider trade-offs among the items that make up social benefit and assign a value to them. Even
when these items are very different the economist’s position is that a decision needs to be made
because resources (including natural resources) are limited and the issue of evaluation trade-offs
cannot be ducked. Thus in economics a value is relative, economists do not have a concept of
absolute or intrinsic value.
It is assumed that individuals are able to aggregate and compare the items, c1, c2, cn, that affect
their well-being and that the result of this can be captured in a utility function, U(c1,c2,cn). When
combined with the limit on the available resources the ‘rational’ consumer (either individually or
in the aggregate) will optimize the allocation of the resources by equating any pair of marginal
preferences to the corresponding price ratio. This leads to the marginal rate of substitution
between any pair of goods to be equal to the price ratio (∂U/∂ci)/(∂U/∂cj)= pi/pj . Thus in market
equilibrium, marginal relative preferences for goods are revealed and consumers are induced to
have a common relative preference that is equal to the equilibrium price.
In economics the main purpose of the derivation of relative preferences is to inform policy
decisions. It forms the basis of benefit costs analysis. In this way we know which goods are worth
further providing – marginal social benefits greater than marginal social costs - and which are not
– marginal social benefits less than marginal social costs.
The figure below applies this for biodiversity conservation.
20
The larger part of the literature in the field of the environmental policy analysis is dedicated to
the development and application of methods to enable the application of the principles above to
public environmental goods (such as biodiversity and many ecosystem services). In dealing with
biodiversity we, however, cannot rely on market prices. These are either unavailable or unreliable
indicators of social value, because they fail to capture all effects of biodiversity use.
Environmental economists have therefore developed methods to reveal values to incorporate
these external effects. Typically this involves analysing behaviour on related private goods
markets (e.g., replacement cost, hedonics, travel costs). If everything fails economist turn to
conducting surveys in which people are presented with a hypothetical situation of a change in a
public good and asked how much this is worth to them (contingent valuation). The figure below,
taken from Spangenberg & Settele (2010), shows the broadness of the possible economic
approaches to assess elements of TEV.
21
Practical experiences with valuing ecosystem services
Concepts and methods to define and value ecosystems services have progressed considerably in
the last two decades, certainly since the publication of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment in
2005, but there still are huge gaps to be filled (MA, 2005; Salles, 2011). The discussion above
emphasises the strength of the economic approach as well as its weaknesses. Whereas by now
there is almost complete consensus about the fact that ecosystems supply four different types of
services: provisional (f.i. timber), regulating (f.i flooding), cultural (f.i. recreation) and supporting
(f.i. pollination) there is, less unanimity about the way to value these services (instrumental,
eudaimonistic, moral) and even less about the ways these services are interlinked and influence
each other, or about the question whether and how we should take issues of scale, time, locality,
socialization and identity into account.
Economic assessment was from the start on the central notion in the idea of ecosystem services.
Proponents of this approach defend this on the grounds that the whole idea of ecosystem
services is “intrinsically anthropocentric” (Fisher, 2008, p. 2051), and the fact that “ecosystem
services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (MA, 2005), or more
precisely as “the aspects of ecosystems utilized (actively or passively) to produce human wellbeing... intermediate and final services and benefits... [and the fact that] economics is essentially
the study of how humanity provides for itself” (Fisher, 2008, p. 2051-2052). The same
proponents often link ecosystem services to human welfare, to use their own words via “simple
supply-and-demand relationship” (Fisher, 2008, p. 2052), although surrounded by some cautions.
“Since political decisions often happen at the margin (i.e what to do with the next unit?), and
cost-benefit analysis drives many resource decisions, marginal analysis and safe minimum
22
standards are crucial”, and attention should be paid to demand (Willingness to Pay) for
nonmarket services (Fisher, 2008, p. 2064).
With this in mind, Turner et al. (2008) reviewed 34 case studies where the ecosystem service
concept and economic valuation actually was used to support policy decisions. The main
conclusion from their survey is that in practice multiple ecosystem services are considered but
that marginality is not a requisite. Very often the analysis was in fact a snapshot of ecosystem
service delivery at a moment in time and marginal changes were rarely discussed. This suggests a
focus on aggregated total rather than marginal total benefits in practice.
In addition, these evaluations do not always properly include interactions between ecosystem
goods and services and the economic system (Batabyal et al., 2003) and face the problem that for
unfamiliar goods and services preferences may be unstable (Bateman et al., 2011). These issues
are particularly germane to cases involving biodiversity and services which are of concern to
policy makers but have no direct consumer appeal due to their unfamiliarity (Johnston and
Russell, 2011). A further specific concern is that economic valuation of the non-use value
necessarily has to rely on WTP calculated from the stated preferences of a sample of respondents
but that these assessments are unlikely to give a full picture:
“ ...application of conventional valuation methods to the problem often produces an incomplete set of
disconnected values for a subset of ecosystem services and this can lead to a dramatic underestimate of the
benefits of ecosystem protection” (Bockstael et al., 2000, p.1384).
As a result it is often unclear whether the estimates reflect actual value. For those reasons values
as estimated through demand side analysis tend to remain controversial when presented as a
sound basis for making decisions. In addition, valuation is not necessary for establishing the
correct incentives; and it are the incentives that are critical for conservation (Heal, 2000).
TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity)
The TEEB initiative was launched in 2007 by Germany and the European Commission, to study
on a global scale the economics of biodiversity loss, using the perspective of ecosystem services.
“TEEB calls for a change to the current economic paradigm; at the same time it acknowledges
the persuasive power of economic reasoning in contemporary societies... We know that
biodiversity plays a key role in ecosystem functioning, but many questions remain unanswered”
(Ring, 2010, p. 15-16; see also Patrick Ten Brink, 2011).
TEEB aims at drawing attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity and highlighting
the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. TEEB does not seek to
develop new methods and techniques. It draws together expertise from the fields of
environmental science, economics and policy to facilitate progress in practical arenas.
1. Almost all the benefits that people derive from ecosystems depend to some extent on
biodiversity, but its precise role is variable and often context-dependent.
2. Functioning ecosystems provide multiple services and these interact in complex ways.
Different services are interlinked or ‘bundled’ together, and are therefore affected
negatively or positively as one service such as food production changes.
23
3. There is an urgent need to deepen our scientific knowledge about these trade-offs,
particularly those between regulating and provisioning services.
4. Other trade-offs might be handled more readily using methods of valuation and decision
making among stakeholders, such as temporal, spatial and inter-personal trade-offs.
Neglecting nature’s values in economic analyses and political decision making is closely related to
three trade-offs: between services, temporal and spatial. In economics, temporal trade- offs are
usually addressed by discounting future costs and benefits. The longer the period, the stronger
the impulse is to go for the short term, and forget long term benefits and certainly costs. One
could however seriously doubt the possibility and acceptability of discounting biodiversity loss
and the loss of vital ecosystem functions, certainly if these losses are irreversible. Spatial tradeoffs: the costs of conserving ecosystems and biodiversity fall mostly on local land users and
communities, whereas the beneficiaries of conservation are found not only at local levels.
24
3. Critique and limits to economic valuation
Spangenberg & Settele (2010), showed the broadness of the possible economic approaches and
the difficulties in reconciling them. They also underlined that ecosystem service valuation:
● is incapable of supporting multi –objective approaches because TEV means one total
value has to result
● often covers only what is currently demanded,
● takes the prices estimated for ecosystem services to be the value of the ecosystem;
● represents the current knowledge and preferences,
● is bound to change over time and from place to place, society to society, even locality to
locality, and from stakeholder to stakeholder;
● uses highly different (although all economic) methods resulting in highly different
research angles and different findings for one and the same object under analysis.
These insights force the authors to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the objective
measurement of the value of an ecosystem and its services, and certainly not of the economic
value. They suggest, building on ideas already advocated by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993), to use
other methods, in the first place a so-called “horizontal MCA (Multi Criteria Analysis) that takes
into account the diversity of stakeholders value system”, not to reach an optimal solution, but to
create a level playing field for information and decision-making, by generating a discourse that
takes economic criteria into account without granting them primacy (Spangenberg, 2010, p. 334,
Ott & Döring 2004).
Their call to pay more attention to MCA and discourse-based methods is endorsed by highprofile authors, such as Costanza and Farber (Liu, 2010), although these last authors also still
seem to uphold the idea that “monetization is simply a convenient means of expressing the
relative values that society places on different ecosystem services”... [in order] “to simply create a
setting whereby the disparate services provided by ecosystems are able to be compared to each
other using a common metric”(Liu, 2010, p. 69).
They plead for “monetary valuation, as a decision aid to help make trade-offs more explicit”,
while recognizing that there are limits. “Expanding ESV [Eco Service Valuation] towards
sustainability and fairness goals (on top of the traditional efficiency goal) will help to expand the
boundaries of those limits”... “facilitate public participation and collaborative decision making,
and allow consideration of multiple attributes”. But this “does not eliminate the need to assess
trade-offs” (Liu, 2010, p. 70).
This line of approach is also embraced in above-mentioned TEEB initiative “Neglecting nature’ s
values in economic analyses and political decision-making is in fact closely related to three tradeoffs. The “fundamental aim of economic valuation of ecosystem services ... is to express the
effect of a marginal change in ecosystem services provision in terms of rate of trade-offs against
other things people value” (Ring, 2010, p. 19)....”If we succeed in making explicit the inherent
values of biodiversity and ecosystem services, this will contribute towards increasing awareness
25
and avoiding the loss of biodiversity and the deterioration of ecosystem services” (Ring, 2010, p.
21).
Kumar and Kumar (2008), already cited in the article of Spangenberg en Settele (2010), support
many of the above mentioned TEEB insights, but question, as did Spangenberg and Settele, the
possibility to effectively weigh those trade-offs by means of economic tools, and even more so
the basic assumption built into the TEEB approach to not only acknowledge the existence of
ecosystem services but also try to value those ecosystem services where possible, because of the
motivational effects of doing so.
They acknowledge that, “while ecosystem valuation is difficult, it has become essential for the
decision makers who face the trade offs among different functions of ecosystems on the one
hand and the competing demand on the resources at their disposal on the other” (Kumar, 2008,
p. 810). They try to fill these supposed lacunae in the valuation of ecosystem services by bringing
in a psycho-cultural perspective. “There are plenty of research findings on how people do not
calculate the utility of ecosystem services in an economically rational way. Instead people make
statements about their personal and collective values... Therefore, processes such as reciprocity,
relational, ecological identity, etc. will also have to be considered” (Kumar, 2008, p. 813).
They even suggest that economic valuation of ecosystem services can have the tendency to
become “ a normative process in which people are de-linked and estranged from the
commonsensical and local ways of interacting with the natural environment” (813). They refer
with approval to the studies of Kahneman et al. which show over and over how big the gap is
between homo economicus and real man, and that rationality, unambiguity and simplicity are the
exception not the rule, if we look at cognition and decision making, certainly at the individual
level (see also Kahneman, 2011).
Kumar and Kumar plead for the introduction of relational and reciprocal methodologies of
ecosystem services, next to the existing economy based evaluations. (Kumar, 814-817). And they
convincingly argue, following Zavestoski (2004) that if environmental problems are seen as part
of social organisation, pro-environmental behaviour is only possible is there is individual and
collective ecological identity. And that identity will only emerge if we “can interact socially with
aspects of the natural world”; if there is a certain amount of “identification with nature” (Kumar,
2008, p. 817).
Sharp criticism on the excessive focus on economic valuation within the ecosystem services
approach, is recently also given by authors as Norgaard (2010), Cornell (2010, 2011), or Spash
and Vatn (2006). However they also point out that demand for economic valuations of ecosystem
services is growing fast and already outstripping supply.
Norgaard warns that the step from value as a metaphor to economic pricing as key valuation
method leads to a neglect of other ways of understanding ecosystems developed in ecosystem
science, and thus obscures current and potential future knowledge. “Today's ecology does not
have the predictive capacity to identify the sustainable use of any particular ecosystem service, to
describe the trade-offs between uses of ecosystem services,” (Norgaard, 2010).
26
According to Cornell the answer is not to “increase the number of monetary valuations, but to
look for values that represent social and moral commitments of “ a non-consequentialist and
non-utilitarian kind, and the context within which these values arise” ...“We need to “think
through ecosystem services projects form multiple perspectives.... needed is a focus on
reconfiguring human-environment interactions for sustainability in the context of a
anthropogenic global change: transformation, rather than optimisation of the economy ”
(Cornell, 2011, p. 93-94; see also Spangenberg, 2010).
(Environmental) Scientists these days use the economic terminology, talk about services,
productivity, (natural) capital stocks, efficiency, etc., in order to get their science-based messages
across to decision makers. More often than not, when talking about the value of ecosystems and
their services, they understand this as a metaphor, usable to communicate science-based insights.
Kosoy and Corbera (2010) point to the loss of holistic understanding of ecosystems enforced by
the definition of discrete services. On the other side, however, economists such as Pavan
Sukhdev, coordinator of the TEEB report, the international study assessing the value of
biodiversity, consider valuation a key means for conserving biodiversity. In the introduction to
the interim report he claims that the ‘‘lack of valuation is, we are discovering, an underlying cause
for the observed degradation of ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity.’’
Like many other economists he is convinced that valuation can make ‘‘a comprehensive and
compelling economic case for conservation’’ (European Commission, 2008, p. 4). Here value is
no longer a metaphor but has been turned into an economic figure, on par with other value, price
and cost calculations.
Ethical limits of monetary valuation
There are important questions to be raised about the degree to which monetary valuation can
capture ethical concerns for non-human nature and future generations. One common framing of
this question is whether monetary valuation is able to capture the intrinsic value of non-human
nature and non-human beings. Specifically the question might be asked whether biodiversity has
intrinsic value and if so where it can be captured in monetary valuation.
27
The term intrinsic value is used in a number of distinct senses (O’Neill, 1992):
(1) In its basic sense the concept of ‘intrinsic value’ is used in contrast with ‘instrumental
value’ to refer the value some thing, state or activity has not merely as a means to an end,
but as an end in itself. It has become a standard observation that under pain of an
infinite regress that not all objects, activities and states can have only instrumental value.
Some must have intrinsic value. However, this concept of intrinsic value as noninstrumental value is itself a complex one.
1a It is sometimes used to describe the value that objects, states or activities
have for an agent who pursues them. An ornothogist observing the behaviour of
birds or a botanist studying the nature of plants might value these activities for
their own sake. They might also be said to value the objects of these activities, the
birds or plants, for their own sake. They might also be said to admire the states
of these objects for their own sake, for example the complexity of a bird's
behaviour or the structure of the plants. The activities, objects and states are
valued as ends in themselves for the agent.
1b. It is sometimes used in a Kantian sense: to say a being is an end in itself in
this Kantian sense is to assert that the beings are not to be used merely as a means
for some other end. A being in this sense has a particular kind of ‘moral standing’
and as such it counts morally in its own right for purposes of ethical assessment.
Kant confined the scope of beings with a moral standing in this sense to persons.
However, more recently some have argued that the domain of those with moral
standing in this sense should be extended to include non-human beings (Regan,
1988; Taylor, 1986).
(2)
‘“Intrinsic value” is also used in contrast with 'extrinsic value', to refer to the value an
object has solely in virtue of its intrinsic properties, that is its non-relational properties.
G.E. Moore uses the concept in this sense: 'To say a kind of value is 'intrinsic' means
merely that the question whether a thing possesses it, and to what degree it possesses it,
depends solely on the intrinsic nature of the thing in question.' (Moore, G.E., 1922
p.260). For example, dampness is an intrinsic property of a wetlands; a wetland’s being
endangered is an extrinsic property.
(3) ‘Intrinsic value’ is sometimes used as a synonym for 'objective value', that is, value that
an object possesses independently of its being valued by any agent (Mackie, p.15). In
this sense of the term ‘intrinsic value’, the claim that non-human beings have intrinsic
value is a meta-ethical claim about the status of the value that they have. It is to assert a
realist position about the status of values according to which value statements are
descriptions of states of the world and as such, like other fact stating assertions, they are
true or false independently of the beliefs of the speaker. It contrasts with the view that
ethical statements are not descriptions of the world but rather serve to express the
attitudes of speakers towards the world (O’Neill, 2001).
If non-human nature and beings have intrinsic value in either the sense 3, objective value, or
sense 1b, moral standing, then there are potential difficulties in extending monetary values to
28
non-human beings. The rest of this section will focus on questions about the moral standing
of non-human nature and the difficulties this might raise.
What class of beings have moral standing and as such should count in decision-making? The
answer is often posed in terms of the extension of the class of beings that are morally
considerable (Goodpaster, 1978; for criticisms of these approaches to moral considerability see
O’Neill, Holland and Light Environmental Values ch. 6). Different accounts give different analyses
of how the following sentence should be completed:
For all x a, x is owed moral consideration by moral agents if and only if x is F
What is entered under F will specify the conditions for moral standing, that is, the properties that
are necessary and sufficient for a being to be an object of moral consideration. Standard answers
include:
1. For all x, x is owed moral consideration from a moral agent if and only if x is a rational person. (Kant)
2. For all x, x is owed moral consideration from a moral agent if and only if x is a sentient being.
(Utilitarianism, animal rights)
3. For all x, x is owed moral consideration from a moral agent if and only if x is a living thing.
(Biocentrism)
One standard argument for utilitarian and biocentric argument starts from a common premise:
For all x, x is owed moral consideration from a moral agent if and only if x is a being that has interests of its
own.
The differences between biocentric and utilitarian positions that start from this assumption turn
on the conditions required for a being to have interests of its own.
Biocentric positions typically claim that while many living things lack the capacity to feel and
hence to suffer, all living things are able to flourish and as such have goods of their own that are
independent of their instrumental value for sentient beings (Attfield, 1987; Taylor, 1986; Varner
1998; Von Wright 1963 ch.3). Since they have their own goods, all living things have interests of
their own. Those who confine the domain of beings owed more consideration to sentient being
typically respond that while non-sentient living things might flourish, it does not matter to them
that they do so. In contrast it does matter to a sentient being that it suffers. Hence only sentient
beings have their own interests.
All of the approaches to moral considerability outlined hold that the direct objects of moral
concern are individuals, be this persons, sentient beings or living things. In virtue of this ethical
individualism, biodiversity loss cannot matter intrinsically. Diversity among biological entities,
ecosystems or habitats matters only instrumentally insofar as it affects the well-being or good of
individual persons, sentient beings or living things. One might right reject this position and claim
that collective entities such as species or ecosystems should count independently of the well
being of their individual members (Callicott, 1980; Rolston, 1990). A distinct positions might be
argue that there exist impersonal intrinsic values in nature: some states, such as biodiversity or
beauty, that can be simply valuable in themselves even where they are not of value for the life or
flourishing of any individual or collective entity. G. E. Moore for example thought that beauty
29
was of value even if there was no agent conscious of that beauty (Moore 1903: 85–7). Similarly
one might believe that the loss of species is bad even if it is not bad for any particular being.
An implication of all of these positions it that it some non-human beings and states of nature
should not be valued simply as a means to realising human well-being. If this is the case that are
grounds for thinking that monetary valuation cannot adequately capture ethical concern for nonhuman beings can be captured by monetary valuation and TEV. While existence value is
sometimes taken to be way of capturing the intrinsic value of non-human nature, it does not do
so in the sense of intrinsic value as moral standing. It is concerned with the welfare benefits that
come to the valuing agent from the mere knowledge about the existence of habitats or species.
More generally, monetary valuation is taken to capture expected changes in the well-being of the
agent making that valuation, given a particular understanding of well-being in terms of preference
satisfaction. Only the well-being of well-being of current market agents can captured directly
through monetary valuation. The well-being of non-humans and indeed of future humans is
included only indirectly through the preferences of current consumers. Only if the preferences
or current market actors are able to track moral commitments to the well-being of non-human
and future generations can the interests of non-humans and future generations be included.
One response to these observations about the limits of monetary valuation to directly included
the interests of non-human nature and future generations in current decision making is that the
problems are not specific to monetary valuation. Given that future generations and non-humans
cannot represent themselves, any representation of non-humans in current decision-making will
necessarily be indirect. Their interests can only be represented by currently existing adult
persons. However, there are important differences in the capacity of different institutional modes
of environmental governance to include the interests of non-humans.
In particular, there is publicness constraint on decision making in democratic deliberative
institutions, which is absent market or market-mimicking institutions. (O’Neill, 2007 ch.11)
Justification in deliberative democratic institutions is constrained by publicness: reasons offered
for a claim or position must be able to survive being made public. For this reason, arguments that
appeal merely to self-interest of the speaker will not survive the publicness test, in particular
where this conflicts with just concern with the interests of others cannot survive publicity (Elster,
1998; Rawls, 1996, pp.66-71). In contrast, market institutions have no such publicness constraint
on justification for action. Correspondingly, justifications of policies that appeal to wider interest,
including the interests of future generations and non-human are more able to survive in public
deliberation than they are in market based methods for expressing preferences (Goodin, 1996).
The arguments for limits to monetary valuation in this section turn specifically on specific claims
that future generations and non-human beings have interests for which moral consideration is
owed. In the next we consider some more general arguments for the limits to monetary
valuation that turn on issues of value commensurability.
30
Monetary valuation and value commensurability
Problems around biodiversity conservation typically involve conflicting values and different
agencies and institutions representing these values. Consider the example forestry management
in the U.K. Different biodiversity objectives can be in conflict. Enhancing diversity in native
tree species in forests can conflict with the protection of the native species of red squirrel, which
fares better than the immigrant grey squirrel in conifer plantations.
It can also conflict with the protection of the goshawk, which flourishes in spruce plantations.
Biodiversity objectives can conflict with others values for example: the use value of forests as a
timber resource, landscape aesthetics, historical and cultural meanings of woodlands as a place
for a particular community and so on. The use of resources to protect biodiversity itself
competes with other uses - for schools, poverty alleviation, health services, cultural goods, and so
on. How are such conflicts between different values to be settled?
An assumption that typically underpins the use of total economic value in decision making tools
such as cost-benefit analysis is the rational resolution of such conflicts requires some common
measure of comparison for giving each its due against the other. Rational choice requires value
commensurability, that is, that there exists a common measure of value through which different
options or states of affair can be ordered. Monetary values are taken to offer a single measure
that allows the different values traded off against each other.
Physical accounts are useful in answering ecological questions of interest and in linking
environment to economy...However, physical accounts are limited because they lack a
common unit of measurement and it is not possible to gauge their importance relative to
each other and non-environmental goods and services. (Pearce et. al., 1989, p.115)
The use of the monetary measure does not entail value monism – that there is only one ultimate
value to which all others can be reduced. Rather, money serves as a currency through which the
relative importance of a plurality of values can be ascertained in any specific context.
One difficulty with this view turns on the specific limits of money as common currency for
values. Many ethical and welfare values are not be convertible into the currency of money. Some
social relations and evaluative commitments that are constituted by a refusal to put a price on
them – there exist what are sometimes called 'constitutive incommensurabilities' (Raz, 1986,
p.345ff).
For example, social loyalties to friends and family are constituted by a refusal to treat them as
commodities that can be bought or sold. Given what love and friendship are, and given what
market exchanges are, one cannot buy love or friendship. To believe one could would be to
misunderstand those very relationships. Similarly ethical value-commitments are also
characterised by a refusal to trade. To accept a price is an act of betrayal, to offer a price is an act
of bribery (Raz, 1986, p.345ff; O’Neill, 1993, pp.118-122). As such where environmental
commitments are ethical commitments to future generations and non-humans or where they
express important social relationships, respondents to willingness to pay questions often protest.
31
Consider for example the following responses expressed in in-depth discussion groups conducted
by Burgess, Clark and Harrison amongst groups who had been asked contingent valuation
questions about for a wildlife enhancement scheme on Pevensey Levels in East Sussex (Burgess,
et. al., 1995). (The Pevensey Levels form a wet grassland system designated a site of special
scientific interest (SSSI) with important plants and invertebrates).
The Levels matter as a place that embodies particular relations of the past and through which
relations to the future are expressed (O’Neill, 2007, ch1). This in part activates the protests to
the demand to express concern for nature in monetary terms, including protests from some who
may have actually responded 'legitimately' to the survey. Typical is the following response of one
respondent, who didn't actually put in a protest bid:
It's a totally disgusting idea, putting a price on nature. You can't put a price on the
environment. You can't put a price on what you're going to leave for you children's children...It's a
heritage. It's not an open cattle market. (Burgess et. al. 1995, p.44)
The point here is that an environment matters because it expresses a particular set of relations to
one's children that would be betrayed if a price were accepted upon it. The treatment of the
natural world is expressive of one's attitude to those who will follow and as such respondents
protest at attempts to express their values in terms of money prices.
More generally there is no reason to assume that rational choices demand commensurability
(Martinez-Alier et. al., 1998, 1999,; O’Neill, 1997, 1998 ch.9). Consider debates on biodiversity.
They are typically resolved not by the use of monetary values, but by debate and arguments
between botanists, ornithologists, zoologists, landscape managers, members of a local
community, timber companies, saw mill owners, unions, farmers, representatives of various
recreationalists all of whom represent different values and interests. It is through deliberation
rather than measurement that decisions are arrived at. There are a number of problems with
such argumentative procedures in practice. The power and resources of different groups will be
unequal. Some values and interests may not have a voice in the decision-making. However,
these problems do not show that public deliberation is not appropriate. Part of what is wrong
with the inequalities of power is precisely that they get in the way of our reaching decisions by
rational argument.
To make the case for deliberation is not to say that measures have no role. Proper consideration
of some values will call on particular measures - say of species loss, or of poverty in local
communities. Others will not: for example, the aesthetic properties of landscapes do not easily
lend themselves to measurement. Neither do the meanings and social memories a place might
have. While measures have a role in deliberation they cannot replace deliberation with
calculation.
The appeal to deliberation through argument calls on what is sometimes described as a
‘procedural’ account of rational choice. Procedural accounts of practical reason take an action to
be rational if it is an outcome of rational procedures: 'Behaviour is procedurally rational when it is
the outcome of appropriate deliberation' (Simon, 1979, p.68). Rational behaviour is that which
emerges from deliberation that meets the norms of rational discussion. Given a procedural
32
account of rationality, what matters is the development of deliberative institutions that allow
citizens to form preferences through reasoned dialogue, not the refinement of ways of measuring
given preferences and aggregating them to arrive at a putative 'optimal' outcome. (This section
draws on O’Neill et al 2008).
De re/de dicto value
Use of the concept of ecosystem services makes an assumption about the object of value. What
is valued are the services and not the object:‘ almost all of standard economic theory is in reality
concerned with services [1] . Material objects are merely the vehicles which carry some of these
services, and they are exchanged because of consumer preferences for the services associated
with their use or because they can help to add value in the manufacturing process [2].’ (R.U
Ayres,. and A. Kneese. 1969. ‘Production, Consumption, and Externalities’, The American Economic
Review, (59), 3: p.284)
Any object as such is valued simply as a ‘vehicle’ for these services. However, there are
objects we value as particular objects with a particular history and not just as services. The
distinction between de re and de dicto valuation is a way of picking this up.
NB
Those sites of biodiversity that are valued de re will not be adequately captured merely in terms of the
valuation of services. This is highly relevant for the problem of substitution within natural capital. The
theory of strong sustainability suggests that natural capital can not be substituted in satisfactory ways with
human and/or material capital. I.e. natural capital is not replaceable by other types of capital. Goal
and intention of the process of sustainable development must be the sustainment of natural capital
(dauerhafte Erhaltung des Naturkapitals). This is referred to as the ‘constant natural capital rule
(CNCR).’ This principle, however, does not alleviate the issue of substitutability of natural entities: can
I/can we log this particular forest and replace it with a new, ecologically similar, forest? Can we place a
wind turbine on this particular mountain in full view of the city’s horizon when another mountain range
is left untouched? Under the CNCR, the question of substitutability is raised anew. What are the
characteristics of natural capital (good and services) that need to be considered? What does it mean to
follow the CNCR, and how can we tell when / that the CNCR has been followed? Goals of biodiversity
protection may serve as indicators that the CNCR has been adhered to.
We need to be careful in distinguishing de dicto from de re attitudes: de re attitudes are directed
towards things, whereas de dicto attitudes are directed towards descriptions. The difference can
be most clearly seen by considering some examples. Take the claim:
(1) John believes that the chief executive of News Corporation is rich.
On a de re reading, he believes of a particular person (Rupert Murdoch) that he is rich. On a de
dicto reading, what he believes is that whoever is the chief executive of News Corp is rich. These
beliefs are quite different: John might have acquired the de re belief from having met or knowing
facts about Rupert Murdoch; he might have acquired the de dicto belief from just knowing facts
about chief executives and News Corp (without knowing anything about Rupert Murdoch in
particular).
Here’s another example:
33
(2) Jane wants to meet the tallest man in Texas.
On the de re reading, there is a particular person that Jane wants to meet; on the de dicto reading,
Jane wants to meet whoever satisfies the description ‘the tallest man in Texas’.
(3) Ralph believes that someone is a spy.
On the de dicto reading, Ralph just believes that someone or other is a spy (there is someone
who satisfies the description ‘spy’). On the de re interpretation, there is a particular person about
who Ralph believes that he/she is a spy.
What’s particularly notable about this distinction is that one cannot tell, just from the attitude
report, whether it should be interpreted de re or de dicto. For example, how should we interpret:
(4) Ada values sites of high biodiversity.
Does Ada value particular sites (ones, perhaps, that she is personally acquainted with), or does
she value just the existence of sites of biodiversity (rather than any particular ones)? The verbal
report (4) doesn’t provide enough information to determine whether the de re or de dicto reading
is appropriate. This is a particularly important matter for WP3.
The distinction has real importance for understanding whether the concept of eco-system
services adequately captures the value of sites of biodiversity. Those sites of biodiversity that are
valued de re will not be adequately captured merely in terms of the valuation of services. The
point has implications for a number of recent market based approached to biodiversity
conservation. Much work on biodiversity offsetting and banking assumes that biodiversity values
are de dicto. That is, it is assumed that sites of biodiversity are not valued de re but can be treated
as replaceable objects.
Historical or process-based views on values and valuing
A distinction needs to be drawn between end-state or outcome-based view of the value of the
biodiversity and historical or process-based views. On the end-state conception what matters for
biodiversity value is simply the state of the system as such, the particular variety of entities that it
displays. How that state of affairs is brought into existence is irrelevant to its value. It does not
matter for example if it is the result of human agency or natural processes. If the outcome is the
same, then so is the value.
In contrast on historical and process-based views the history of objects and the processes that go
into their creation are part of what makes particular objects and places valuable.
Economic thinking about the environment and some ecological thinking often assumes an endstate account of the value of biodiversity. It is exemplified in what might be called the itemising
approach to environmental values. Different valued features of our environment are listed and
assigned a value, and we maintain or enhance total value by improving the value for each item.
34
Diversity is not itself a discrete item in the world, but is a property of the relations between
several items.
It refers specifically to the existence of significant differences between items in the world.
However, when biodiversity is made operational, it is invariably approached in terms of
itemisation. Consider in the context of environmental policy making the following definition of
biodiversity formulated by the United States Government Office of Technology Assessment:
Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological
complexes in which they occur. Diversity can be defined as the number of different items and their relative
frequency. For biodiversity these items are organised at many levels, ranging from complete ecosystems to
the chemical structures that are the molecular basis of heredity. Thus, the term encompasses different ecosystems, species, genes, and their relative abundance. (US Office of Technology Assessment, 1987)
While the definition captures many of the standard observations about biodiversity, it tends to an
approach that focuses on ‘the number of different items and their relative frequency’: ecosystems,
species and genes. As it is operationalized, one is offered an itemisation of species and habitat
and the injunction to maintain or enhance the numbers on the list: hence, red lists of endangered
species or lists of threatened habitat types.
This itemising approach also lends itself to economic valuations of the significance of
biodiversity loss - a fact that may help to explain why it has found favour. Environmental
valuation requires defined commodities. As Vatn and Bromley note: ' A precise valuation
demands a precisely demarcated object. The essence of commodities is that conceptual and
definitional boundaries can be drawn around them and property rights can then be attached - or
imagined' (Vatn and Bromley 1994: 137).
Thus by operationalizing the concept of biodiversity in terms of a list, one can arrive at a
surrogate that can be assigned an economic value. One can ask how much individuals are willing
to pay for each item in order to arrive at a measure of the full economic significance of losses.
One ends up approaching biodiversity with a list of the kind which Pearce and Moran present for
the 'non-use' or 'existence' value for wildlife:
Species
Norway:
USA:
Preference valuations
(U.S. 1990 $ pa per person)
brown bear, wolf and
wolverine
bald eagle
emerald shiner
grizzly bear
bighorn sheep
whooping crane
blue whale
bottlenose dolphin
California sea otter
Northern elephant seal
15.0
12.4
4.5
18.5
8.6
1.2
9.3
7.0
8.1
8.1
35
humpback whales
40-48(without information)
49-64 (with information)
Grand Canyon (visibility)
Colorado wilderness
Nadgee Nature Reserve NSW
Kakadu Conservation
Zone, NT
nature reserves
conservation of rivers
27.0
9.3-21.2
28.1
40.0 (minor damage)
93.0 (major damage)
40.0 ('experts' only)
59.0-107.0
Habitat
USA:
Australia
UK:
Norway:
(Pearce and Moran, 1995: 40)
Clearly in many contexts itemisation has virtues. Producing red lists of endangered species or lists
of threatened habitat types to be maintained can serve an important function, not least as ways of
indicating the significant losses in biological variety that are occurring. However, a purely
itemising approach assumes an end-state account of the value of biodiversity. History and
process does not matter as such. If time and history enter deliberations they do so as technical
constraints on the possibility of recreating new site of biodiversity that replace old sites. Some
sites of biodiversity such as ponds, meadows, secondary wood and secondary heath are relatively
easy to reproduce within a short time period . Other sites of biodiversity such old growth forests
are more difficult to reproduce within a short time period.
On the historical or process based views of the value of biodiversity, this end-state account will
miss important dimensions of the value of biodiversity. One dimension is whether ‘naturalness’
matters in biodiversity valuation. The point is developed well by Robert Goodin.
According to the distinctively [green theory of value] . . . what it is that makes natural resources
valuable is their very naturalness. That is to say, what imparts value to them is not any physical
attributes or properties that they might display. Rather, it is the history and process of their creation.
What is crucial in making things valuable, on the green theory of value, is the fact they were created by
natural processes rather than by artificial human ones. By focusing in this way on the history and
process of its creation as the special feature of a naturally occurring property that imparts value, the
green theory of value shows itself to be an instantiation of yet another pair of more general theories of
value - a process based theory of value, on the one hand, and a history based theory of value, on the
other . . . (Goodin, 1992, pp. 26-27).
However, historical and process based theories of the value of biodiversity need not be confined
to the naturalness. It also applies to sites of biodiversity that are valued in terms of their human
as well as natural history. An ancient woodland might be valued in virtue of the history of
human and natural processes that together went into making it: it embodies the work of human
generations and the chance colonisation of species and has value because of the processes that
made it what it is. No reproduction could have the same value, because its history is wrong.
Particular forests, lakes, mountains, wetlands and other habitats are often valued for the
36
particular history they embody. Most nature conservation problems are concerned with flora and
fauna that flourish in particular sites that are the result of a specific history of human pastoral and
agricultural activity, not with sites that existed prior to human intervention. The past is evident
also in the conservation of the embodiments of the work of past generations that are a part of
the landscapes: stone walls, terraces, old irrigation systems and so on. And, at the local level, the
past matters in the value we put upon place (Clifford, and King, 1993). The value of specific
locations is often a consequence of the way that the life of a community is embodied within it.
Historical ties of community have a material dimension in both human and natural landscapes
within which a community dwells. People similarly value agricultural biodiversity – varieties of
apples and potatoes, pigs and sheep - in terms of what it means for local distinctiveness and their
cultural value.
On an historical process based view of value, the natural world, landscapes humanised by
pastoral and agricultural environments, the built environment - all take their value from the
specific histories they contain. One way this view is often developed is in terms of narrative
which focus attention to this historical dimension of biodiversity value.. Policy should be in part
concerned with how best to continue the narratives of particular places and sites of biodiversity.
One question that needs to be addressed is: what would make the most appropriate trajectory
from what has gone before?
This historical approach places constraints on substitution that are not apparent on the end-state
conceptions. Time and history do not just appear as technical constraints. Many ordinary places
that are technically easily reproducible still are de facto difficult to substitute. Consider local
ponds that are a feature of landscapes that matter to many on an everyday level: dew ponds,
village ponds, local ponds are relatively easy to recreate at the level of physical features such as
species variety.
However, the reproductions would simply not be the same places with the same meaning for a
community. It is this pond, that was used by people long ago to water their livestock, where for
generations we in this local community have picnicked, fed ducks looked for frogs and newts this pond that we want to preserve. Another pond built last year could never do as a substitute
simply because its history is wrong. We want to preserve an ancient meadowland, not a modern
reproduction of an ancient meadowland, not because its difficult to reproduce but simply because
it wouldn't be an ancient meadowland. One failure we can make in decisions and actions about a
place is the failure to respect its past and specific history, the work of the individuals it contains,
the memories it embodies and so on.
The point potentially matters to understanding motivations to preserve biodiversity. People have
attachments not to biodiversity as such but to particular places. It features not just in resistance
to change for development, but also to attempts by conservation planners to freeze landscapes at
a particular point in their history. Hence there is the articulated and justified worry experienced
by subjects of conservation regimes, that the community and landscape is being transformed into
a museum exhibit to conform to some idealised Romantic image of how the countryside should
look.
Thus the following comment by a farmer in the Yorkshire Dales: 'National Parks, English
Nature, they'll finish up with all the farmers running about in smocks, like museum curators.
37
That's not a community. We have a community which is a working community...' (Walsh et. al.
1996: 44).
This point has special relevance for 'biodiversity management’ in the context of 'wilderness' or
'nature' preservation in national parks involves the exclusion of communities who lived in those
areas. The result of enforced exclusion in many sites has brought in its wake not just human
suffering but its own problems of ecological management, for while there can be undoubtedly
conflicts between nature conservation and certain kinds of agricultural and pastoral activity, this
does not sanction the perception of local pastoral and agricultural uses as a problematic incursion
into ecosystems with their own integrity.
That perception has tended to underplay the ways in which local habitats of the fauna and flora
depend upon a history of particular patterns of human use and correspondingly the ways in
which the exclusion of humans can lead to adverse change. Because many new world
'wildernesses' in Africa, Asia, Australia and America are the old world pastoral landscapes shaped
by indigenous people through pastoral activities such as burning, the 'restoration' has required
the re-introduction of its effects by artificial means. It is only if the historical dimension of
nature conservation is acknowledged that both the ends and means of 'nature conservation' can
be properly addressed.
Finally, it should be noted that arguing for the appreciation of the historical dimension of
environmental values has implications for the value of biodiversity.. First, and most obviously,
the differences that biodiversity refers to should include an historical dimension. Even at the
biological level, it has a role: salmon and lungfish are phylogenetically similar, but have very
different evolutionary histories and origins. The point should be extended to the appreciation of
the richness of natural and human histories embodied in the habitats and worlds into which we
enter. To render them all managed in a uniform manner for the sake of 'biodiversity' would be to
lose one source of richness.
Moreover, it would be unlikely to realise its result. For, and this is second aspect of biodiversity
that has been lost in the itemising approach, biodiversity is used as a concept that refers to the
potentials of environments not just their state at any point of time: to maintain biodiversity is to
maintain the capacity of a system to issue in diversity rather than the actual diversity at any point
of time. For that we need to focus on the processes of change, and the maintenance of plurality
in process, not at the static maintenance of systems at some artificially frozen point in time. The
belief that there is some defined set of ideal management systems for biodiversity that can be
globally exported and imposed on local populations is one that is likely to be inimical to the
maintenance of biodiversity. (This section draws on O’Neill and Holland 1999).
Value, money and reciprocity (Simmel’s ontological relationism)
Simmel’s goal in The Philosophy of Money is to understand “the ultimate significance and values of
all that is human,” understanding money is only a means to account for human evaluation more
generally. This hierarchy begins with what for Simmel is the primary instance of sociality: the
Wechselwirkung, or the “reciprocal actions and effects” (p. 44) that constitute human social
existence within the process of exchanges of various sorts.
38
This in turn is the basis of Simmel’s ontological “relationism” (Natàlia Cantó Milà, 2005), the idea
that the meaning, place or stable existence of any social phenomenon at all (e.g. money, value,
poverty) has to be understood in terms of its relation to the other elements in the social
exchange. What is specifically social is the relations between people rather than the people
themselves or the products of these relations (values, institutions, society itself, etc.). In this
perspective, social phenomena have no independent or absolute basis of existence, norvalues
validity, outside these relations and they are therefore subject to flux (Cantó Milà, 2005, p. 43).
Contra the economists who debated whether money itself or only the commodities it could buy
were intrinsically valuable, the neo-Kantians who sought transcendental criteria to ground the
validity of values, and Marx who saw labour as the source of value, Simmel argued that value has
no stable, objective or transcendental determinants. Value of any sort (economic, aesthetic,
moral, etc.) is purely “relational” in the sense that it emerges and becomes stable only on the
basis of its place within the reciprocal exchanges that constitute social relations.
Money in fact is simply the “reification of the social function of exchange” (p. 174). It is with
respect to the specific qualities of money as a measure of value — its generality,
characterlessness, impersonality, divisibility, etc. — that Simmel is able to develop a diagnosis of
the culture of modernity from the point of view of the money economy that binds it together.
The generalization of the money economy also entails an objectification and devaluation of
values in modernity. Money is one of the products of objective culture, one which greatly
expands the scope and tempo of human sociality. But it is also one which operates in complete
indifference to the subjective qualities, needs and identities of individuals or to the objects
exchanged. Money levels the value of things to the lowest common denominator (i.e. their
monetary value).
A central thesis in The Philosophy of Money is that the generalization of the money economy in the
modern era enables the form taken by economic exchange to penetrate and replace other, noneconomic forms of exchange and evaluation (in culture, aesthetics, morality, intimacy, etc.).
Money allows the comparison of otherwise incommensurable objects, (Cantó Milà, 2005, pp.
209-210).
Simmel articulates an immanent critique of the money economy by showing how money as
essentially a medium of exchange becomes reified, valued for itself and the power it provides, and
then expands limitlessly beyond all bounds (given by the forms of sociation) to incorporate
potentially any production of human sociality (p. 222). The fixation on money disrupts the
integrity of the forms of life and the process of cultivation (Cantó Milà, 2005, p.219; Simmel,
2005)
Simmel’s analysis confirms the problems with economic/monetary valuation of nature as stated
above. Environmental ethics has proposed many alternative value schemes that take
heterogenous values of nature into account (Rolston, Hargrove, Krebs, Ott).
39
4. Drivers & explanations of motivation for
biodiversity action
According to a classic theory of motivation called Humean psychology, we are motivated by a
combination of beliefs and desires. Merely believing that something is true is not by itself
sufficient to motivate one to act: one also needs to desire to bring about a goal. In a typical case,
a motivation to do x requires a desire to do x as well as beliefs about how to satisfy that desire.
For example, to be motivated to act for biodiversity, one needs to desire to act for biodiversity
and also have beliefs about how to achieve this result.
Having the beliefs without the desire would not be enough to cause one to act; having the desire
without the belief would not be enough to direct the desire into action. In general, desires
provide people with the drive to achieve various ends and beliefs provide them with the
information that they use to achieve those ends.
This theory was first given a clear formulation by David Hume – hence humean psychology – and
has been widely influential both within philosophy and other social sciences, notably economics.
The theory currently has many supporters (notable philosophers include Smith: 1994 and Railton:
1986).
Humean psychology raises an interesting question about our motivations with respect to the
environment. For it seems that many people, who sincerely desire to act in environmentally
friendly ways and have beliefs about how to do so, are not accordingly motivated. Explaining this
phenomenon is an important area of research.
A. Types of motivations
The construct of motivation refers to the psychological (and/or physiological, social, cultural)
process eliciting, controlling, and sustaining behaviours. It is considered to determine the nature,
strength, and persistence of behaviour.
A variety of models and theories listing main types of motivations have been produced since
ever.
Let's focus here on an extremely recent model which has been empirically tested in order to
explain an extremely negative (at least from some point of view) behaviour (i.e., terrorism), but
which has been theoretically presented as valid for pro-social and positive behaviours as well,
though empirical tests in the second case are still missing. The proposed motivation is
"Significance Quest" or "Quest for personal significance" (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne,
Fishman, Orehek, 2009; Kruglanski, Bélanger, Gelfand, Gunaratna, Hettiarachchi, Reinares,
Orehek, Sasota, Sharvit, submitted; all present notes are based on the second contribution just
quoted).
40
Quest for personal significance
This motivational force is defined starting from Rousseau's (1762; see also Neuhouser, 2008)
"amour propre" as opposed to "amour de soi-même" (i.e., self-love vs. love of self, Table 1). Self-love
depends on the opinion of others (need to count, to be someone, to be recognized, to matter), by
the standards of the normative social reality, of the group's values. That is in contrast with love of
self, which is about self-preservation, security, survival, comfort, and pleasure. At times, the quest
for significance goal may override the competing goal of self-preservation motive; at other times
self-preservation goals may lead people away from collective pursuits.
Table 1. Properties of Self-Love versus Love of Self (Source: Kruglanski et al, submitted).
Self Love
•
•
•
the quest for significance
the need to “count”, to “be someone”
the sense that one’s life has meaning in
accordance with the values of one’s
society.
Love of Self
•
•
concerns with comfort,
security, self-preservation
survival of self and loved
ones.
The idea is that the same motivation (quest for significance) when properly directed may uplift
humans to their most constructive conciliations may, when misguided, plunge people into mutual
destruction, savagery, and mayhem. This implies that the same motivational force can be
channelled into a positive or negative path, or behaviour, leading therefore to constructive or
destructive consequences, or goals (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Significance Quest model (Source: Kruglanski et al, submitted).
The motivation for significance quest is similar to other ones (competence, effectance,
achievement, self-esteem, mastery, control) which are however always socially or culturally
defined; the crucial feature of this motivation is therefore given by the need to attain what the
culture says is worthy attaining. Therefore the two basic universal human motives - quest for
41
significance and quest for self-survival, comfort, preservation - may manifest themselves
differently in different socio-cultural contexts.
As with any motivational force, the quest for significance needs to be activated in order to affect
behaviour. According to Kruglanski et al (submitted) it can be awakened in three general cases: 1)
significance loss; 2) threat of loss; opportunity for significance gain. Their contribution shows
how these three cases can drive terrorists' behaviours on specific occasions.
An important feature is that of commitment to a given goal, which inhibits or suppresses other
competing goals. Significance quest goal can banish from mind goals in the self-preservation
category. A crucial role is played by the ideology affecting goals and behaviours.
Therefore "personal loss of significance" invites a collectivistic shift, and this encourages
individuals to fight and sacrifice on the group's behalf. Some evidence supports that when one's
quest for significance is aroused, the individual may support self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and
violence in order to gain significance. However, this path is driven not simply by the individual
component but by its interaction with a violence justifying ideology that the individual subscribe
to. However, not all ideology subscribes to violence and some are empathically positive and prosocial, affirming that to gain significance one needs to be kind, tolerant, empathic.
So it is not the quest for significance as such that drives violence. In alternative instances, the
ideology may inspire individuals to perform benevolent and unselfish behaviours. Therefore the
particular ways individuals seek to satisfy their amour propre vary widely depending on what
opportunities for recognition their social institutions encourage and permit. Also experimental
evidence shows that, within the paradigm of Terror Management Theory, when one's mortality is
made salient thus threatening fundamental insignificance, priming individuals with positive values
increases the likelihood of pro-social behaviour (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon,
Chatel, 1992; see also Rothschild, Abdollahi, Pyszczynski, 2009). In other words, where the quest
for significance is awakened, whether a pro-social or anti-social behaviour is enacted should
depend on the ideology that identifies the means to significance.
In summary, the quest for significance framework highlights three fundamental elements whose
interaction determines an individual's behaviour, which have been considered for terrorism but
which we could try to adapt to BIOMOT's case: the goal s/he is striving to attain (e.g., destruction
or biodiversity), the means whereby s/he seeks to attain it (e.g., violence or conservation), and the
social process that binds them together (the different ideology, values, socialization and
communication, etc.).
This conclusion point can be relevant for BIOMOT project. In fact, while the above mentioned
motivational theory has been proposed for both anti- and pro-social behaviours, its present
empirical test rest only on the negative, anti-social side (terrorism), while BIOMOT's interest in
actions for biodiversity could represent an ideal workbench to complete the theory's test on the
positive, pro-social side. Such an approach could also couple with the positive psychology in
general and particular with the positive psychology of sustainability (Corral Verdugo, 2012). More
generally, it is important to remember that the general framework needs to shift from partial
ecology to full ecology paradigm (Bonnes, Bonaiuto, 2002): That is, to always include human beings
within the ecosystems adopting an inter-dependent view of humans and bio-ecological factors in
the ecosystems.
42
Self determination
In addition to the Quest for Significance Theory, it could be interesting to look at the SelfDetermination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryan et al., 2008). In Ryan et al
(2006) a eudaimonistic approach is opposed to a hedonistic approach. ‘The hedonistic approach
defines well-being as happiness, interpreted as the occurrence of positive affect and the absence
of negative affect (Kahneman et al., 1999)’ in other words: feeling good. The concept of
eudaimonia has been used in more varied ways, but can in general be defined as: living well.
Aristotle was the originator of the eudaimonic tradition, Ryan et al. highlight aspects of his
conception of living well that entailed pursuit of intrinsic human values. ‘Many of these elements
in Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia are at the core of the self-determination theory (STD).’
The STD focus on intrinsic motivations versus extrinsic motivations, a distinction that can be
useful for BIOMOT. Intrinsic motivation is the pursuit of an activity (act for nature) because of
its inherent interest and enjoyability; extrinsically motivated activities are those that are
instrumental rather than inherently enjoyable. The central focus of STD is the process of
internalization through which external regulations and values become integrated to the self.
Then they distinguish first order values and second- or third-order values. They write:
‘Eudaimonia is therefore a way of living in which intrinsic values predominate in the sense that
people are focused on what has inherent worth and on the goals that are by nature first order. We
therefore can distinguish a eudaimonic lifestyle from a non-eudaimonic one by the degree to
which people’s energies and interests are focused on intrinsic values versus second or third order
values and/or goals whose value is either derivative or unclear.’ Many social-cognitive theorists
suggest that people feel good when they achieve their goal, but that is regardless of the content of
that goal. STD propose to take the content of the goal into account, i.e. whether it is an
intrinsically motivated goal. In the step towards behaviour it follows that people high in
eudaimonia as pursuing worthwhile goals would likely be more socially responsible. According to
Ryan et al. studies indeed indicate that people high in eudaimonia tend to behave in more
prosocial ways.
Mind the gap between awareness/knowledge and action
Kollmuss and Agyman (2002) studied different theoretical frameworks that try to explain the gap
between the possession of environmental knowledge and environmental awareness, and
displaying pro-environmental behaviour. They recognize that no definite explanation has yet been
found, but want to track the most important factors that have been found to have some
influence, positive or negative, on pro-environmental behaviour.
It is interesting to see the models to which they refer; some overlap with ours such as Azjen &
Fishbein and Chawla. On page 257 they present their integrated and complex model. Some
factors that are mentioned that seems interesting for BIOMOT are:
● The difference in knowledge of issues (the person has to be familiar with the environmental
problem and its causes) and knowledge of action strategies ( the person has to know how he or
she has to act to lower his or her impact on the environmental problem);
● Locus of control: this represents an individual’s perception of whether he or she has the
ability to bring about change through his or her own behaviour. People with a strong
43
internal locus of control believe that their actions can bring about change. People with an
external locus of control feel that their actions are insignificant, and feel that change can
only been brought about by powerful others (p. 243);
● Individual sense of responsibility: people with a greater sense of personal responsibility are
more likely to have engaged in environmentally responsible behaviour.
44
B. Attitudes and behaviour
1. Intentional and reasoned action
The Theory of Planned Behaviour
Attitude represents one of the most studied constructs in Social Psychology. A recent and
commonly accepted definition of Attitude describes it as an enduring evaluation, positive or
negative, of people, objects, or ideas (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998; Fazio, 2000).
The Attitude construct includes the following three components (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960): a
cognitive component, i.e. the beliefs about the properties of the attitude object, an affective
component, i.e. the feelings (positive vs. negative) about the attitude object, and a behavioural
component, i.e. approaching to or moving away from the attitude object.
It is to stress the importance of the strength of the attitude toward a target object, which is based
on how important people think the attitude object is, how much they know about it, or how
extreme their attitude is.
Attitude strength seems to be related to attitude accessibility, i.e. the degree of association
between an object and the individual’s evaluation of it (Fazio, 1989). Such accessibility is usually
higher in case of direct, repeated experience with the attitude object, and it is commonly assumed
that the stronger the attitude, the harder is to change it. Attitude accessibility can be measured by
detecting the speed with which people can report how they feel about an issue or object.
One of the main models addressing the relationship between attitude and behaviour is the
Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB: Ajzen, 1985), which is an extension of the Theory of
Reasoned Action (TRA: Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). TPB postulates that “behaviour is a function
of salient information, or beliefs, relevant to the behaviour” (Ajzen & Madden ,1986, p. 454).
The previous version of this model, i.e. TRA, assumed that the only direct predictors of a target
behaviour is Behavioural Intention, which is the “immediate antecedent of goal-directed
behaviour” (Ajzen & Madden, 1986, p. 458) and represents a plan of action in the pursuit of a
behavioural goal (Ajzen, 1985). Behavioural Intention is determined by two independent factors,
i.e. Attitude toward behaviour, which is the product of the beliefs about the consequences of the
behaviour and the assessment of them, and Subjective Norm, which is the product of the beliefs
about the approval or disapproval of the target behaviour by significant others and the
motivation to comply to such perceived social pressure. TPB adds to this framework a further
dimension, Perceived Behavioural Control, which has to do with the beliefs about resources and
opportunities, in other words the beliefs about the easiness or difficulty of performing the target
behaviour.
The TPB has shown a good predictive power for a number of different kinds of behaviour which
are under our volitional control, included pro-environmental behaviours such as recycling (Terry,
Hogg, & White, 1999).
2. Habits and automaticity
45
Implicit Attitudes
Recent research has identified a phenomenon known, in psychological terms, as the ‘attitudebehaviour gap’ (Vantomme, Geuens, De Houwer & De Pelsmacker, 2005) where despite
individuals claiming to have very positive attitudes towards issues such as sustainability,
biodiversity, and green activism, these attitudes do not necessarily translate into actual proenvironmental behaviours. Of course, many would argue that the underlying cause of the
attitude-behaviour gap can be explained in terms of barriers to action, where individuals are faced
with a lack of information, a lack of knowledge, potential monetary constraints etc. which
prevent them from engaging in pro-environmental behaviour.
Logically, it would follow that by removing these barriers pro-environmental behaviours should
begin to emerge. In this scenario, the challenge facing those who are attempting to promote
behaviour change is not one of attitudinal change, as (theoretically) individuals already hold the
necessary underlying attitudes, but is related to the removal of barriers to action, which may
include barriers at the individual level, the societal level, and indeed at a governmental level.
Once removed, individuals are then able to act In accordance with the pro-environmental
attitudes they hold. This strategy, of course, rests upon one very important underlying
assumption; that people do actually hold the pro-environmental attitudes that they claim to hold.
This key assumption has now been challenged in a number of recent studies (see Beattie & Sale,
2009; Beattie & Sale, 2011), suggesting that, in this particular domain, research must go beyond
what a person explicitly espouses in order to fully understand an individual's underlying attitude.
Psychological research over the past decade or more has revealed that there is often much more
to an attitude than what a person actually says. For early experimental social psychology (starting
with Gordon Allport in 1935), the measurement of attitudes was a relatively straightforward
matter; people simply rated their attitude along a scale (usually in the form of a likert scale), a
method that is still employed today in much research that attempts to measure attitudes.
However, measurement of attitudes in this way depends upon two major assumptions; 1) that
attitudes are consciously held and 2) that attitudes can be measured directly, using self-report
based upon this conscious reflection.
The problem, of course, is that such explicit attitudes, which are highly conscious and reportable,
can be subject to all sorts of biases, including biases to do with social desirability (Gregg, 2008).
Many people feel the need to present themselves in life and in research encounters in the most
positive way possible, and this is why the use of explicit attitude measures in certain domains (this
one included) can become highly problematic. The issue in the area of pro-environmental
attitudes is that we all know that we should adopt a greener lifestyle, and no doubt we would all
prefer to say that we are concerned about the environment. There is therefore the distinct
possibility that as a result of (highly self-aware) conscious reflection, individuals may explicitly
state what they believe to be socially acceptable attitudes, but these might not necessarily reflect
the underlying attitudes that they truly hold. In other words, rather than focusing on what
individuals explicitly say, research should focus instead on their underlying (and unconscious)
attitudes, known as implicit attitudes, as these are the attitudes that truly control and direct actual
behaviour.
46
So what is an implicit attitude? Essentially, an implicit attitude is an underlying evaluation of an
object. This evaluation can be negative or positive, but, importantly, implicit evaluations are
automatic processes in that, by definition, they elude both introspection and conscious control
(Gregg, 2008). In other words, implicit attitudes are unconscious, fast and not subject to the
same kinds of biases as explicit attitudes.
The Implicit Association Test
In order to measure these fast and unconscious processes which operate under the radar of
conscious introspection, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was developed by Greenwald,
McGhee and Schwartz in 1998. The IAT is a computerised classification task which measures the
strength of attitudinal preference between two target categories and two attributes. In one of the
original IAT experiments conducted by Greenwald et al. (1998), the opposing target categories
used were Black and White names, and the associated attributes used were pleasant and
unpleasant.
Participants were asked to assign these items into the target categories and attributes and their
response latencies were measured. Faster response latencies occurred when associated target
categories and attributes shared the same response key, whereas the reverse was true when
categories and attributes that were not associated shared the same response key, leading to slower
response latencies. In this original IAT, participants were faster at categorising Black and White
names with pleasant and unpleasant words when the target categories were grouped
‘White’/’pleasant’ and ‘Black’/ ‘unpleasant’ than when they were grouped ‘White’/’unpleasant’
and ‘Black’/’pleasant’, suggesting that participants had an unconscious implicit bias which
favoured White people over Black people. Since the original seminal article by Greenwald et al.
(1998), a wealth of research has used the IAT, including Nosek, Banaji and Greenwald (2002) at
Project Implicit. Project Implicit measured evaluations towards a range of social groups, collating
a staggering 600,000 tests from the Project Implicit website between October 1998 and April
2000. This allowed for the replication of the race IAT and a range of other IAT tests on an
unprecedented scale. Nosek et al. (2002) found that in general White participants overall
demonstrated an explicit preference for White over Black faces and names but implicitly they
demonstrated an even stronger preference for White. Black participants on the other hand,
demonstrated a strong explicit preference for Black faces and names, yet remarkably in the IAT even
Black participants demonstrated a weak implicit preference for White over Black faces and names.
The persistence of a general implicit White preference demonstrated by both White and Black
participants has been attributed to aspects of American culture which often depict Black
Americans in a negative light (despite much greater cultural awareness of this over the past few
decades). It is argued that these negative associations have penetrated into underlying attitudes
and have consequently led to the creation of automatic evaluations that favour White over Black
(Nosek et al., 2002). It is this remarkable ability of the IAT to ‘cut through the fog of
consciousness to what people really think and feel’ (Gregg, 2008, p.764) that is of particular
import to research dealing with socially sensitive issues where individuals may be somewhat
unwilling, or indeed unable, to report their underlying attitudes.
The IAT is now acknowledged as a reliable and valid measure of underlying implicit attitudes,
and is able to access the underlying associations that people hold, whether these are associations
that people are unwilling to express or whether these are associations that people are completely
47
unaware of holding (Brunel, Tietje & Greenwald, 2004). Despite being extensively applied to
attitude measurement in a number of domains, very few studies have applied the IAT specifically
to pro-environmental attitudes. In the first investigation into explicit and implicit attitudes
toward carbon footprint, Beattie and Sale created a carbon footprint IAT, which revealed that in
a sample of consumers in the United Kingdom in 2008, most participants did actually show a
positive implicit attitude towards low carbon footprint products. However, there was another
significant feature of this particular dataset, namely that there was no significant correlation
between explicit, self-report attitudes and implicit attitudes. Indeed, there appeared to be a level
of attitudinal dissociation that, without the IAT, would not have been obvious. It seems that a
significant proportion of individuals exaggerated their green credentials, whereas others appeared
to be genuinely unaware of just how green they actually were at the implicit level, and presented
themselves as being much less green on the explicit attitude measure than their implicit attitudes
would suggest.
This research thus provided the first experimental indication of attitudinal dissociation in the
context of sustainability. The researchers went on to explore the implications of this ‘dissociated
mind’ for actual consumer behaviour in this critical area. In a recent experiment, Beattie and Sale
(2011) gave participants a choice between a high carbon footprint goody bag and a low carbon
footprint goody bag and (importantly) this choice was either made under time pressure or not
under time pressure. It was found that the explicit measures did not significantly predict
behavioural choice of the high or low carbon goody bag, however, the implicit measure (derived
from the IAT) did, suggesting that implicit attitudes are a better predictor of consumer choice in
the domain of sustainability. It would appear that the likelihood of consumers actually engaging
in pro-environmental behaviour will be significantly reduced if their implicit attitudes are not
sufficiently green in the first place. Beattie and Sale (2011) suggested that if we are to genuinely
produce a green revolution in consumption, then the critical concept of implicit attitudes must be
kept firmly in focus and it may well be a matter of urgency to consider how to augment implicit
attitudes to green behaviours more generally. A logical continuation of this research would be to
examine the implicit and explicit attitudes that underpin other types of green behaviours, and this
might well represent a primary departure point for better understanding people’s motivations to
behave in a biodiverse manner.
Strong versus weak attitudes
The discussion about what comes first, the attitude or the behaviour, sometimes looks like
a‘chicken-and-egg’ debate. However, considering the recent models of attitude construction the
question is still highly pertinent. Our present argument suggests an answer to this intriguing
question:strong attitudes are more likely to affect behaviour while weak are more likely to be
shaped by behaviour. To conclude then, with regard to the nature of attitude–behaviour relations,
it seems that strong attitudes are the guides, while weak attitudes are the followers.
Habits
The challenge of inducing new environmental behaviours on the part of individuals necessarily
encounters the matter of habituated behaviour (Hiedanpää & Bromley, 2012a; 2012b) While
most economists show little interest in habits—regarding them as inconsistent with rational
choice—individuals and groups are seriously habituated. Already Veblen insisted that:
48
The economic life history of the individual is a cumulative process of adaptation of
means to ends that cumulatively change as the process goes on, both the agent and his
environment being at any point the outcome of the past process. His methods of life today are enforced upon him by his habits of life carried over from yesterday and by the
circumstances left as the mechanical residue of the life of yesterday (Veblen, 1990: 74-75).
This emphasis on habits also emerges in the writings of both John R. Commons (1990) and
Charles Sanders Peirce, the latter of whom situates “habit breaking” and “habit taking” at the
centre of his pragmatism (Peirce, CP1; CP6; see also Commons, 1990; Hulsvit, 2002; Deacon,
2012).
One of Peirce’s core ideas is that life has a tendency to take habits (Peirce, CP6: 101). Peirce
insists that this tendency applies to nature, to the mind, and to society. Regularity, continuum,
order, stability, and reasonableness are all manifestations of this general tendency. But what
matters is to understand that habits include laws, dispositions, beliefs, and stopping rules.
Habituation is the key normalizing power in mind, in society, and in nature.
Denying the prominence of habits in human behaviour requires the assumption that individuals
have great quantities of time available for calculating and optimizing across a large number of
margins as they go about their daily tasks. This presumption is difficult to defend (Hodgson,
1998; 2004). Human behaviour is deeply habituated—and for good reasons—on the basis of long
experience with what seems to work by bringing action or behaviour into conclusion (Duhigg,
2012). Only when confronted by startling doubt and surprise do individuals stop and reassess
what they are doing—and why they are doing it. This matter of deep habituation is fundamental
to any supposition that agents out on the ground can be easily dislodged from a lifetime of
habituated behaviour with respect to their natural surroundings.
As Peirce (CP 6) understands them, habits are potentials. According to Deacon (2012: 183),
Peirce’s habit is a general term referring to regularities of behaviour arising in both physical and
organic contexts. Habits are possibly actualized modes of behaviour and action and the
actualization depends on embodied but contingent conditions and purposes, i.e. constraints.
Deacon (2012: 191–192) explains: “The concept of constraint is, in effect, a complementary
concept to order, habit, and organization, because it determines a similarity of class by
exclusion… Constraints are what is not there but could have been, irrespective of whether this is
registered by any act of observation.”
Although all habits function to fulfil a purpose of some kind, they are not fully volitional. Peirce
warned us not to identify purpose with a conscious goal. To him, “a purpose is merely that form
of final cause which is most familiar to our experience” (CP 1: 211). Purposes–activities
undertaken for something’s sake—are nothing but “operative desires,” the object of which is
never concrete but always general. Notice that purposes, final causes and habits point at the
potential future. For Peirce, purposes are basically habits that “habitually” direct processes
toward an end state (Hulsvit, 2002).
49
The irritation—the feeling of being disturbed—motivates one to resolve the situation by
adjusting action tendency, belief and habit (Hiedanpää, 2012). The change of habit is not an easy
task because it does not take only motivation and activities but involves he adjustment of the
broader environment where actions take place. John Dewey brings customs—customary
environments—into the analysis of habits. He (1988, 43) has defined the interrelated nature of
habit and custom eloquently: “But to a larger extent customs persist because individuals form
their personal habits under conditions set by prior customs.” Dewey (ibid., 38) elaborates:
“Habits incorporate an environment within themselves. They are adjustments of the
environment, not merely to it” (emphasis in the original).
Indeed, many of the institutional adjustments fail because of a poor fit between habits, customary
environment and newly articulated and launched purposes. In essence, institutional and social
change requires both habit-breaking and habit-taking. Institutional fit is a matter of embodied
and incorporated environmental interactions.
C. Identity-based motivations (social and local
identification)
Local identity and biodiversity conservation
Governmental authorities around the world have coped with the global loss of biodiversity
primarily by setting up natural protected areas. Such areas can be a powerful tool for ensuring the
continuity of fragile ecosystems and the future availability of limited natural resources. However,
a major barrier to the institution of natural protected areas is the frequent opposition of local
residents and local communities. These groups may perceive the protected area as loss of
freedom or as an obstacle to daily economic sustenance (Bonaiuto, Carrus, Martorella & Bonnes,
2002; Stoll-Kleeman, 2001; West & Brechin, 1991). This problem is more relevant for protected
areas located in highly populated zones. This is frequently the case in many European countries,
and in Italy in particular. In response to this possible opposition, natural scientists, environmental
managers and intergovernmental agencies have increasingly stressed the need for local
community participation in order to achieve sustainable uses and conservation of biodiversity
(Alfsen-Norodom & Lane, 2002).
A study by Stoll-Kleeman (2001) has identified a number of crucial factors that may act as
barriers to people’s willingness to accept natural protected areas within their territories. Among
them, the authors refer, for example, to the presence of several social dilemmas arising in the
process of instituting a natural protected area.
Indeed, the designation of a natural protected area may be conceived as a type of commons
dilemma, particularly for those local stakeholders who derive their daily sustenance from the
exploitation of natural resources within the protected area, such as fresh water, land, forests, wild
animals, and agricultural products (see also Kortenkamp & Moore, 2001). For example, the
regulations in the use of natural resources connected with a natural protected area may put local
residents into a dilemma situation. Residents have to choose whether or not to comply with these
regulations and limit their individual exploitation of natural resources within that area. By
choosing to comply they make more likely the continuity over time of the resources to be
50
protected, but they go against their immediate individual interest. Following this line of
reasoning, one might expect that local residents, and particularly those more directly interested in
the economic exploitation of the natural resources within a protected area, would be less likely to
support its institution. Recent empirical evidence has supported this prediction (see Bonaiuto et
al., 2002; Stoll-Kleeman, 2001). Interestingly, the studies concerned pointed to the role of local
identity processes in shaping local residents’ reaction to natural protected areas.
In fact, both Stoll-Kleeman (2001) and Bonaiuto et al. (2002) argued that a strong sense of
identification with their local community could lead local residents to oppose the designation of
natural protected areas because of the emergence of ingroup–outgroup processes between these
communities and central governmental authorities proposing the designation.
However, local identity might also drive positive attitudes towards specific protected areas.
Various arguments supporting such an assumption can be identified, both in the domain of
environment-behaviour studies and in the more general field of social psychology. Uzzell and
coworkers (2002, p. 28) argued that “socially cohesive communities that have a strong sense of
social and place identity will be more supportive of environmentally sustainable attitudes and
behaviours compared with those communities in which cohesiveness and social and place
identities are weaker”. The same authors provided empirical evidence supporting these
assumptions, showing how place identity positively predicted environmentally friendly conducts
(Uzzell et al., 2002). Similar arguments and empirical evidence were provided by Stedman (2002)
and by Vorkinn and Riese (2001). Stedman (2002) showed how place attachment, operationalized
as local identity salience, positively affected the willingness of property-owners to protect a
lakeshore site. Vorkinn and Riese (2001) found that measures of place attachment predicted
negative attitudes towards a major hydropower development, causing a negative environmental
impact, among residents of a rural area in Norway. In a similar vein, Bonaiuto et al. (1996)
showed how local identification prevents people’s negative attributions, casted by an out-group,
concerning the environmental quality of their place of residence.
Similar assumptions might also apply to the specific domain of support for natural protected
areas. An anchoring for such a claim is offered by Social Identity Theory (SIT; Brown, 2000;
Capozza & Brown, 2000). SIT considers achieving a positive distinctiveness for the self as a basic
motivation leading individuals to identify with a specific group. High identifiers usually display
the tendency to act on behalf of their group instead of as single individuals (Self Categorization
Theory, Turner 1987), and to strive to maintain a positive image of their in-‐group, even at the
expense of an out-‐group (e.g., Hewstone, Rubin & Willis, 2002). Similarly, if we transpose this
to the place level, we should expect that the more an individual identifies with a specific place,
the more s/he might be willing to express positive attitudes towards any environmental
transformation which gives a positive character to that place (Twigger-Ross et al., 2003). These
assumptions were tested and empirically supported in a study by Carrus, Bonaiuto and Bonnes
(2005).
51
D. Personal ethics and values
Appreciation of diversity and sustainable orientations
From a psychological perspective, and following the crucial role assigned to diversity for the
sustainability of socio-ecological systems, the presence of differences in the appreciation of
diversity could be presumed as a personal factor driving pro-sustainable orientation. In the
framework of the Sustainable Development perspective, we might assume that these individual
differences may parallel individual readiness to endorse pro-environmental values, attitudes and
behaviours and other sustainability-related principles. It is important to stress that, for the sake of
brevity, expressions such as "sustainable behaviour" are used, although more sustainable
behaviour or sustainability related behaviour would be more correct expressions
A recent work by Corral Verdugo and colleagues (2009) explored the role of Affinity Towards (or
appreciation of) Diversity (ATD) as a basis for pro-sustainability orientations. ATD can be
conceptualized as an individual predisposition to appreciate the dynamic variety of human-nature
interactions. This dispositional variable might be different from the simple acceptance of, or
tolerance for differences in diverse contexts and situations (according to which socio-diversity is
mainly approached). Thus, ATD reflects an individual preference or liking for the biophysical and
cultural diversity people face in their everyday life: i.e., physical (landscapes, weather), biological
(plants, animals) and socio-cultural (ethnicity, religions, sexual orientations, political inclinations)
diversity that individuals encounter in their daily interaction with the social world.
A theoretical basis for this idea can be found also in the Biophilia Hypothesis (Wilson, 1984; 2001;
Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Kellert, 1997; see also Frumkin, 2001). Kellert (1997) and Wilson (2001)
suggest that we value nature and living diversity because of the physical, intellectual and
emotional benefits it offers us. Appreciating diversity would be an adaptive tendency humans
have developed after the positive impact it produces on us, manifested as survival and wellbeing
(Frumkin, 2001). The idea of biophilia establishes that a natural affinity for any life form is the
very essence of humanity, binding us all to other living species, as well as to the existing variety
among them. Thus, this affinity also corresponds to biodiversity appreciation. The resulting
moral reasoning from biophilia should lead people to endorse the idea of an innate right to exist
for all forms of biological life on earth, and thus to take care of any living being, including the
biological and cultural variety of life forms (e.g., Penn, 2003).
Also the deep ecology movement might be mentioned for linking the value of biodiversity with the
orientation towards sustainability (Devall & Sessions, 1989). Some principles of the deep ecology
movement are in fact linked to the respect for the intrinsic values of diversity present in nature
and societies, and to the consequent recognition of the inherent value of all living beings, humans
included (Glaser, 2005).
At an empirical level, previous studies seem to confirm that people’s attitudes towards
environmental diversity can be related to people’s attitudes towards socio-cultural diversity. These
attitudes might emerge, with a certain degree of ambivalence, as appreciation or opposition
towards the presence of green areas in the city (e.g., trees, lawn, and diverse vegetation; see
Carrus, Passafaro and Bonnes; 2004; Bonnes, Passafaro & Carrus, 2011).
A recent study by Corral-Verdugo and colleagues, synthesized in the following figure offered
empirical support for these assumptions.
52
Figure: Relations between affinity towards diversity and some correlates of sustainable orientation
(taken from Corral-Verdugo et al., 2009).
Biophilia
Biophilia is the assumption that responsible behaviour towards the environment is closely related
to people’s feelings of personal connection to nature. It finds its fundament in the biophilia
hypothesis (Wilson, 1984; Kellert & Wilson, 1993), which posits the existence of an innate
connection for living things, developed to a greater or lesser extent in all human beings. Biophilia
works, according to Wilson, because ‘‘To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the
old excitement of the untrammelled world will be regained’’, and because this ‘‘formula for reenchantment’’ can lead to conscientious behaviour. Many authors argue for childhood bonding
with natural places and organisms as the essential key to arousing biophilia and concomitant
caring behaviour. The principle is so well established as to be considered canon in many quarters,
although in practice it is increasingly observed mainly in the breach.
Arguably the societies most distantly removed from direct daily dependence on lands and
waters are also those where conspicuous nature recreation emerges, and where the vast
preponderance of world resources are consumed. From North America, and other aspirants
towards its standard of living such as Japan, comes most of the relentless pressure on the
biosphere for ecological services, biomass and genetic information.
In contrast, the great majority of humanity occupies developing countries in tropical and
subtropical climes where poverty often prevails and few can afford to abstract their relationship
with nature into avocation or recreation.
For another thing, I see a discrepancy between apparent connection and real depth of contact.
Listing birds and cultivating roses, while benign and admirable activities, do not necessarily
equate with profound association. In many parts of the world, notably the most developed,
contemporary society lacks a widespread sense of intimacy with the living world (Pyle, 1993).
Many tourists, members of natural history groups, and participants in countryside
pursuits merely skim the surface of the landscape, reaping a shallow reward and a weak
relationship; there is a continuum, of course, from casual to devoted. Yet the great majority of
the people associate with nature even less. At least the skimmers are aware of nature around
53
them. As for the others, whose lives hold little place for nature, how can they even care? People
who care may make choices to conserve; but people who don’t know, don’t even care.
‘‘The ‘key-log’ which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is
simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each
question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically
expedient.’’ In the end, for any paradigm shift to succeed in time, it must embrace the central
tenet of Leopold’s Land Ethic: ‘‘A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability,
and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.’’
This brings Pyle finally to a vision for a new and wholly different ethical regime: called: Nature
Matrix. It has six essential elements:
1. Land Ethic Basis. Every decision is subject to the essential test of the Leopoldian
doctrine: ‘‘A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of
the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.’’
2. Nature Study. ‘‘Nothing makes sense except in the light of the local floras and faunas,’’
according to E. O. Wilson, and Korean poet Ko Un says ‘‘nature hates modern education
the most.’’ Education will be based on natural history, with all other topics taught in
relation to it.
3. Local Focus. As Leopold recognized, the main split in conservation is between local and
federal or state control.
4. Consensus Rule. One reason conditions remained stable in many Papua New Guinean
villages far into modern times is that decisions were made by consensus, not by majority
rule. It takes forever to reach consensus, so not much damage is done in the meantime.
Not until democracy and a cash economy were imposed in the 20th century did this
pattern erode, a pattern that also tended towards sustainability in a state of high natural
diversity.
5. Communitarian Justice. Economic development seeks a standard of minimum rather than
maximum owner- ship, and an ideal of enough, rather than having it all. Equitable
distribution of wealth and population control are achieved through individual
responsibility, restraint, and personal empowerment
6. Ecological Restoration. Fixing damaged ecosystems and communities forms the basis for
the human enterprise, beyond the sustainable production and con- servation of essential
materials. Remaining wilderness and old growth forests all remain that way, agriculture
being confined to existing cropland. Damaged lands and waters will be cleaned, replanted,
and rewilded.
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E. Worldviews and belief systems
Worldviews and beliefs have been often advocated as major predictors of pro-environmental
actions, particularly in the sociological and social psychological research traditions. In the mid1970s, Dunlap and Van Liere (1978) challenged the idea that the anthropocentric Human
Exemptionalism Paradigm (HEP) was still the main environmental worldview in Western
societies. This environmental beliefs system emphasized beliefs in material abundance,
continuous progress, unlimited growth, and a view of nature as something to be subdued for
these human goals (Dunlap, 2008). This is, essentially, an anthropocentric beliefs system that
places the human being in the center of everything (Gooch, 1995). Conversely, Dunlap and Van
Liere claimed that Americans were shifting towards a new environmental worldview, which they
called NEP (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978). The NEP can be thought as an ecocentric beliefs
system including the necessity to pose limits to growth; the importance of preserving the balance
of nature, and the need to reject the anthropocentric notion that nature exists solely for human
use. Studies on the relationship between the ecocentric NEP and the anthropocentric HEP often
found a negative bivariate correlation, hence the conclusion that they are incompatible belief
systems. More generally, a shared assumption by researchers in this field is that ecocentric and
anthropocentric beliefs systems are incompatible each other (e.g., Thompson & Barton, 1994).
However, as we will sse with more detail in other parts of this document, some authors found
that, even though a marked dichotomy was found across U.S. samples, these dimensions
correlated positively among Brazilian, Japanese, and Mexican participants (Bechtel, CorralVerdugo, & Pinheiro, 1999; Bechtel, Corral-Verdugo, Asai, & Gonzáles, 2006; Corral-Verdugo &
Armendáriz, 2000).
Following the outcomes of the these studies and the theoretical background emerged in several
United Nations’ conferences on environmental issues, Corral-Verdugo and colleagues (CorralVerdugo, Carrus, Bonnes, Moser, & Sinha, 2008) have recently stated that the NEP is being
replaced by a new environmental worldview, aiming at integrating some anthropocentric and
ecocentric views, and based on the concept of sustainable development. Such worldview, defined
NHIP (New Human Interdependence Paradigm), is based on the interdependence between
human progress, defined as the goal to achieve better conditions of life for all human beings, and
nature preservation, as stated in the other Rio Declaration. The NHIP belief system can be
synthesized as an awareness of the recognition of the mutual dynamic interdependencies linking
the well-being of current and future human societies to the ability to care for a proper renewal
and restoration—from human needs and impacts—of natural resources in the biosphere.
Research findings by Corral-Verdugo et al. (2008) reveal how the endorsement of a more
integrative view of human-nature relationship, such as the the one represented by the NHIP,
seems to be a stronger predictor of individual pro-ecological behaviour, compared to the NEP
view. These findings will also be referred to with more detail in other parts of this document.
The Value-Belief-Norm Theory of pro-environmental behaviour
Even though general environmental attitudes (or worldviews) have often shown a little direct
influence on pro-environmental behaviours (e.g., Poortinga, Steg, & Vlek, 2004; Schultz &
Zelezny, 1998; Vining & Ebreo, 1992), they are often among the earlier factors predicting proenvironmental behaviours in psychological causal models, in which their influence on behaviour
55
is mediated by more specific environmental beliefs (e.g., Bamberg, 2003; Corral-Verdugo,
Bechtel, & Fraijo-Sing, 2003; Nordlund & Garvill, 2003).
Environmental worldviews are in turn influenced by universal human values, in particular selftranscendence and self-enhancement value orientations considered in Schwartz’s model (1992,
1994). Schwartz (1994) defined values as “desirable trans-situational goals, varying in importance,
which serves as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity” (p. 21). Schwartz
(1994) proposed the existence of 56 universal values, which can be clustered in 10 value types
forming 4 value orientations: self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence), selfenhancement (power and achievement), openness to change (self-direction, stimulation, and
hedonism), and conservatism (conformity, traditionalism, and security).
Figure: Schwartz value classification model
The validity of Schwartz’s classification has been shown in many empirical works and across
different countries and cultures (Oishi, Schimmack, Diener, & Suh, 1998; Schwartz, 1992, 1994;
Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995).
Stern and Dietz (1994) proposed that environmental worldviews are particularly affected by selftranscendence and self-enhancement values, leading people to the pursuit of the welfare for
themselves (egoistic value orientation), all human beings (altruistic value orientation), or all the
living things and the biosphere (biospheric value orientation). Thus, egoistic, altruistic, and
biospheric persons could all be environmentally concerned to the same extent, but for different
reasons. However, Stern and Dietz (1994) also underline that biospheric persons could behave
more pro-environmentally compared to egoistic persons, if “the personal costs for the behaviour
are perceived as too high” (p. 70).
In environmental psychology, worldviews (also described as environmental concern), are
recognized to be useful predictors of pro-environmental intentions and behaviours, as already
pointed out in previous parts of this document. However, a number of studies found a limited
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strength of the relationship between environmental attitudes and specific pro-environmental
behaviours (e.g., Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1987; Sjöberg, 1989). This weak relationship
could be explained by the principle of compatibility (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), which states that it
is difficult to find high correlations between variables when they are not measured at the same
level of specificity. Accordingly, research has also shown that a general environmental concern
(e.g., Dunlap & Van Liere, 1984; Black, Stern, & Elworth, 1985) affects more specific beliefs and
personal norms concerning environmental issues (Fransson & Gärling, 1999) and these variables,
in turn, are good predictors of pro-environmental behaviour (e.g., Hopper & Nielsen, 1991).
Environmental beliefs, in particular, are conceived as relevant information about the
consequences of performing (or not) a specific pro-environmental behaviour. Personal norms are
defined as the feeling of moral obligation driving people to assume the responsibility for action
(Schwartz, 1977).
With reference to the measure of environmental concern, the New Environmental Paradigm
(NEP) scale (Dunlap, 2008; Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones,
2000) has been the most widely used tool for over thirty years. The NEP scale was developed to
measure an environmental worldview corresponding to a general awareness of environmental
conditions that are at risk because of human activities (Stern, Dietz, Kalof, & Guagnano, 1995).
In spite of its broad utilization, the NEP has not been exempt from critics (e.g., Bechtel, CorralVerdugo, & Pinheiro, 1999). Among the limitations of the NEP scale, many authors identified
the scale’s tendency of dichotomizing between ecocentric and anthropocentric people (e.g.,
Corral-Verdugo et al., 2008). As anticipated in the previous paragraphs, many authors considered
these two beliefs systems (or worldviews), as incompatible each other. For example, Thompson
and Barton (1994) have underlined that both of these environmental worldviews can lead people
to be concerned about environmental conditions, although for different reasons.
Anthropocentric people would consider the consequences on their own welfare and personal
interest, whilst ecocentric people would consider environmental conditions for the intrinsic value
of nature. Anthropocentrism is based on the idea that human beings have the right to rule over
the world without caring about the consequences of their actions on the environment;
ecocentrism emphasizes the importance of respecting the environment. Recently, a different
environmental worldview has been proposed, seeing anthropocentric and ecocentric dimensions
as compatible each other, and capable to promote pro-environmental action, as already described
a previous paragraph (Corral-Verdugo et al., 2008). This new environmental worldview is more
in line with sustainable development principles put forward through the years by the United
Nations, at various levels (United Nations General Assembly, 1992).
The relationship between values, general environmental worldviews and specific environmental
beliefs, intentions, and pro-environmental behaviours have been investigated in a wide number of
studies (e.g., Milfont & Gouveia, 2006; Nordlund & Garvill, 2003; Schultz, 2001; Schultz &
Zelezny, 1998; Stern & Dietz, 1994; Stern et al., 1995, 1999; Thøgersen & Ölander, 2002).
Different models in environmental psychology have been proposed to jointly consider the role of
all these psychological determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. In order to explain public
support for environmental movements Stern and colleagues (Stern, 2000; Stern & Dietz, 1994;
Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, & Kalof, 1999; Stern, Dietz, Kalof, & Guagnano, 1995),
conceptualized the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory. Within a social-psychological framework,
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the VBN theory is an extension of Schwartz’s (1970, 1977) Norm Activation Theory (NAT) of
altruism, proposing that people engage in helping behaviours if they are, in the first place, aware
of a situation of threat or danger; in other words, they should be Aware of Consequences (AC) if
not acting to overt the harm. In the second place, people should ascribe the responsibility
(Ascription of Responsibilities, AR) of these helping actions to themselves. If both of these
psychological conditions are met, then feelings of moral obligation or Personal Norms (PN) for
helping are activated and, in turn, they stimulate the requested helping behaviour.
The extension operated by Stern and colleagues (1999) refers to the fact that those in need for
help can be other people but other valued objects as well: the self, other species, and the
biosphere. Thus, people who especially value other species would be concerned for threatening
environmental conditions. VBN theory poses values as relatively stable psychological factors at
the base of pro-environmental worldviews that are direct predictors of AC. Indeed, it makes
sense that awareness about the excessive greenhouse emissions due to car use, for instance, can
derive from the worldview about the necessity to find a balance between human activities and
environmental quality.
In sum, the VBN theory (Stern, 2000; Stern et al., 1999) proposes that pro-environmental action
stems from a causal chain including 5 variables: values, worldviews, AC, AR, and PN.
Starting from a different disciplinary perspective, a recent work by de Groot, Drenthe & de
Groot (2011) reviewed the many possible visions of human/nature relations shared among the
public according to scientific studies in this fields, and how these visions might be related each
other. According to the authors, public ethics cannot be longer assumed to be merely
anthropocentric. Therefore, the idea of a simple form of ecocentrism might not sufficiently
reflect the complexity of public visions, and the complex link between ethics and action in the
environmental field.
F. Social norms
Social norms are customary rules of behaviour that coordinate our interactions with others.
Once a particular way of doing things becomes established as a rule, it continues in force because
we prefer to conform to the rule given the expectation that others are going to conform
(Schelling, 1960; Lewis, 1969). This definition covers simple rules that are self-enforcing at a
primary level, such as which hand to extend in greeting, and more complex rules that trigger
social sanctions against those who deviate from the rule.
The influence of social norms on individual behaviour has received great attention in mainstream
social psychological research: classical studies in this field has converged on showing that social
norms can play an important role in orienting individual decisions in everyday life (e.g., Sherif,
1936; Cialdini, Kallgren & Reno, 1991; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
A series of field experiments on littering behaviour carried out by Cialdini and colleagues (1991)
showed the importance of distinguishing among various kinds of social norms. In particular,
Cialdini and colleagues proposed the distinction between prescriptive (i.e., the individual perception
of what other people think it should be done in relation to specific social objects) and descriptive
norms (i.e., the individual perception of what the majority of others actually do in relation to the
same social objects). In other words, prescriptive norms involve beliefs about the level of
approval or disapproval of others for a specific behaviour, whereas descriptive norms refer to
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beliefs about the actual behaviour of others, thus indicating what is the “appropriate” behaviour
to perform for a target situation (Schultz, Khazian, & Zaleski, 2008). This dichotomy is partly
based on the distinction between ‘normative’ and ‘informative’ social influence, proposed in
the’50ies by Deutsch and Gerard (1995). According to Cialdini and colleagues, prescriptive and
descriptive norms are distinguishable because they can affect people’s behaviour in different
ways, and because they are linked to different motivational sources. These authors in fact suggest
that prescriptive norms can motivate behaviour principally because of the individual desire to
obtain social approval and/or to avoid social blame, while descriptive norms would affect
individual behaviours because of their capacity to communicate, or to make salient, in a certain
context, the more adaptive or appropriate behavioural option.
Furthermore, the idea that descriptive social norms may be a fundamental source of human social
influence can be traced back to the early beginning of scientific psychological research. Indeed,
observing the behaviour of other people is a fundamental source for the formation of social
norms: in fact the behaviour of others in the spatial context proximal to the individual might
prime and activate voluntary choices. This idea is deeply rooted in various traditions of
psychological theory and research. For example, W. James proposed in 1980 the so-called principle
of ideomotor action, postulating that simply thinking about a certain action might enhance increased
the individual’s tendency to perform it. About one century later, the principle of ideomotor
action was assumed as a fundamental mechanism in social cognition research, to explain the
priming effects in the automatic activation of social behaviour (e.g., Bargh et al., 1996).
According to Bargh and colleagues, mental representations and consequent social-behavioural
responses might be activated automatically by the mere presence of relevant features in the
environment, including the perception of others enacting that behaviour. The roots for such an
assumption can be found in many domains of psychological research, relating to the concepts of
imitation (Koffka, 1936; Piaget, 1946) and social learning (Bandura, 1977), as well as to the
process of aggressive behaviour following exposure to media communication (e.g., Berkowitz,
1984).
Social norms may thus play an important role not only in the explanation of individual behaviour
(Ellickson, 1991; Greif, 2006 ; Posner 2007 ; Bernstein 2001) but also in the decisions of national
governments in the diplomatic arena in biodiversity governance (Hoel and Schneider, 1997).
Governments may fear being labelled as opportunistic and non-cooperative, and therefore sign
and stick to an environmental policy, even when, in purely economic terms, free-riding pays off.
Therefore, psychosocial interventions even at the policy level are essential to deliver the
widespread changes in social norms needed to initiate the changes in the economy and in life
styles that are essential to address local and global biodiversity issues.
Social Norms and Identity
Christensen et al. (2004) demonstrate that greater identification with a group is associated with
more positive emotions for members who conform with versus violate the group’s norms. These
effects were found with injunctive norms, which specify what members should do or what they
ideally would do, but emerged less consistently with descriptive norms, which specify what
members typically do.
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Descriptive norms affected emotional responses when they acquired identity relevance by
differentiating an important ingroup from a rival outgroup. For these descriptive norms, much
like injunctive norms, greater identification yielded more positive emotions following conformity
than violation. The authors suggest that positive emotions and self- evaluations underlie
conformity with the norms of self-defining groups.
Social norms and (environmental) behaviour
(Cialdini et al. 2004): Investigators have corroborated the findings of earlier research that relevant
norms direct behaviour only when they are in focus. This is true not only for norms outside of
the self, but for personal norms as well; for example, the strength of individuals’ personal norms
against littering predicted littering behaviours only when these individuals focused attention on
themselves rather than on external stimuli (Kallgren et al. 2000). Taken together, the results
suggest that one’s actions are relatively unaffected by normative information—even one’s own—
unless the information is highlighted prominently in consciousness.
Nolan et al. (2008) found that descriptive normative beliefs were more predictive of behaviour
than were other relevant beliefs, even though respondents rated such norms as least important in
their conservation decisions. They also found that normative social influence produced the
greatest change in behaviour compared to information highlighting other reasons to conserve,
even though respondents rated the normative information as least motivating.
Descriptive and injunctive norms related to environmental behaviour may work together in an
additive fashion (Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007). Conservation
behaviour therefore appears to be influenced by the same self-presentational goals that shape so
much of our behaviour.
A series of four studies by Sadalla and Krull (1995) demonstrated that, in the absence of any
information about group norms, conservation behaviour in general was viewed as “low status.”
However, what this study shows is that the stigma barrier has been removed; concern over one’s
status is no longer the question. Conservation may be heading toward a “tipping point” in which
the unusual (limiting one’s resource use) is about to become the norm.
Reciprocity & social norms
Fehr and Gachter (2000) show that reciprocity has powerful implications for many economic
domains. When the world is made up of self-interested types and reciprocal types, interacting
with each other, the reciprocal types dominate the aggregate outcome in certain circumstances,
while the self-interested types will dominate the aggregate outcome in other circumstances. There
are important conditions in which the self-interest theory is unambiguously refuted. For example,
in competitive markets with incomplete contracts, the reciprocal types dominate the aggregate
results. Similarly, when people face strong material incentives to free ride, the self-interest model
predicts no cooperation at all. However, if there are individual opportunities to punish others,
then the reciprocal types vigorously punish free riders even when the punishment is costly for the
punisher.
Indeed, the power to enhance collective actions and to enforce social norms is probably one of
the most important consequences of reciprocity.
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Weak versus strong reciprocity
Guala (2012)’ Economists and biologists have proposed a distinction between two mechanisms –
“strong” and “weak” reciprocity – that may explain the evolution of human sociality. Weak
reciprocity theorists emphasize the benefits of long-term cooperation and the use of low-cost
strategies to deter free-riders. Strong reciprocity theorists, in contrast, claim that cooperation in
social dilemma games can be sustained by costly punishment mechanisms, even in one-shot and
finitely repeated games. In spite of some often-repeated claims, there is no evidence that
cooperation in the small egalitarian societies studied by anthropologists is enforced by means of
costly punishment. Moreover, studies by economic and social historians show that social
dilemmas in the wild are typically solved by institutions that coordinate punishment, reduce its
cost, and extend the horizon of cooperation.
Guala rightly draws attention to the fact that human decision-making under experimental game
conditions cannot be extrapolated directly to decisions made under the real conditions. The
disconnect relates to decisions being predicated on both a biological and cultural heritage. Hence,
the behaviours observed in a game context are a complex mixture of background predispositions
and the conditions specified in the game context, and need not mirror decisions made during
daily life.
Guala does not go far enough, though, in his discussion of the disjunction between experimental
and real conditions. In an endnote he observes that current theories of reciprocity based on game
theory have not drawn upon the concept of reciprocity previously developed in anthropology
(e.g., Sahlins, 1972) to account for the informal exchange of goods and services that is part of
social life in human societies (see Note 2 in the target article).
Guala, like most researchers in this area, accepts uncritically the notion that small-scale human
societies such as hunter-gatherers can be characterized as “acephalous social orders based on
spontaneous cooperation” The problem with formulating cooperation in this manner, along with
its attendant questions, lies in the lack of evidence that individuals in small-scale societies are
spontaneous co-operators.
In general, resources that are individually owned are not subject to cultural rules of sharing.
Individually owned resources are shared within a family (with a culture specific definition of what
constitutes a family) and without cultural rules. Sharing within a family corresponds to
“spontaneous cooperation.” However, we need neither weak nor strong reciprocity to account
for sharing and cooperation within a family.
This is the context where “punishment” comes into play, but punishment, as Guala discusses, is
not of the kind invoked in the theory of strong reciprocity. Among close kinsmen, social
punishment is effective because of one's dependency on kin for surviving in hunter-gatherer and
other small-scale societies, not because of the magnitude of the punishment in a material sense.
Cooperative behaviour characterizes sharing of collectively owned resources, but it is not
“spontaneous cooperation” and instead is determined through cultural rules. The specificity of
the cultural rules relates to the degree of risk that failure to succeed in a resource procurement
episode has for the survival of members of the group.
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The notion of cooperative behaviour used in weak or strong reciprocity theories do not take into
account the major transformation that took place in the basis for social organization during the
evolution of human societies (Read 2010b; 2012). That transformation is from societies in which
patterns of social organization and structure emerge from face-to-face interaction of group
members to relation-based societies (Read 2012) predicated on behaviours formed in accordance
with systems of organization for the society as a whole (Leaf & Read, in press), such as culturally
constructed systems of kinship relations that define the boundary for, and internal organization
of, the small-scale human societies from which are derived all larger-scale human societies.
Reciprocity by Proxy
Goldstein, Griskevicius, Cialdini (2012). Unlike in traditional reciprocity, in which benefactors
provide direct benefits to target individuals to elicit reciprocity, the reciprocity-by-proxy strategy
elicits in the target a sense of indebtedness to benefactors by providing benefits to a valued third
party on behalf of the target (e.g., first making a donation to a charity on behalf of one’s
employees and then later asking employees to comply with a request).
G,G &C hypothesize that this strategy should be more effective than the widely used incentiveby-proxy strategy, in which one makes a request of a target, promising to provide aid to a valued
third party, if the target first complies with the request (e.g., offering to make a donation to
charity for every employee who complies with a request). Four additional experiments replicate
this finding, rule out alternative explanations, and reveal that the reciprocity-by-proxy approach
can backfire when the target audience does not support the beneficiary of the aid.
Trust & reciprocity
When markets cannot direct individual’s behaviour towards action for common good, public
governance is expected to set coercive norms to remove the market failure. But, also public
governance may fail (Posner, 1992.). The selected instruments may not produce the expected
outcomes or they don´t motivate people to act for common good. In terms of biodiversity
protection the traditional instruments of the public governance have also turned out to be
inadequate (Reid, 2011). One reason behind the ineffectiveness of these traditional coercive
norms may be the lack of trust between the regulator and the regulatees, as the compulsion is a
signal of distrust (Kahan, 2008).
As wealth of social science evidence suggests, in collective action settings, individuals
adopt not a materially calculating posture, but rather a richer, more emotionally nuanced
reciprocal one (Kahan, 2008 ). According to theory of reciprocity individuals who have faith in
the willingness of others to contribute their fair share will voluntary respond in kind. When
individuals perceive that others are behaving cooperatively, they tend to be motivated by honour,
altruism, and like dispositions to contribute to public good even without the inducement of
material incentives (Kahan, 2008). This logic of reciprocity suggests the importance of promoting
trust, instead of relying on material incentives.
Legislator has a possibility to promote trust, or to simply avoid the emergence of distrust, by
selecting suitable instruments. For instance coercive rules and criminal sanctions can deprive
people of the experience of being trusted, and thus destroy the possibility of trust (Mitchell,
2001). Use of criminal sanctions can imply that others aren’t inclined to cooperate voluntarily,
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which may lead to the self-sustaining atmosphere of distrust and weakens individuals’
commitment to contribute to the public good. Instead of relying on criminal sanctions, using
voluntary and communicative approaches, legislator can enhance the trust building and create an
atmosphere where individuals reciprocate and are willing to contribute to common good. This is
due to the fact that the trust grows with use. The more trust we have, the more we can rely upon
it. The more we are trusted, the more trustworthy we will be (Mitchell, 2001).
Institutional entrepreneurship
The conception of a “workable” solution to a problem facing the individual, environmental
manager or the legislature is inseparable from the customary practices to which the individual
mind has become accustomed. In practical terms this means that the purposes and expectations
toward which problem-solving thought is directed are simply instances of what Commons (1990)
called “institutional causation.” It is extremely difficult for individuals to become detached from
their current settings and circumstances. From this it follows that it is likewise difficult to
imagine solutions to problems associated with those circumstances that are not already bound up
in—prefigured by—the very circumstances giving rise to the problem now in need of correction.
Truly imaginative thinkers—institutional entrepreneurs—are in short supply.
According to Schumpeter (1934), an entrepreneur is someone who (1) launches a new product or
a product with essential new features in the marketplace, (2) creates a new production method,
(3) opens up a new market, (4) obtains a new source of raw materials, or (5) re-organizes the
field. Entrepreneurship is about passion, about having an ethical belief in the justification of
one’s own endeavours, and the ability to combine things in new, original ways.
Thinking in BIOMOT terms, an entrepreneur is a person or a group who is able to create
conditions for habit breaking and potentially to novel habit taking. In other words, the
entrepreneur is motivated and capable of adjusting the outer environments and the keystone
habits sufficiently in order to produce new kinds of interactions, mechanism and processes – and
regular outcomes, new habits that work (Duhigg, 2012).
There are those who are able to contribute to collective habit breaking and to habit taking. This is
manifested in entrepreneurial actions taken by an individual or group of people in the interest of
the drafting and designing new rules of the game and affecting customary conditions in such
ways that new rules and potential habits get first experimented and then established. The ultimate
object of entrepreneur of this kind is to redesign institutional incentive structures and establish,
especially on long haul, beneficial institutional conditions for new habitual individual and
collective outcomes. This kind of view of institutional entrepreneurship draws especially on John
Dewey’s pragmatism (see Khalil, 2004).
G. Stories
Significant Life Experiences (SLE)
Drawing on Tanner (1980), Louise Chawla contributed research on transformative life
experiences to the question how individuals come to care and/or act for nature. Environmental
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sensitivity, a variable in environmental awareness and in the predisposition to take responsible
environmental action, was the focus of a body of qualitative research in the late 1990s/early
2000s sparked by Chawla’s work. Environmental sensitivity was associated with particular kinds
of significant life experiences. Chawla (1999, 1998, 2001) studied environmental educators and
other environmental professionals using interviews, questionnaires and open-ended surveys. SLE
research drew considerable attention as well as critique in the environmental education research
community, resulting in two special issues of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Education
Research (EER). Gough (1999) analyses the debate, asking the root question, does SLE research
make a valuable contribution to environmental education research? (1999: 353). Contested issues
in SLE research relate to the question, what does SLE research actually study? (Gough 1999:
353). Five answers are possible which shed light on the disputed nature of SLE research: (1)
formative influences on present-day environmental activists/educators, (2) how to save the earth,
(3) how present-day environmental educators construct their past, (4) an applied technique of
curriculum development, (5) an applied technique of teacher education (Gough 1999: 354). SLE
research studies need to be clear on their focus and intent; appropriate research methods follow
from the answer/s chosen.
In their review of the attitude/motivation – behaviour gap in environmental action, Kollmuss &
Agyeman (2002) analyse various frameworks, models and theories that have been proposed to
explain the gap between environmental awareness/knowledge and action. They conclude no
single framework suffices and that all models discussed have “some validity in certain
circumstances” (2002: 239).
From a philosophical-ethical perspective, Birch (1993: 313) advocates for so-called “deontic
experience”, i.e. experiences that serve as “original source of ethical obligations” (1993: 313). He
questions the focus on moral considerability or “practical respect” (1993: 313) as continuing the
Western domination of nature. Instead, he suggests deontic experience as the starting point for
ethical reasoning, meaning “the experience, in response to something or someone, that one must
do something, that one is called upon to do something” (1993: 322, italics in original). This
experiential source and inspiration for ethical obligations (1993: 322) seems similar to significant
life experiences which inspire pro-environmental values and behaviours. Ott (pers. comm.)
distinguishes between experience in the sense of adventure or ‘quite something’ [Erlebnis] and
experience in the sense of gaining experience [Erfahrung]. He argues that gaining experiences
[Erfahrungen] are per se significant, critical, transformative – something that is not easily
forgotten. Thick description – narratives or story-telling about these kinds of experiences – are
sources of values and ethics and are communicative – they can be shared with others, and inspire.
H. Collective action and sanctions
Collective-action problems occur whenever individuals in interdependent situations face choices
in which the maximization of short-term self-interest yields outcomes, which leave all participants
collectively worse off than feasible alternatives (Sandler, 2004). These problems are often
presented in the form of so-called “social dilemmas”, where the optimal collective outcome is
contrasted with the outcome resulting from the pursuit of individual self-interest.
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Social Dilemmas (SDs) can in fact be defined as “situations in which each member of a group has
a clear and unambiguous incentive to make a choice that – when made by all members – provides
poorer outcomes for all than they would have received if none had made the choice” (Dawes &
Messick, 2000, p. 111). SDs are thus situations in which the individual interest clashes with a
general collective interest. The use of water resources can be defined, as many other problems of
scarce environmental resources, as natural resource dilemmas, or “commons dilemmas” (Hardin,
1968; Van Vugt, 2002). Commons Dilemmas are “social dilemmas in which non-cooperation
between individual people leads to the deterioration and possible collapse of a resource”
(Kopelman, Weber & Messick, 2002, p. 113). In a commons dilemma situation, people may
frequently experience that behaving in a resource-consumpting way is more advantageous, easier,
more accessible and less costly at the individual level in the short run. This might result in serious
consequences in the medium or long run, however. In the natural resource domain, the
potentially dramatic consequences of this kind of situation have been brilliantly illustrated by G.
Hardin in a 1968 wide-cited work called “The Tragedy of the Commons”. In Hardin’s view, the
most direct option to solve this dilemma is to assign a coercion power to ethical and moral superordinate authorities that can enforce the rules of limiting people’s freedom in the management
(for example by delivering punishments to over-users).
In the social psychological literature, this strategy has been defined as a “self-interest
perspective”. It assumes that individuals, when in a dilemma situation, will usually pursue their
personal and immediate interest, without considering the social and collective consequences of
their actions. Such self-interest perspective envisages the possibility of “structural solutions” to
dilemmas (Messick & Brewer, 1983). In the case of resource conservation, structural solutions are
those that aim at making conservation a behavioural option that is more attractive or rewarding
to the individual. This implies the modification of the interdependence structure between the
individual and the collective interest, because it intervenes directly on the outcome structure of
the decision task, so that it becomes in people’s self-interest to conserve the resource (Messick &
Brewer, 1983; Rusbult & Van Lange, 1996). The increased cooperation resulting from these kind
of strategies can therefore by defined as a “structural cooperation” (Tyler & Degoey, 1995).
In the context of water resource management, a structural strategy for promoting water
conservation is represented, for example, by the development of normative frames and legal
restrictions, or by the installation of meters recording domestic resource use (Van Vugt &
Samuelson, 1999). An example of strategy of this kind is to increase the central control over the
resource. Centralization can often be an effective political solution to dilemmas, although it might
involve a drastic limitation to the freedom of users, as it replaces the open access to a given
resource with a central authority regulating access to it (Van Vugt, 2002). During resource crisis,
public authorities might often choose to increase their control over a resource that is collectively
desired; this can be easily accepted by individuals when they perceive the shortage to be
particularly sever, and thus it can result in enhanced levels of structural cooperation (Tyler &
Degoey, 1995). However, when given the possibility to choose among different authority
systems, users might frequently experience a dislike for strongly centralized and autocratic
authorities. Instead, they usually prefer to be led by a democratic authority allowing them to exert
a certain degree of control over their decisions (Van Vugt & De Cremer, 1999). Another kind of
structural solution is resources privatization. Privatization increases the personal rewards
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associated to resource conservation behaviours, so that it becomes in people’s self-interest to
cooperate. Differently from “centralization”, this latter system leaves people’s personal freedom
almost intact, as it “individualizes” the access to the resource (Van Vugt, 2002).
However, centralization and individualization are not the only methods to promote cooperation.
Indeed, there are many documented instances in which dilemmas have been overcome by
“voluntary cooperation” among individuals, groups and communities (Van Vugt, Snyder, Tyler &
Biel, 2000). If one assumes a “community perspective” (Messick, 2000; Van Vugt, 2002), it is
arguable that people can also make voluntary efforts to conserve resources. This means
restraining from using the resource for an immediate personal interest and conserving it for a
community advantage. But which are the psychological factors that might lead people to
voluntary cooperate for the conservation of a limited resource? Social psychological research has
extensively investigated the role of two variables, one at the group and one at the individual level,
respectively: social identification and social value orientation (Messick, 2000; Kopelman et al.,
2002; Van Vugt, 2002; Van Vugt & De Cremer, 1999; Van Vugt, Snyder, Tyler & Biel, 2000).
Public-good dilemmas are a subcategory of social dilemmas (Kaul et al., 2003). In a public-good
dilemma, all those who benefit from the provision of a local public good – such as biodiversity
related ecosystem services – or global public goods – such as global genetic diversity – find it
costly to contribute and would prefer others to pay for the good instead. If everyone follows the
selfish dominant strategy, then the good is not provided or is underprovided. Yet, everyone
would be better off if everyone contributed. In those situations of social dilemmas, institutions
introduce a certain level of collective constraint, whether through formal or informal rules (such
as social norms and intrinsic preferences), with the aim to produce better outcomes (Ostrom,
2005).
Identity & Collective action
Van Zomeren et al. (2010): One of the reasons why the moral conviction and collective action
literatures have largely remained disconnected from each other is that they differ in their
conceptualization of identity (i.e., with an emphasis on personal or social identity, respectively;
van Zomeren & Spears, 2009; van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2012). We believe that the two
literatures can be integrated by considering that although moral convictions might develop on the
basis of group identities and group norms, their acceptance as subjectively universal and thus as
absolute standards transcends group boundaries, and thus the group identities they originated
from.
● A wealth of empirical literature now supports the claim that people are more likely to take
action to help if they share a categorical relationship with the person who requires help
(Dovidio et al., 1997; Levine, Cassidy, Brazier, & Reicher, 2002; Levine, Prosser, Evans,
& Reicher, 2005).
● Other research has focused on identification with a social movement as the key to
promoting commitment to collective action (e.g., Klandermans, 1997).
● More recently, McGarty, Bliuc, Thomas, and Bongiorno (2009) argued that understanding
the collectives involved in collective action rests on increasingly sophisticated application
of self-categorization principles. These authors suggested that the opinion-based group
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concept (Bliuc et al., 2007) could be such a tool. Those groups are defined by a shared
opinion (Bliuc et al., 2007). Where people come to see themselves as a collective defined
by a shared opinion, they would be expected to adhere to the norms of that group. Where
those opinion-based groups are defined by opinions and norms relating to positive social
change, then identification with such groups is likely to lead to behavioural change in
support of prosocial actions.
Injunctive norms, but not descriptive norms, have been shown to affect relevant prosocial
behaviour. More recent research in this area suggests that, when the descriptive and injunctive
norms are similar, this can powerfully drive prosocial behaviour (Cialdini, 2004, 2006; Schultz,
Khazian, & Zaleski, 2008). That is, where the norms about what one should do and what others
actually do are similar, this should drive positive prosocial behaviour.
The recent work of Swaab, Postmes, van Beest, and Spears (2007) addressed the
important role of sharing relevant thoughts, opinions, and feelings with others. These authors
sought to integrate insights from the literature on shared cognition and social identity theory and
empirically show that social identities are both a product of and precursor to shared cognition
(i.e., systems of shared meaning). This research suggests that the shared systems of meaning (in
this case, normative emotions, beliefs, and actions) shape social identities but that the social
identity can also shape the emergent shared meanings.
Information
People have a fundamental need to understand their environment to predict what will happen in
case of uncertainties. Environmental uncertainty tends to promote overuse because most users
are optimistic about the future and underestimate the damage they are doing to the environment
(Opotow & Weiss, 2000). Managing environmental resources therefore depends first and
foremost on reliable information about the use and availability of resources like, for instance,
drinking water, fossil fuels, and fish stocks.
Identity
As a group-living species, humans have a deep sense of belonging to social groups. The strength
of their social identity affects how much people are willing to help their group or community, for
instance in protecting the environment (Van Vugt, 2001). High-identifying group members
sometimes even compensate for the resource overuse of fellow group members (Brewer &
Kramer, 1986).
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Institutions
A third condition for successful resource management is the presence of legitimate commons
institutions. Authorities play a key role in governing local and global environmental resources, but
who is prepared to trust and empower them? Institutions are essentially public goods that are in
danger of being undermined by free-riders, individuals who profit from their existence but don’t
contribute to their upkeep. One way out of this dilemma is to appoint a leader or authority to
regulate resource access (the Hardin solution). Yet this creates a second-order free-rider problem
also known as the ‘‘who guards the guards’’ paradox: How can authorities be trusted to look after
the common good (O’Gorman, Henrich, & Van Vugt, 2008)?
Incentives
There is no denying that many pro-environmental actions are driven by self-enhancing motives,
notably the desire to seek rewards and avoid punishments. Monetary incentive schemes in the
form of subsidies appear effective in fostering the adoption of home saving devices such as solar
panels, water meters, and roof insulation. Financial incentives also promote sustainable practice
within industry.
Van Vugt, Mark. 2009. “Averting the Tragedy of the Commons: Using Social Psychological
Science to Protect the Environment.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 18 (3) (June):
169–173.
The role of emotion: outrage
Pro-social emotions have a critical but under recognized role in creating contexts of in-group
inclusion or exclusion, shaping normative content and meaning, and informing group interests.
Furthermore, these distinctions provide a useful way of differentiating commonly discussed
emotions Outrage seems particularly likely to productively shape group processes and social
change outcomes.
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Thomas, E F, C McGarty, 2009.
Crowding out
Crowding out occurs when internal intrinsic motivations are conflicting with external (economic)
incentives. Clear examples of such conflicts have been documented by Frey & Oberholzer-Gee
(1997) for example and and by Gneezy & Rustichini (2000). Crowding out arises when the
manipulation of some incentive system generates adverse effects (for example, payment for
ecosystem services has been shown in some cases to have an adverse effect, by decreasing the
intrinsic motivations to contribute to the ecosystem services). Such conflicts are hardly accounted
by the standard behavioural hypothesis of economic theory according to which, agents are selfinterested and motivated solely by their material payoff. The key idea behind the standard
approach is that policies that appeal to economic self-interest do not affect the salience of ethical,
altruistic, and other social preferences (Bowles, 2008), a prediction that is actually rejected by
crowding out literature.
It is generally assumed that, given the lack of motivation of self-interested actors to contribute to
the common good, government intervention can provide a framework of constraints and/or
incentives which facilitates cooperation. This implies a ‘crowding in’ effect on collective action.
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For instance, enabling participants to monitor the enforcement of regulations and to impose
sanctions is likely to decrease the overall tendency to ‘defect’ in relatively small groups, due to
peer pressure and reputation costs. The standard game-theoretic analysis also predicts that the
participants’ motivation to contribute can only increase if extrinsic incentives are added in the
picture (whether they also have an intrinsic motivation or not) and assumes that extrinsic
incentives are the driving force behind pro-social action. These claims are challenged from two
directions: firstly, people have been shown to contribute even in the absence of extrinsic
incentives – for instance, take protective environmental action even if there are no imposed
environmental taxes or quota; secondly, top-down regulations can have the opposite effect of
‘crowding out’ intrinsic motivations to cooperate.
The question is then not whether government intervention is intrinsically good or bad in
supporting environmentally-friendly collective action, but what are the specific conditions under
which it can generate ‘crowding in’ rather than ‘crowding out’ effects. Several controlled
experiments and cases have addressed this issue. For instance, Cardenas et al. (2000) analyzed the
behaviour of Colombian farmers in the context of managing a common pool resource. The
participants’ task was to decide how much timber to extract from the forest, knowing that
harvesting had an adverse effect on water quality (and thus incurring a collective cost). “The
game was first played without any regulations, while at a later stage an extraction norm was
introduced that was enforced by a mild probabilistic fine. Cardenas et al. (2000) find that subjects
reduce their extraction level after the regulation is introduced, but start extracting more
aggressively after realizing that consequences are rather mild. Strikingly, in the last rounds,
extraction levels were higher with the regulation than without. As a result, payoffs are
significantly lower when individuals are confronted with a formal rule than in its absence; the
weak official rule interacted with the internal norms of the subjects and crowded out their
intrinsic motivation to cooperate. Therefore, it can be seen as a warning towards indiscriminately
introducing regulatory intervention without a proper understanding of how it might undermine
norms already operating in the field.” (Richter & van Soest, in Brousseau et al., forthcoming).
I. Leadership and empowerment
Movements for social change are contingent (a) upon people achieving a shared identity with
shared norms and values, and (b) upon the development of belief systems about the social world,
which make change both justifiable and viable. The former is necessary for people to transcend
interpersonal differences, to develop a sense of solidarity, and to act together in a coordinated
and effective way (Subašic et al., 2008). The latter is necessary to ensure that group members
devote their combined efforts towards challenging the status quo and confronting the power of
dominant groups. Thus solidarity and conflict are two sides of the same coin. “We” must act
together in order to overcome “them” (see also Klandermans, van de Toorn, & van
Stekelenburg, 2008).
To understand how social change can occur, then, it is necessary to understand how the
necessary collective self-definitions come about. But this still begs the question of what leaders
must do in order to be successful in transforming identities (which is the same as saying what
leaders must do in order to be effective; Reicher, Haslam & Hopkins, 2005).
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The social identity analysis of leadership and power is oriented to precisely this quandary. In this
view, others “like us” play an important role in shaping and potentially changing the psychology
of the person—they have influence over our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When people are
considered to be “us” rather than “them,” there is an expectation that “we” ought to agree and
respond in the same way (in reactions, judgments, attitudes, and behaviour; e.g., Turner, 1991).
It is through such shared social identity that others influence “who we are” and “what we do”.
Being able to shape and create shared understandings of “who we are” and “what we do” (and to
do so better than others) both defines leadership success and provides an analysis of power
(Turner, 2005).
The foundation of power is getting others to carry out one’s will, and it rests on group identity
and the influence processes which flow from it. In this model, the traditional understanding of
power as the ability to bring about compliance through one’s capacities to provide positive and
negative outcomes (i.e., coercion) is argued to be the weakest form of power.
Leaders, then, will be effective to the extent that they are able to represent themselves as “one of
us”—through aligning their own biographies with the defining features of the group, by stressing
the compatibility of their own values and beliefs with those of the group, by locating their own
aspirations in the aspirations of the group. But important as this is, it is but one of several
identity- based criteria against which a leader will be judged (see Haslam, Reicher, & Platow,
2011).
Leaders additionally need to be seen to “act for us”—that is, their actions must be seen to be for
the group interest rather than for either themselves, for a particular section of the ingroup, or
(still worse) for the outgroup. This, perhaps, is why the Roman emperor Cinncinatus is still held
up as a model leader (and had a city named after him): Cinncinatus had no desire for power or
glory; he left his farm to save Rome and once he had served his people, happily went back to
rural obscurity.
Leaders also need to “craft a sense of us”—that is, they must not only define themselves in order
to fit an existing definition of the group. They can also work on the definition of the group
identity in order to make themselves and their policies central to the realization of group
aspirations. In Scotland, say, the recently victorious Scottish National Party defined Scots as a
proud and independent people humbled by dependence on England in the United Kingdom and
needing independence to recover the glory of their true nature (see Reicher & Hopkins, 2001).
Finally, leaders need to “make us matter.” They must turn aspirations to realities and demonstrate
their visions to be viable. The emphasis again, is not simply on being or on representing but also
on doing. Identities are not just beliefs, they are visions of how the world should be organized—
and an identity which cannot be realized is simply useless.
Empowerment
The notion of empowerment has received widespread attention in recent years, in various fields,
from nature conservation to education to gender studies to nursing to aged care to political
studies to international development work, to name a few. Within nature conservation, a
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distinction is made between individual empowerment and community empowerment. As always
when a concept is used widely, its meaning is ambiguous, in part due to its use in different
disciplinary contexts.
In the context of development research and policy, Drydyk (2008) asks whether the notion of
empowerment can be distinguished from agency, specifically expanded agency, and if so, how (cf.
Farnworth & Hutchings 2009). He links the two concepts to Amartya Sen’s capability approach.
Citing UN documents on human development, Drydyk (2008) lists empowerment to mean
‘invigorating,’ ‘enabling,’ motivating.’ Wray (2004) points to cultural and ethnic connotations of
autonomy and independence associated with agency and empowerment. Given the ongoing
ambiguity over the meaning/s of empowerment, Drydyk (2008) proposes Deepa Narayan’s
definition as a working metaphor: people are empowered insofar as they become better able to shape their
own lives (Narayan 2005, 4 in Drydyk 2008).
Empowerment is a result of a process of change. In contrast, ‘agency’ “refers either to a given
person’s degree of involvement in a course of action, or to the scope of actions that a person
could be involved in bringing about” (Drydyk 2008). Drydyk (2008: 14) concludes his analysis:
The concept of agency can neither assimilate nor replace the concept of empowerment. In the sense
that is relevant here, ‘agency’ refers to the degree to which a person is autonomously involved in his
or her own activities and group activities in which she or he participates. This is a state of affairs,
a property of a person’s activities at a given time. In contrast, ‘empowerment’ refers to a process
with a specific result: the process is one of engaging with power, and it is empowering to the degree
that people’s agency is thereby engaged to expand their well-being freedom in a durable way.
Furthermore, ‘agency’ is about what goes in to a person’s activity, while ‘empowerment’ is about
what comes out. What comes out, specifically, is better interaction between agency and well-being
freedom.
Ibrahim and Alkire (2007) aim to generate research data on agency and empowerment that would
highlight the interconnections between empowerment and human or economic development (cf.
Samman and Santos 2009). They propose a short list of internationally comparable indicators of
individual agency and empowerment, including the corresponding survey questions. They, too,
rely on Sen’s capability framework. The proposed ‘shortlist’ of indicators includes: control over
personal decisions; domain-specific autonomy; household decision-making; and the ability to
change aspects in one's life at the individual and communal levels.
Within nature conservation, the role of education to empower individuals and communities to
protect nature has been noted. Furthermore, successful strategies and projects rely on
participation by the local community (e.g. Awany 2012, Natoria et al. 2005, WWF 2007, cf.
Harper & Proudlock 2008).
Important for BIOMOT are (1) how to measure empowerment and (2) the means of
empowerment – such as education, community organization, the political culture, and openness
of institutions (Narayan 2005 in Drydyk 2008).
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5. Systems and institutions
Social-ecological systems (SES) are increasingly present as objects of analysis in the context of
sustainable development, including biodiversity conservation. This analysis explicitly
acknowledges the causal and epistemological interdependency of ecological and social factors or,
to use the terminology of Fraser et al. (2003), the coupled dynamics of ‘environmental sensitivity’
and ‘social resilience’.
SES have been defined as consisting “of a bio-geo-physical unit and its associated social actors
and institutions. Social-ecological systems are complex and adaptive and delimited by spatial or
functional boundaries surrounding particular ecosystems and their problem context.” (Glaser et
al., 2008). They can be characterized in terms of adaptive cycles and cross-scale effects (i.e. cycles occur
and interact across multiple scales) (Walker et al., 2004).
Three features of SES have been proposed as key variables in understanding their dynamics and
thus improving the predictive techniques on which policy-making can be based: resilience,
adaptability and transformability. Resilience is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and
reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure,
identity and feedbacks”. It can be modeled using ‘stability landscapes’ and ‘attractors’ (or basins
of attraction) to represent the dynamics of interconnected ecosystems, or the interplay of social
and ecological dimensions within a SES. Adaptability represents the capacity of actors to manage
resilience (by influencing the system variables which reinforce resilience), while transformability
means creating “a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic or social (including
political) conditions make the existing system untenable” (ibid, p. 2).
Walker et al. (2004) point out that, rather than searching for a ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy for
sustainability, the priority would be to improve our contextual knowledge of particular SES and
adapt a more flexible and dynamic approach to policy-making. In particular, this would imply a
change from the ‘maximum sustainable yield’ paradigm towards resilience analysis and adaptive
governance.
The term social-ecological system is used to model situations where social and ecological systems
are linked through a set of dynamic interactions, which makes the delineation between the social
and the natural system artificial and arbitrary (Berkes et al. 2003). Human actions have had major
impacts on biophysical systems for thousands of years. Yet, as the scope and magnitude of the
human forces operating in social-ecological systems, up to and including the Earth as a complex
system, have risen dramatically, leading prominent scientists to conclude that we have entered a
world of human-dominated ecosystems (Vitousek et al. 1997), even on a planetary scale (Crutzen
and Stoermer 2000; Crutzen 2002).
The specific objective of the research on social-ecological systems is to investigate how human
societies deal with change in these coupled systems, and how capacity can be built to adapt to
future change. Dealing with biophysical systems or social-economic systems alone is challenging
enough. But the resultant social-ecological systems are far more complex and dynamic than any
ecosystem human societies have encountered previously. It follows that nonlinearities and the
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inevitable uncertainties associated with complex and highly dynamic systems need to be taken
into account in the analysis of institutions to govern human-environment interactions.
Institutions (formal/informal)
Institutions are sets of rules of the game or codes of conduct that serve to define social practices,
assign roles to the participants in these practices, and guide their interactions (Young, 1994). They
also have been qualified as rules of the game (North, 1990) and mutually reinforced patterns of
behaviours (Greif, 2006; Aoki, 2007) to point out the fact that, while created by human beings,
they are imposed to individual decision makers who cannot individually change them or escape
the constraints they put on their possible behaviours and strategies. Structures of property rights,
on this account, are institutions. So are electoral systems used to choose representatives, or more
informal rules governing kinship relationships for example.
In general, institutions are created by human beings to cope with problems of coordination and
cooperation that arise in social groups. A common feature of the various research traditions on
institutions is the recognition of the complementarities between formal institutions (such as
formal legal statutes and contracts), and informal rules (social norms and intrinsic preferences).
Indeed, from the point of view of institutional analysis, it is the combination of formal legal rules
and informal rules that produces effective governance regimes (Ostrom 2005, Williamson, 1996).
As stressed by Cooter (1994), the complexity of modern economies is so great that centralized
law creation cannot effectively cope with the need to achieve normative regulation among
communities of individuals who repeatedly face collective-action problems. In the context of
institutional analysis, formal rules can be understood as prescriptions that are imposed and
enforced in an organized manner by a designated entity, such as the state, the head of an
organization, or parties in a contract. Informal rules are prescriptions that are followed because
of the existence of certain social norms or intrinsic preferences, without any formal agreement on
the sanctions to be applied.
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Institutions and adaptation
Legitimacy
In order to succeed, regulation needs to be accepted among the key regulatory agents. There are a
number of theories of what justifies political authority and what makes societal rules and orders
acceptable and justifies their enforcement. From the legal perspective, the question is about
normative legitimacy. It concerns the extent to which the regulatory process conforms to
procedural demands, such as representation of relevant stakeholders, transparency, and
accountability and the extent to which the main content features of the regulation are acceptable.
Normative legitimacy requires that the regulation be consistent with the legal culture, which
reflects the values of the society in the forms of civil rights and legal principles (Tuori Kaarlo,
Critical legal positivism, 2002) and with the practices of social law of agreements and contracts
(Ewald, The concept of social law,1986).
Thus there are constitutional and social constraints to the regulatory design. The constitution (e.g.
property rights and the freedom to engage in commercial activity, principle of the rule of law)
sets limits and conditions to the legal structure of the regulation and may hinder the use of some
instruments, although they might be effective from the perspective of ecological sustainability. In
addition to normative element, a number of other criteria for legitimacy have been established.
These elements address the issues of ecological effectiveness as well as cost effectiveness. Also
social constraints provide one set of criteria. Namely, if the costs of the regulation exceed the
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gained/felt benefits or if the regulation is in conflict with people´s everyday lives (livelihoods,
culture etc.), or if the regulation disturbs the customary transactions and rights of groups and
interest, it is easily considered to be illegitimate. For sustainable regulation the core areas of the
elements of legitimacy need to be met.
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6. Structure
Ant constructs the anthill they live in, whereas that anthill simultaneously structures the life of the ants living in it;
in the long run (longue durée) it even configures their bodies, senses, instincts, drives, actions and other routines.
Whatever name you give it, structurations, as Giddens did 1984), configurations, as Elias (1980),
doxa as Bourdieu (1990, 1992), Discourses or Governmentalities as Foucault (1977, 2004) or
systems as Luhman (1987), fact is that our behaviour, attitudes, motivations, routines and
emotions are deeply embedded in it and conditioned by it; influenced by aspects or factors that
cannot be reduced to the agency, actions, motivations, networks, resources, institutions or other
characteristics of the individual or collective actors involved, not even their collective actions or
motivations; nor, by the way, the other way around. These structural factors mostly, but not
necessarily, exceed in time, space, and the hardness of their fabric the factors directly related to
the actors involved (Fuchs, 2001, Granovetter, 1992, 2005).
Fish do not talk about the water
Structural aspects, effects and impacts often are taken for granted by the people directly affected
by them. They have become so customary that the direct involved actors are unaware of them.
Interviewing those people will not yield enough information about those structural aspects.
Example 1
Living in a city (the human anthill) has a huge impact on the way city people live and have to live
and value and have to value their life, other people, other creatures and the broader environment,
in short everything. A city deeply conditions the citizens living in it, and as such their nature and
biodiversity motivations.
In the western parts of Europe more than 80% of the people live in urban or heavily
urbanized environments. Their daily contact with nature is minimal. Only a very small and
shrinking number of city-dwellers have a more than a superficial, ephemeral contact with nature.
Most city-dwellers have particular, typically city-based nature visions and motivations. Interviews
can shed light on those visions and motivations, but they will not deliver the clues needed to
interpret them and place them in the broader context. They will certainly not be able to answer
the question what the perceptions of city-people, by nature structural alienated from nature -and
their motivations to like or dislike nature or biodiversity - have to do, or more important even,
ought have to do with nature and biodiversity as they are or ought to be?
Example 2
The expression ‘greed is good for you and the common good’, is a slightly –but only slightlyexaggerated recapitulation of the basic ideas and motivations driving, legitimizing and fuelling our
market driven economies, since more than 200 years, since the times of Adam Smith. ‘Promote
your personal happiness and wealth, and deploy all possible tools and means, as long as you do
not prevent others to do the same’, is the main accompanying encouragement. Everything can be
used as a tool and become a tool, with the exception of those creatures capable of willing and
doing the same, in other words other humans, to paraphrase Kant, and even that has not always
been the case.
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Over time a huge variety of material, social, legal, political and economical configurations
emerged, permanently underpinning, confirming and structuring these ideas and motivations, and
by doing so, permanently strengthening the tendency to reduce the status of everything – i.e.
nature and all non-human creatures - to human instruments, valuable only so far as they are
functional, i.e. economically effective in the promotion of a specific kind of human welfare. This
tendency, and the underlying ideas, values and meanings have become so customary, that that
there is no need to legitimize them or even to reflect on them. It is precisely the other way
around; it has become problematic to challenge these ideas and their underlying values (see also
Foucault, 1977).
These developments make it very cumbersome to develop lasting, non-instrumental, nonfunctional, -in the end non-economic- nature oriented meanings or values, and even more
cumbersome to win over large groups for those meanings or values. The only avenue open for
so-called non- or meta-instrumental nature values or meanings, is to define values or meaning
that are the exact opposite or negation of functional or ‘ humanised’ values: nature as the
counterpoint of culture, or everything that is not anthropogenic, not spoiled by humans and their
will, purpose, culture, etcetera.
Defining something in opposite terms, however, defines it in the end in the terms it is
supposed to oppose, and by doing so denies itself to have its own meaning or value. In short, the
roads open for deviating motivations are scarce and the access is restricted; and the availability to
see this and accept is even more restricted.
Moreover, greed as such is not a drive to stimulate or embrace values, attitudes and
actions based on restraint, respect, moderation, awe, solidarity or contemplation. A society
based on greed and the praise for avarice and personal gain will not easily be transformed in a
society populated by people motivated to value generosity, respect for otherness and the other,
or the will to subordinate private profit to the common good.
One can even wonder whether a society based on the principle of private gain, itself
based on the idea of private property, can sustain the capability to understand the ideas of the
common good and common property, and certainly the will and motivation to promote or
protect them. This has ramifications for the capacity and motivation of society as a whole, and
its individual citizens, bewitched by the idea of (private) property, to protect, promote or leave
alone nature and biodiversity. Nature as such (if one reifies it into an entity), many so-called
natural processes, or -if one prefers another description- many so-called natural or ecosystem
services are (public) common goods, only to be sustained if they are granted common property
rights, at least not privatised. You can hardly privatise the climate, the North Atlantic Drift, or
even the working of brain cells, or the growth of finger nails.
Giddens on structure and agency
A sustained effort to think through the idea of structure has been made by Anthony Giddens.
Giddens calls his theory the theory of structuration According to him structure must be see as
dual. (Giddens, 1976; 1984). Structures are both the medium and the outcome of the practices,
which constitute social systems. Structures shape people's practices, and people's practices
(re)produce structures. Human agency and structure, are not opposed, but instead deeply
interlinked. Human agents generate structures, and the agency of those agents is practiced
structured knowledge. Structures are enabling and human agents are knowledgeable and enabled:
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if enough people or even a few powerful people act in innovative ways, their action may have the
consequence of transforming the very structures that gave them the capacity to act. Structure
must be regarded as a process, not as a steady state. Structures are process oriented rules and
resources.
Bourdieu on habitus, capitals and fields
Bourdieu’s ideas also refer to a duality of structure, although at another level than Giddens.
The mental structures, which construct the world of objects, are constructed in the practice of a world of objects
constructed according to the same structures. The mind born of the world of objects does not rise as a
subjectivity confronting an objectivity: the objective universe is made up of objects which are the product of
objectifying operations structured according to the very structures which the mind applies to it (Bourdieu,
1977, p. 91).
But the agent is in Bourdieu’s scheme, mainly because of his ‘habitus’, less ‘free’, to break out of
his or her dispositional chains. “Even the most cunning or improvisational actions undertaken by
agents necessarily reproduce the structure” (Sewell, 1992, p. 14). This is also visible in the
definition of habitus given by Bourdieu in his Outline of a Theory of Practice. There he defines
habitus as:
A system of lasting transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as
a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified
tasks, thanks to analogical transfers of schemes permitting the solution of similarly shaped problems
(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 83).
A habitus is, in other words, a structuring mechanism for social practices that operates from
within actors; a system of internalized social norms, understandings and patterns of behavior, or,
in other terms, embodied dispositions (or ‘practical sense’) that incline actors to act in certain
ways. The dispositions of the habitus are acquired, structured, durable and transposable. Those
dispositions are acquired, particularly through childhood socialization, and constituted through
un-reflexive and mundane processes of habit-formation. They are structured by the social
conditions where they were acquired. They are durable in the sense that they are embodied in
individuals and operate at the sub-conscious level. And they are transposable in the sense that
they can generate practices and perceptions also in other fields than those where they were
acquired
Also very important in the thinking of Bourdieu is the idea of capitals. According to him:
The social world is accumulated history, and if it is not to be reduced to a discontinuous series of instantaneous
mechanical equilibriums between agents who are treated as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into it
the notion of capital and with it, accumulation and all its effects. Capital is accumulated labour (in its materialized
form or its ‘incorporated,’ embodied form), which, when appropriated on a private, i.e., exclusive, basis by agents or
groups of agents, enables them to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labour. It is a vis insita,
a force inscribed in objective or subjective structures, but it is also a lex insita, the principle underlying the
immanent regularities of the social world. It is what makes the games of society – not least, the economic game –
something other than simple games of chance offering at every moment the possibility of a miracle… It is in fact
impossible to account for the structure and functioning of the social world unless one reintroduces capital in all its
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forms and not solely in the one form recognized by economic theory. Economic theory has allowed to be foisted upon
it a definition of the economy of practices which is the historical invention of capitalism; and by reducing the
universe of exchanges to mercantile exchange, which is objectively and subjectively oriented toward the maximization
of profit, i.e., (economically) self-interested, it has implicitly defined the other forms of exchange as noneconomic,
and therefore disinterested…. In other words, the constitution of a science of mercantile relationships which,
inasmuch as it takes for granted the very foundations of the order it claims to analyse – private property, profit,
wage labour, etc. – is not even a science of the field of economic production, has prevented the constitution of a
general science of the economy of practices, which would treat mercantile exchange as a particular case of exchange
in all its forms… Capital can present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic capital, which is
immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the forms of property rights; as
cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in
the forms of educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up of social obligations (‘connections’), which
is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital ( Bourdieu, 1986, p. 183).
These fundamental forms of capital are different forms of power, but the relative importance of
the different forms will vary. One capital can be converted into another. The most powerful
conversion is into a fourth form of capital, i.e. symbolic capital (legitimate authority).
A third important notion in the thinking of Bourdieu is the notion of field. According to him the
social worlds consists of multiple fields, containing positions and relations of power between
these positions. [A field] is a structured system of social positions – occupied either by individuals or institutions
– the nature of which defines the situation for their occupants. [These] positions stand in relationships of
domination, subordination or equivalence to each other by virtue of the access they afford to the goods or resources
[i.e. capitals] that are at stake in the field. … The nature of positions, their ‘objective definition’, is to be found in
their relationship to the relevant form of capital (Bourdieu, 1979, 1984).
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7. Governance
The governance appraoch is one of new ways of looking at processes of government and its
interaction with other societal actors. Broadly put, the appraoch can be defined as studying the
process by which society defines and handles its problems, resulting form the interactions of
many actors who all have their different perceptions and problems, and different ways to define
goals and follow strategies to achieve them. (Voss, 2006, p. 8-9).
The noun ‘governance’ is used to indicate a new mode of governing that is distinct from the
hierarchical control model, namely a mode where state and non-state actors participate in mixed
networks, of a private-public nature. One source of this idea can be traced to a 1989 World Bank
report about attempts at collective problem-solving outside of existing hierarchical frameworks.
A seciond source, with a different genealogy, is to be found in transaction cost economics, more
specifically Oliver Williamson’s (1975) analysis of market and hierarchy as alternative forms of
economic organization. Transaction-cost economics focus on hierarchical governance structure s
such as firms and other organizations as an alternative to the market as governance structure.
Williamson’s typology was later on extended to include other forms of social order , most
importantly networks (e.g. Thompson, 1991). It was in fact about the discovery of forms of
coordination different from hierarchy on the one hand and the pure market on the other hand,
that led to the generalization of the term ‘governance’ to cover all forms of social coordination,
not only in the economy, but also in other sectors (Mayntz, 1998, p.1).
Since then governance theory concentrated on horizontal cooperation as alternative to
hierarchical authority. Changes in political reality, in the developed states, have played an
important role, influencing the direction in which the idea was being extended. These modern
states have in fact become more cooperative; networks have proliferated (Mayntz, 1998; Powell,
2011 ).
Environmental and sustainability issues have played in major role in this process (Leroy, 2006).
Societal discourse about sustainability highlighted the ambiguity of social goals, and the
impossibility to manage them in a linear way; hence the inadequacies of policy approaches that
aim at planning and achieving predetermined outcomes. Sustainability is about the organising of
process, and governance is about ways to do this, involving new stakeholders, and reconciling
different perceptions and interests, in and beyond national states. It is about new steering
strategies, and the fact that these stategies have an inbuilt reflexivity. Involving stakeholders in
governance is a necessity rather than an open option. The capacities to often deeply influence the
direction of development or transformation are nowadays, in modern societies, at the disposal of
a broad range of actors, from all kinds of state actors via interest groups, producers, and
consumers to the media, to just name some categories. To shape transformation processes
diverse actions have to be aligned in a collective strategy, with stakeholders (Voss, 2006, p. 20).
Reflexive governance refers to the problem of shaping societal development in the light of the
reflexivity of steering strategies. Reflexivity requires that one calls into question the concepts,
practices, and institutions by which societal government is governed, and that envisions
alternatives and reshapes those foundations.
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Rational problem solving, oriented at eliminating uncertainty, ambivalence and interference, no is
no longer adequate. It leads to unintended consequences. The more problem solving is
disengaged from natural reality and oriented towards the worlds of specialists, the more this is the
case. Here again the notion of sustainability has played an important role. Sustainability
assessment almost always deals with values at the fringe, issues with high uncertainty. The
evaluation of risk becomes decisive. Risk assessment is however highly dependent on values,
worldviews and the stories people tell. Several values come into play and have to be weighted
against each other. Such questions cannot be decided scientifically Voss, 2006, p. 14-15).
The collective action model
Various reflexive governance models can be identified that confront the challenge of shaping
(sustainable) development. They initiate procedures through which the problem perceptions,
assessment criteria and action strategies of different actors are exposed to each other, in order to
mutually adapt their perceptions, criteria and strategies, and to generate links and problem
oriented communication and interaction; for instance by means of participatory decision making
or cooperative policy (Voss, 2006, p.7-8). From the perspective of the governance appraoch, the
central insight is that effective and efficient leadership, management and control will be
impossible without integrating moral attitudes and requirements with behaviour (Wieland, 2006
p. 75-76).
Many of the problems surrounding sustainabilty, especially biodiversity, can be described as
large-scale common pool resource problems, i.e. problems with regard to the organisation of
collective action, to organise this collective action in such a way that so-called free riders
problems are prevented or overcome. The free rider problem, first described by Olson in 1965, is
that an individual often cannot be excluded from the profits of a common good, even if that
individual does not pay for it or invest in it in any other ways. It is even the most rational option
for that individual to take advantage in this way. This implies that what is rational on the
individual level becomes irrational on the collective level, since it would be disastrous for
common pool resources if all or even many of the individuals would decide act in that way
(Marshall, 2008, p. 76-78). The original idea of Olson has inspired many researchers over the
years, and been deeply reworked, and enlarged with new related concepts. However, the main
idea still stands “Free riding is recognized as one among many possible outcomes of a collective
endeavour. The question is now what makes coordination happen, how it is sustained, and what
variables affect it” (Medina, 2013, p. 260).
One way to solve these problems has been worked out by Eleanor Ostrom, an idea called nested
enterprises of collective action. That is the idea that collective action problems faced by large
groups are often decomposable into smaller problems among which some are typically
surmountable given pre-existing trust between some members. Hence, multi-level collective
action by large groups can emerge more inclusive organizational units ‘nesting’ into larger ones
(Ostrom, 2000; Marshall, 2008, p. 77-78).
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This idea evokes, however, in its turn the problem of multi-level governance, the problem to
decide what to do on what level, and the problem to align the different levels, problems which
have been tackled by means of the principle of subsidiarity, the idea that tasks should be done at
the lowest possible governance level required to solve that problem satisfactory. Where there is
potential for a subunit at any level to overcome an issue, the subsidiarity principle implies an
obligation on higher-level enterprises, including governments, to help realize that. Higher levels
are often releuctant to decentralize tasks to lower-level subunits, because of issues of legitimay,
vested interets or because the capacity of these lower level to handle the tasks is not yet proven,
even though it is impossible to establish such proof until decentralization has occurred. One
solution to this problem is to begin by decentralizing simpler tasks for which lower-level capacity
is clearly evident and/or the costs of failure would not be severe; although this does not solve the
issue of vested interests.
The reluctance to hand over power to lower institutions, especially non-governmental ones, also
owes much to the logic of mainstream economics, which stresses the need for centralized
support to guarantee a proper functioning of the market mechanism, an idea also brought up by
Olson to overcome his free rider dilemma, i.e. external top-down intervention. (Marshall, 2008,
p.85)
Attemps to emulate the success of subsidiarity-based efforts also fail because they frequently
overlook the most fundamental reason for success: the fact that successful efforts are demandled. Individuals often participate in colelctive action to the extent that they expect participation to
further their goals or links up to their values or intrinsic motivations. In many environmental
projects, like those concerned with biodiversity, favorable conditions are unlikely to exist at the
outset, and the resources to be conserved are often not already valued highly by those whose
participation is sought, although intrinsic motivations to act can be strong amongst part of the
stakeholders (Marshall, 2008, p. 82-83).
Network governance models
The ‘governance turn’ from the 1990s onwards was associated with a claim that the network
mode of governance had displaced or would displace other modes, which had or would become
dysfunctional due to a changed environment. Network governance, a mode in which public and
private agents interact to create co-operation and consensus with ‘significant autonomy from the
state’, was seen as a response to the obsolescence of the hierarchical model (Goodwin, 2011, p.
538). The idea is that governance is about self-organizing networks of mutually dependent
actors, of which the state and its agents are only one set with no privileged position over other
actors within the network. This implies a transfer of power and functions from the central state
to the private sector, to agencies and to the supra-state organisations, and the disciplining of
public servants’ discretion to managerial techniques – a phenomenon that came to be widely
referred to as the ‘hollowing out of the state’ (Marsh et al., 2003). In the Table below, this is the
‘Networks’ model type, as it evolved from the market-oriented and state-oriented (‘Weberian’)
approaches.
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NPM = New Public Management
NWS = Neo-Weberian State
NPG = New Public Governance
Source: Pollitt, Cristopher and Geert Bouckaert (2011). Public Management Reform: A Comparative
Analysis - New Public Management Governance, and the Neo-Weberian State. Oxford University
Press, p. 23.
Two approaches to governance have been developed beyond the state of the art depicted in the
Table.
As a counter to the notion of declining central capacity contained in the ‘hollowing out’ thesis,
Marsh et al. (2003) developed an alternative Asymmetric Power Model (APM). This model
highlighted the resilience of institutional asymmetries in power that allow the central state to
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retain authority over other actors. As such, the APM suggests that the governance narrative
exaggerates the challenge to central power posed by non-government agencies (p. 538-539).
Finally in reaction to both the governance narrative and the institutional APM, a so-called
interpretive or ‘decentred’ approach was developed, in an effort to challenge them at the
ontological and epistemological level. Where both the first wave network governance literature
and its critics had sought to establish single narratives of the development of public governance,
the decentred approach prioritized the diverse and conflicting beliefs and practices of political
agents and the radical contingency generated by this diversity, which ruled out any linear account
of governance. The decentred approach seeks to restore agency within network governance in
contrast to the often agentless, technocratic accounts given in previous work.
The interpretive approach challenges the idea of new institutionalism, nowadays dominant in
thinking about governance. It argues in favour of ethnographic and historical methods, for the
idea of politics as cultural practice. It stresses the ability of individuals to create, and act on
meanings (Bevir, 2003, 2008, 2010). “Our interpretive approach has prompted us to decentre
governance. To decentre is to unpack a practice into the disparate beliefs of the relevant actors. It
is to recognise that diverse narratives inform the practice of governance. To re-centre using our
concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘dilemma’ is to accept that political scientists can tell different
narratives about governance depending on what they hope to explain” (Bevir, 2008, p. 730).
The actor-oriented turn in governance studies as exemplified by the interpretive approach links
up well with other actor-based work in the social sciences in general. In current social-economic
theorizing, human interests are mostly reduced to the idea that humans are motivated by selfinterest, except when they are motivated by altruism, which is analysed either as self-interest in
the (reproductive) long run or as an evolved property of group-level processes. This framing is
critical to analysis of the free-rider problem, as we saw earlier (Olson, 1965). However, as social
theory from Marx, Weber, and Durkheim to Bourdieu (1980) and Giddens (1984) emphasizes,
humans are not just self-interested; they have multiple, specific interests. In fact according to
both Giddens and Bourdieu all social practices are interested; a finding that has important
ramifications for cooperation (Carballo, 2012). Moreover, we also know, thanks to the studies of
Kahneman, that people do not always prefer short-term interests (Kahneman, 1999, 2011), and in
fact even that they mostly act on intuition or routine, i.e. unconscious, not on deliberation, .
Social practices in short evolve around interests and interest oriented cooperation of different
actors, in other words, around (again) the idea of repeated interaction, of reciprocity, whereas our
understanding of those notions has to take into account that interests, cooperation and
reciprocity have multiple levels and forms, and that they are often unconscious, and deeply
embedded in habitus, and doxa, i.e. in routines, which – to paraphrase Giddens as well structure
those practices as are structured by them (Giddens, 1984). It is here that the notions of
governance links up to the notions of value, meaning and motivation, i.e. the interpretive
approach.
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BIOMOT: interpretive approach and collective action
The driving question of the BIOMOT project is what motivates people to take action for
biodiversity. Thus also in governance contexts, BIOMOT’s focus is actor-oriented, which
generates a natural linkage with the interpretive approach.
As we have seen above, the idea of governance was developed to describe changes in
government and/or efforts to handle complex multi-level problems and/or overcome market
failures, resulting in transaction costs. Environmental and later on sustainability questions
strongly furthered this process, as they required cooperation and joint efforts of a growing
amount of stakeholders from different institutional and sometimes even cultural backgrounds,
with different interests and different perspectives (Leroy, 2006). These new forms of cooperation
and the issues addressed required new forms of governance, and even network-like ways of
governance. The differences were too great, the issues too complex, and the uncertainties with
regard to process and outcome too fuzzy to ground the required multi-level governance on
hierarchical models. This is certainly true for issues of sustainably, and with them biodiversity and
nature. Addressing them and finding shared solutions is about more than transaction costs.
Social, economic and ecological issues have to be simultaneously addressed, on different space
and time levels, involving many different stakeholders, even ideally future ones. This asks for
forms of cooperation and governance with a high degree of collective agency and institutional
looseness, if only because of the fact that the existing institutions and routines no longer offer the
needed solutions.
It is a kind of multi-level governance that strongly resembles collective action, and as a result also
generates the questions and path-ways to solutions underlining specific forms of collective action,
as described by Bevir (see above), and even more precisely addressed by Ostrom and Marshall, as
talking about sustainability often boils down to talking about common goods, and common
property management (whereby one even can discuss whether the notion property is properly
chosen).
We are, in short, talking about forms of collective actions and problems that demands from the
actors involved to overcome their habitus, doxa and institutional routines (see Chapter 6), in
order to cooperate properly and to address the right problems in the right way; i.e. we are talking
about transformation, about transformative governance, about specific ways of organisational
learning.
One way of generating momentum or agency for the required transformative leaps is to look for
new forms of functionality or utility that can be embraced by all of most of the stakeholders
involved. The notion of ecosystem services, described elsewhere in this document, is a good
example of such an effort. However, the present and many other sections in this document also
show the pitfalls of this approach. One of them is the crowding out effect. Values and meanings,
which are not or cannot be addressed by the selected and shared forms of functionality, will be
neglected or trampled on, and/or stakeholders who appreciate values which cannot be expressed
or addressed in functional ways, without altering them in undesirable ways or without destroying
them, will drop out, or resist. This is a process we often see around nature oriented issues.
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Walking the path of functionality, even multi-criteria functioning, and organising (multi-level)
governance and collective action around it, therefore has serious limits and dangers. The more so,
because we know from social psychology, in the first place the work of Kahneman, that people,
i.e. humans who are in the end always the real actors, even in highly hierarchized organisations,
act far more less deliberative than assumed, an outcome that, when thought through, (also)
deeply undermines the fundaments of utility-based approaches.
We are, in other words, within these new forms of governance addressing questions underlying
sustainability or nature, dealing wit meanings that can only partly be addressed in a functional
way, with stakeholders (in the end always real people), that have to overcome their routines, and
with the problem that people most of the time act in a non-deliberative way, in an intuitive way,
also and even especially in times of great changes when it the unclear how to act and move ahead
properly.
This implies that governance and collective action, supposed to really address sustainability and
nature issues, should focus on people, even if some of the main stakeholders are organisations,
and with regard to these people on their deep and strong (intrinsic) motivations, the way they
construct their meaning around these motivations in narratives, and the ways these motivations
and narratives have come about over time.
Therefore in BIOMOT (especially its Work Package 2), the basic approach is rooted in collective
action theory and the interpretive governance approach. Structural elements enter into this core
actor-based from several sides. One is the structures surrounding the actor in his/het own life
course – see Chapter 11 on Formation. The second is the structure of the the biodiversity project
in its wider policy context. Both of these are addressed in the Work Package 2 research protocols
and data gathering.
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8. Practices as structures versus choices as
practices
Introduction
ABC is an account of social change in which `A' stands for attitude, `B' for behaviour, and `C' for choice.
The popularity of the ABC framework is an indication of the extent to which responsibility for responding to
[biodiversity] change is thought to lie with individuals whose behavioural choices will make the difference.
I suggest that framing the problem of climate change as a problem of human behaviour marginalises and in
many ways excludes serious engagement with other possible analyses. There are real political interests at stake in
framing environmental problems in terms of the ABC. This prompts further discussion of the relationship
between theories of change and modes of governance, resulting in the proposition that policy- as currently
configured- is incapable of moving beyond the ABC…. (Shove, 2010, 1274; 1282)
ABC is the dominant paradigm in contemporary environmental policy, the scope of relevant social science is
typically restricted to that which is theoretically consistent with it. ABC is [also] a template for intervention
which locates citizens as consumers and decision makers and which positions governments and other institutions
as enablers whose role is to induce people to make pro-environmental decisions or themselves and deter them
from opting for other, less desired, courses of action.
If long-distance flying was approached as a socially and culturally specific practice, as opposed to a lifestyle
choice, relevant evidence would probably include writing on mobility, urban living, time, and the pulse of society.
Useful social science would be that which engaged with problems like those of understanding the details of path
dependence. By the same token, efforts to draw generic behavioural conclusions [based on the ABC model]
would be largely irrelevant in that they necessarily fail to capture vital processes of social change. (Shove, 2010,
pp.1280-281)
But what if I have got the whole story the wrong way around? Could it be that the ABC is
generated and sustained not by psychologists and economists but by the policy makers they serve, and could it be
that this vocabulary is required in order to keep a very particular understanding of governance in place? … To
ask how options are structured, or to inquire into the ways in which governments maintain infrastructures and
economic institutions, is perhaps too challenging to be useful. (Shove, 2010, p. 1283).
Practices
Practice based studies (PBS), is nowadays a broad domain, containing different schools of
thought (see for a clear and extended description Belson, 2008; Schatzki, 2005). It is, however,
as a whole, also an epistemological counterpoint against the so-called theories of action, those
theories that privilege the intentions of actors. Central to all the practice perspective theories
is, according to Belson, (2008, p.25-26):
• That they use a non rational-cognitive perspective of knowledge (the term is from Belson, 2008,
p.24)
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•
•
•
•
•
•
That knowing is an activity
That practice structures action,
That knowledge is manufactured in social, historical and structural contexts;
That the focus is on real doing, and not on plans;
That objects, artefacts, technologies and physical environments have meaning and agency
to to be realized and actualized in interaction with human beings.
That practices seamlessly connect the person to the public space via intermediate
arrangements and devices like communities, organizations and institutions.
Practices as the flow of life
One of the most interesting thinkers within PBS is nowadays the philosopher Theodore R.
Schatzki, interesting because he is one of the founder fathers and because he is permanently
reflecting on it, in a critical. In the introduction of a book way
Practices are arrays of human activity. Most practice theorists agree that activity is embodied
and that nexuses of practices are mediated by artifacts, hybrids, and natural objects. Practice
accounts belief that knowledge, meaning, human activity, science, power, language, social
institutions, and historical transformation occur within and are aspects or components of the
field of practices. The field of practices is the total nexus of interconnected human practices.
In social theory, consequently, practice approaches promulgate a distinct social ontology: the
social is a field of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organized around shared
practical understandings. This conception contrasts with accounts that privilege individuals,
(inter)actions, language, signifying systems, the life world, institutions/roles, structures, or
systems in defining the social. These phenomena, say practice theorists, can only be analyzed
via the field of practices. Actions, for instance, are embedded in practices, just as individuals
are constituted within them (Schatzki, 2005, pp. 11-12.).
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9. Transition Management
The critique of the inanities and injustices of present society, however obvious they may be, is disqualified by a
simple reminder that remaking society by design may only make it worse than it was. (Bauman, 1991)
Weakness overcomes hardness
Suppleness overcomes steadfastness
Nobody in the world who does not know this
Nobody in the world who can apply it (Lao-Tze, -460)
In the Netherlands and partially also the UK, the idea of ‘transition management’ has become
popular in the last ten years, an idea, rooted in system thinking, seeking to understand sociotechnological change, and by doing so looking for ideas to develop the capacity to mould these
transformations, departing from the assumption that the social and technical spheres in society
coevolve over time, that this evolution, and society as a whole, can be understood, and by
doing so also predicted and guided, by us, by agents, in short by agency, or to use their own
concepts, by means of multi-actor, multifactor, multilevel governance. (See for instance: Kemp
and Loorbach, 2006; Rotmans, Kemp and van Asselt, 2001; and Haas & Rotmans, 2011;
Smith, Stirling and Berkhout, 2005).
This implies that the proponents of transition management start with references to structure,
but - almost ironically- end up by granting -almost meta- structural power to agency, to the
possibility – and by doing so almost the necessity - to engineer the future, or in the words of
Shove and Walker (2007) “However novel and complex the challenge may be, the main point is that the
very idea of transition management supposes that deliberate intervention in pursuit of specific goals is possible
and effective”.
The whole idea of transition management indeed breathes an engineering mentality, and even
resembles ideas once popular in communist countries, the idea that you can make society and
are allowed, if not obliged, to do this, because there is a (historical) necessity to do so, because
you know how to do it, and because you are in the position to do this. Many of the
proponents of transition management have, not that surprisingly, an engineering background.
No problem with that, although they -and we- have to remain very aware of the fact that you
inclined to look for and find nails if you have been raised as a hammer. Of more importance is
the question on what authority and on whose behalf do they act, and what the legitimacy is of
their underlying vision, even when it is shared by many, and called sustainability.
Shove and Walker argue rightly that “there is a politics to the very processes of abstraction involved in
defining something to manage (the `it', or system) and to the implication that there are managers of the `it' who
sit outside `its' boundaries and who can apply management tools from a privileged, knowledgeable, and, above
all, external position… Transition managers' efforts to develop and work towards shared societal or
environmental goals are all very well, but techniques like those of multi-stakeholder involvement in foresight
exercises, or methods of public participation and deliberation are never` neutral' and never evacuated of power
and strategic behavior” (2007, 765).
Transition managers (how telling is already this notion) are aware that they are involved in
ongoing process of problem definition, strategy development, intervention, and reflection, in
what they call reflexive governance. But being aware offer no guarantee for being right, and it
certainly gives you no license to decide what is good or wrong for others, as is suggested for
instance by this remark: “The art of governing transitions becomes one of recognising which context for
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transformation prevails, and which drivers offer the best leverage for guiding change in a desirable direction”.
(Smith, Stirling and Berkhout, 2005, p. 1498 cited in Shove and walker, 2007, p. 767).
Calling something an art or a virtue (i.e. nice and good) does not automatically change it into
an art or a virtue. And what to do with transitions going into the ‘wrong’ direction, supported
by the ‘wrong’ actors and stakeholders, with ‘wrong’ motivations and interests? What to do if
sustainability turns out to be a process that is only slightly related to innovation, certainly
innovation defined as technological, managerial and manageable transformation?
Evolution is not a teleological process, with an inbuilt, predetermined ‘good’ end result; nor is
history. Both processes had obviously ample space and time for all kinds of dinosaurs, before
those were wiped out. Welcome outside the machine, welcome outside the box, welcome to
the flowing flux. We do know that we do not know enough to perfectly manage our live, the
lives of others, and certainly the future. But we also ought to know that we often do not know
what we do not know but should know, in order to even think, analyze, ask and act in a proper
way.
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10. Steps towards a common framework
Patterns of a Theory of Motivation for Nature - I
We have the experience of TEV: huge values do not motivate; they remain like pictures on the
wall.
We have the reasoning of Nolt (in Environmental Ethics): there is a great gap between the Good
(= the acknowledgement of value) and the Ought (= the feeling of an obligation to act).
The TEV experience and the Nolt reasoning are similar: TEV = Value = the Good, and the
Ought = motivation to act.
Nolt’s solution is: Ought (= motivation) arises out of Connectedness with the Value.
We find a pattern, in formula form: M = VC (Motivation = Value x Connectedness).
This is a multiplicative relationship indeed, not an addition (M= V + C), because if either V or C
is zero, the outcome is zero (= no motivation).
This runs parallel to the great intuitive attention given to connectedness with nature by many
authors, e.g. US psychologists (e.g. Franz) of the Connectedness to Nature Scale.
Connectedness is also the characteristic concept in Partnership with nature ideas such as
(implicitly) of Jim Cheney in Environmental Ethics. Note that connectedness with nature is not
oneness with nature (neo-stoic ‘deep ecology S’, as Cheney calls that).
Patterns of a Theory of Motivation for Nature - II
We have the grand formula of M = VC (motivation = value x connectedness)
We may also have something else, that looks like this: M = NIN (motivation = narrative,
itemizing, narrative).
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This is built up as follows:
Nature can be approached and known in two ways:
—
Itemizing approach (= listing and quantifying = abstracting = thinking de dicto =
ethics of rights and obligations = CBA = …..). Typical major concepts here are:
o Values (including intrinsic values)
o Ecosystem services
o Biodiversity
—
Narrative approach (focusing on meaning rather than values = hermeneutics =
thinking de re = ethics of care = …….)
If you say that “people live in stories rather than values”, or if you say that proper quantifications
only arise on proper qualifications, a certain methodological primacy (first this, then that) arises.
This in turn looks a bit like two-tiered value theory (Sagoff etc.) that says: first equity, then
efficiency (e.g. CBA). The great advantage of this is that the two worlds of value do not need to
be forced to represent the other, leading to ever-broadening, internally inconsistent methods and
weakened methods (e.g. CBA with multiple discount rates and then still unable to represent
sustainability).
So, a method arises that may secure balance, and enhance motivation: (1) telling the stories, (2)
itemizing the values, and (3) retelling the stories (= NIN). This upholds the primacy but gives a
good, embedded place to the itemizing approach. And the itemizing approach can remain on its
own area of strength, without needing to force it into inconsistencies (‘hermeneutic itemizing’ or
so). The retelling of the stories will be greatly informed by the itemizing results.
Doubtlessly this is also related to Spash’s deliberative valuation method. Practical question: how
to turn this into a workable method, e.g. for focus groups? Maybe Spash has an answer.
Critical question: How to secure that the method will not in fact break down to an itemizing
approach, with truncated, unlived, formal, empty stories included only for formal reasons?
(Something you could write as nIn? ) The answer could be: NIN works only on a basis of lasting
connectedness with the N subject (e.g. nature, community or a companion human being).
Without connectedness, NIN will break down to nIn.
In a way then, we rediscover M = VC. If connectedness is lacking, only the Itemized values
remain (nIn). If value is lacking, you get a lot of romanticizing (N), but not true conviction that
something should be done.
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Patterns of a Theory of Motivation for Nature - III
Our brain has deep, old, intuitive, unconscious parts, and new, conscious, thinking parts.
Somewhat akin to this biology, psychological economist Nobel prize winner Kahneman writes
about how humans make decisions in a sort of two-step manner.
We have a judgment System 1 that is very fast, intuitive and often unconscious. And we have a
System 2 that is slow, energy-consuming, deliberative and conscious.
System 1 is very good in images, stories, pattern finding. And very bad in statistics. That’s why we
often see patterns in random data (in time and space) and do many other stupid things that
greatly fascinate Kahneman. System 1 is also the subject of Taleb’s ‘Narrative fallacy’. A good
story of a causal chain Aà B is so much more easy to remember, so much more appealing to
System 1 than two separate things (A, B) that we make up stories, and believe them, even if A
and B are unrelated facts.
System 1 always being the first, it sets the scene for any decision. It sees immediately what should
be done. System 2 may then move in to reinforce, adapt, rectify, or annul the decision, depending
on the outcome of the deliberation. But System 2 is energy-consuming and not great fun, thus
we employ it only if really needed (e.g. in a workshop on biodiversity values or when asked about
willingness to pay).
In terms of M, V and C, System 1 may be associated with the C. Our connectedness (including
rejection) of things is immediate, intuitive and often unconscious. Could stories also be associated
with System 1? This seems somewhat strange because stories are typically slow and conscious.
The solution here is to think about how System 1 is formed in people. Parts of system 1 (e.g. its
incapacity to handle statistics) are innate. Other parts are formed later. And stories are one
important vehicle to form System 1, probably. (Look also at Taleb’s argument that System 1
creates stories on the spot.)
V
alues in the sense of itemized values such as TEV or intrinsic value arguments can be seen as
belonging to, and appealing to System 2. That implies that they are important indeed. If we feel
an impulse to act (System 1), we may still decide not to do anything because System 2 tells us that
no value would in fact be rescued if we would act.
Thus we rediscover a structure of M = C*V. If C = 1 but V= 0, the impulse is there but System 2
annuls it. If C = 0 and V = 1, you have TEV values politely registered but not leading to action.
Naked numbers do nothing.
We also rediscover a sequential structure that looks like NIN. NIN is not an outcome formula
but a method formula. It is: First System 1 then System 2, or: first Connectedness, then Value.
TEV values need a prior feeling of connectedness to acquire meaning. And then in order to
embed that meaning back into our System 1, we need the retold story, i.e. N-I-N. That retold
story is also the thing you use to subsequently motivate other people.
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Patterns of a Theory of Motivation for Nature - IV
The biophilia hypothesis (E.O. Wilson c.s.) states that humans have an innate propensity to
affiliate with life. This includes biophobia but anyway, we can say that we are born connected.
Somewhat broader, we could say that we are born with the innate desire explore. If we wouldn’t
be, if young children would not explore out of their own desire, we would not exist. The will to
explore is evolutionary given.
Are then all human beings nicely connected to nature also as an adult? No. Take a child
going out to explore. If all attempts would be punished, I would end up sitting still, doing
nothing. And also, if the child would be born on a vast gray plane, after a while it would sit still,
too. In other words, early experiences may make up much of our degree of connectedness to
nature.
In the same biological vein, we may assume that for evolutionary reasons, people are born with
great genetic variation. From the broader interpretation then (exploration-philia rather than
narrow bio-philia), we could say that some people will affiliate easily with nature, others with
other people, yet others with the abstract beauty of language and numbers. Talents and character
then evolve further through positive feedbacks.
Such things pre-determine and further shape our System 1.
Is there no hope for change, once a degree of connectedness is set?
In a crisis, you can discover new things. For instance, nature responding to you.
If you fall in love with a girl who happens to be an ardent nature lover, she will bring you there
and she will form a bridge over which you build new connection.
Possibly overall, other people are the great medium to reach into System 1. Because an innate
propensity and capacity to affiliate with other people (sociability, ‘humanophilia’) is possibly the
most generic evolutionary necessity of all.
This points at the importance of biophilic leadership. For those many people with a weak
connectedness to nature in System 1, the social connection with a trusted leader, through the
humanophilia avenue, reinforces connectedness with nature.
Patterns of a Theory of Motivation for Nature - V
It could be fruitful to consider instrumental values as a subcategory of the wider class of
‘relational values’, which encompasses modes of relation between the human and the non-human
non reducible to instrumental ones.
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The dualistic - i.e. intrinsic versus instrumental - value, is replaced by an alternative
categorization, that of intrinsic versus relational values. Instrumental values fall under the wider
category of relational values. These relational values capture modes of relating between humans
and non-humans which go beyond the functional-instrumental. Relational values neither
originates in human attribution nor it is located in non-human entities (Muraca 2011: 382).
Instead, relational values originate in “the relational region in which both subject and object
originate” (Muraca 2011: 382, cf. Ioris 2012 on value positionality).
Ioris (2012: 143) argues in a similar fashion, saying that “values are contingent assessments that
emerge out of socio-ecological relations and reflect particular demands, legacies and
opportunities.” Muraca’s matrix can not only bring together different ethical approaches (like
Kantian deontological and virtue ethics), it can also address to date neglected approaches such as
non-rationalist or indigenous knowledge. It can, further, include entities in nature which are not
easily addressed by the demarcation problem, such as collective entities like ecosystems. This is
necessary, as for Muraca, systemic value (e.g. of ecosystems) is not an analogue of inherent moral
value (2011: 380).
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11. Common Framework BIOMOT
1. Basic structure
We depart from two basic intuitions:
1. In terms of practical research (interviews) methodology, we have found that just talking about
motivations will return shallow answers, eliciting mainly what is conscious and desirable
(System 2). The interviews need to probe deeper. One method here is to use triangulation,
focus groups and mixed methods, spread over time. This is likely to be outside BIOMOT ‘s
reach but still has to be looked into. A second method is to try finding ‘implicit attitudes’ by
way of observation of respondent’s unconscious behaviours. The third method is to probe
into the respondent’s life story, especially the formative processes that led towards the actor’s
step towards biodiversity. The Common Framework focuses on this third method, knowing
that the second method may well be added in at least part of the interviews, e.g. in WP 3.
2. In terms of theoretical needs, we have found that it is essential to link up with structural aspects
and processes. Even though BIOMOT has an agency focus, connections to structure should
be part of the framework, i.e. part of WP 2 and WP 3. This averts the risk that WP 2 and WP
3 would end up in images of the isolated agent and structural theory (in WP 4) would end up
as only as a deep but unconnected criticism on these WP 2 and WP 3 outcomes. This then is
an important advantage of the third method: probing into life stories shapes a linkage
between actor and structure.
We satisfy both needs by introducing a concept designed to capture much of the causality
between structure and agency. This concept is FORMATION. Thus, BIOMOT’s two key
concepts are:
• MOTIVATIONS for biodiversity action
• FORMATION of motivations.
The leading question for BIOMOT becomes: “What are people’s key motivations to take
action for biodiversity, and how have these grown in formative processes?”
2. Some further elaboration
In the Figure below, the four central blocks denote the core of agency. The distinctions are
between CAPITALS and MOTIVATION, and between their emergent, actualized state versus
their deeper, often earlier formation. CAPITALS is capacity to act sensu Bourdieu, Bebbington
etc., i.e. the sum of economic, social, cultural etc. capital. MOTIVATIONS is our well-known
concept, with distinctions to follow in Section 4.
Visualized by the heavy outline and bold arrows, Motivations and the Formation of motivation
are BIOMOT’s core research variables. Of special interest is how these two are interlinked but
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also how Formation has been influenced by structural factors. The latter are summarized here as
‘groups’, ‘institutions’ and ‘culture’, but that is no fixed choice and open to further discussion.
Capitals and motivations are the actors’ internal foundation for action. The outside world codetermines actions especially because it delivers the (perceived) opportunities to act (plus their
opposite i.e. constraints) as well as the (perceived) longer-term ‘fields’ (Bourdieuan term) in
which these opportunities are seen as embedded. This is again structure, of course, but at the
‘output side’ of the actor.
FORMATION
of capitals
CAPITALS
to act
for biodiversity
FORMATION
of motivations
MOTIVATIONS
to act
for biodiversity
groups
institutions
Fields,
opportunities
Actions,
practices
culture
STRUCTURE STRUCTURE STRUCTURE STRUCTURE STRUCTURE STRUCTURE STRUCTURE
Capitals, motivations and opportunity give rise to actions, and actions become routinized and
connected to other actions to shape practices. These in turn shape and reshape structures. How
that happens is not BIOMOT’s focus; we are interested in motivations and what shapes them.
One important element breaking this simplicity is the ‘back arrow’ that runs from
action/practices to motivations. This arrow stands for the (often subconscious) effort of the
human mind to ‘make normal’ what one finds oneself to be doing (for any reason). A well-known
example is that if you are forced to drive slowly though your neighbourhood because of road
bumps, after a while you tell yourself and others that this is good because of child safety. More
broadly put, motivations are made up, and then internalized, to justify actions even though the
action was primarily caused by quite different reasons (e.g. forced, or just do what your girl does
only to be near her). The ‘narrative fallacy’ is another phenomenon here.
Actions and practices do not only feed back into motivations but also along a deeper route, back
into Formation. Doing things does not only change the stories you tell about yourself, but they
are also formative, changing yourself ‘for real’. That’s the deeper arrow.
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A final breaker of simplicity between Formation and Motivation runs from capitals to
motivations. In simple theory, what you want to do (motivation) is independent from what you
can do (capitals). In more complex reality, however, people enjoy doing what they are good at (cf.
‘flow’ theory). That’s the arrow between capitals and motivation.
Needless to say, more arrows could be drawn, e.g. between formation of capitals and formation
of motivations. Knowing (capital) and loving (motivation) often grow together. We leave these
arrows out however because they are one step too far from BIOMOT’s focus.
In the course of people’s life, the Formation/Motivation picture may have ‘cold’ periods with
little change but also ‘hot’ periods with more dynamics and change. The latter, one could say, are
the formative periods for biodiversity during a lifetime. Interviews should naturally focus on these
formative periods.
Thus in the BIOMOT interviews, we have to find a way to trace, however insecure, the three
arrows that make up the motivations. And the for the Formation part, we have to trace the
influence from the actor’s own practices versus the structural influences (groups etc.). Quite a
job, but conceptually clear.
3. An elaboration of Formation
Formation is defined as the building of personal Patterns of Action (Practices), Patterns of
Feeling and Patterns of Thought over a period of time.
These patterns can work as separate entities or jointly become mixed in Routines (= fixed
patterns of combined doing, thinking, feeling).
If you take the Doing out of a Routine, you are left with the static person exhibiting the left-over
of the Routine, i.e. fixed patterns of Feeling and Thinking. This is Bourdieu’s Habitus.
Patterns of Feeling and Thinking are the deeper, generalized versions of Motivations. In other
words, the basic structure of Motivations is also Feelings and Thinkings.
4. An elaboration of Motivations
Motivation is BIOMOT’s key concept and therefore requires good detail and a full encompassing
of later work in WPs 1, 2, and 3.
Motivation = Thinkings and Feelings relevant for action.
Thinking = Fast + Slow = System 1 + System 2 = Intuitions + Reasons.
Hence, Motivation = action-relevant Feelings + Intuitions + Reasons.
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BIOMOT’s classification of motivations should encompass these three (plus, of course, all
wisdom gathered in the Common Concepts). The classification is on the final page of this
Framework.
The classification is purely qualitative, i.e. not expressing any weight or strength of the
motivation. Theoretically, all motivations may be combined with a strength:
o Quantified motivation = motivation x strength of motivation
This strength of motivation is important because it has been found that weak motivations of
often follow actions/practices (= the back arrow in the Figure) rather than cause them.
For each actor, a strength of motivation may be added to each motivation, thus forming the
motivational profile of the actor, that is, the picture of which motivations are at zero level,
which are weak and which are strong. The strongest ones may then be subject for further
probing, aiming to find out their formation (see Figure).
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5. Classification of motivations for BIOMOT
Self (= non-relational )
• short-term economic and hedonic (incl. ecosystem services, incl. social rewards/sanctions)
• long-term economic and hedonic (incl. anxiety reduction, incl. ecosystem resilience)
• (non-relational) achievement, self-esteem, self-direction
• intrinsic rewards of good life; life of virtue; beauty
Self in Group
(Group = microstructure, social but also including place, nature, landscape. All ‘group’ is de re.)
• relational hedonic (pleasure in doing things together, incl. with nature)
• self-significance in group (incl. nature) (e.g. reputation, looking superior)
• fairness ( I do because others do)
• care (responding to needs in group incl. nature]; harmony
• identification: group (incl. nature) is wider Self (helping group = helping Self)
Group (doing things for good of group without regard for own rewards or position)
• due to and for social group identity
• due to and for group place identity
• maintaining social norms (irrespective of good to Self)
World (doing things for good of world and/or position of Self in world)
(World = macrostructures + abstract, de dicto categories)
• (inter)national reputation (self-significance in world)
• defence against hostile, dangerous world phenomena
• general duties, rights, obligations (incl. Kantian duty)
• universal love : universal biophilia, stewardship, benevolence, compassion, care of future
generations
Notes to the Classification:
o The classification is purely qualitative, I.e. excluding motivational strength. Motivational
strength may correlate with Connectedness (to nature, to group, to self etc.).
o The classification may also be applied with a group, e.g. an organisation, as unit of analysis
(=Self). ‘Group’ then becomes the group of other organisations around the Self organisation,
etc.
o Through abstraction, the scheme can also be translated to policy-making bureaucrat roles, e.g.
“hedonic” is abstracted first to ‘satisfaction of primary needs’ and then re-concreted into
‘satisfaction of primary policy objectives’.
o De re = object centred; de dicto = concept centred. Appendix 1 - Some philosophical
reflections on some concepts
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Appendix 1 - Some philosophical reflections on some
concepts
Nature
Hume on the word ‘nature’: 'there is none more ambiguous and equivocal' (Hume, 2000 [1739],
A Treatise of Human Nature III.i.ii). Hume's attempts to disambiguate different senses of 'nature'
through a series of contrasts is useful: nature vs the miraculous, nature vs the artifice, natural vs
the civil.
• Nature vs the miraculous 'If nature be opposed to miracles, not only the distinction
betwixt vice and virtue is natural, but also every event, which has ever happened in the
world, excepting those miracles, on which our religion is founded.' (Hume, 1978 [1739], III.i.ii,
p.474) Given his scepticism about reports about miracles, the last phrase in this sentence
should be understood as an ironical aside. Once one rejects the i claim that there are
miraculous events then in this sense 'every event, which has ever happened in the world'
is natural.
• Nature vs. artifice 'nature may also be opposed to artifice' (Hume, 1978 [1739], III.i.ii
p.474).
• Nature vs culture, society and the civil: ‘natural is also sometimes opposed to civil’
(Hume, 1978 [1739], III. i.ii p.475).
J. S. Mill draws a distinction between two sense of nature associated with the first and second
contrasts that Hume draws:
‘It thus appears that we must recognise at least two principal meanings in the word
“nature”. In one sense, it means all the powers existing in either the outer or the
inner world and everything which takes place by means of those powers. In another
sense, it means, not everything which happens, but only what takes place without
the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man. This
distinction is far from exhausting the ambiguities of the word; but it is the key to
most of those on which important consequences depend . . . ‘ (Mill, 1874, 'Nature',
in Three Essays on Religion London: Longmans pp.8-9).
Utilitarianism: the view that the right action is that whose consequences maximise the wellbeing or happiness of affected agents; in other words, the best action is that which produces the
greatest improvement in well-being. The theory has three components
1. Welfarism: The only thing that is good in itself and not just a means to another
good is the happiness or well-being of individuals.
2. Consequentialism: whether an action is right or wrong is determined solely by its
consequences.
3. Aggregative maximisation: choose the action that produces the greatest total
amount of good.
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Well-being:
It is possible to distinguish three accounts of well-being:
• Subjective state accounts: well-being is a matter of being in the right psychological
states e.g.hedonism.
• Preference satisfaction accounts: well-being consists in the satisfaction of
preferences, the stronger the preferences the greater the increase in well-being.
• Objectivist accounts: To live well is to have or realise particular objective states. e.g.
particular forms of personal relation, physical health, autonomy, knowledge of the world,
aesthetic experience, accomplishment and achievement, sensual pleasures, a wellconstituted relation with the non-human world, and so on.
Consequentialism: whether an action is right or wrong is determined solely by its consequences.
Actions and states of character are instrumentally valuable as a means to producing the best state
of affairs. The basic ethical question is: ‘What state of affairs ought I to bring about?’
Deontological ethics: To hold a deontological ethic is to accept that there are constraints on
performing certain kinds of actions even where performing those actions brings about
consequences of greater value than not performing them. An action is right if it is accordance
with ethical duties. The basic ethical question is ‘What acts am I obliged to perform or not
perform?’
Virtue ethics: The basic ethical question is 'what sort of person should I be?' . An answer to
that question cites excellences of character - virtues – that are to be developed, and defects of
character - vices – that are to be avoided.
Value commensurability: the claim that there exists a common measure of value through
which different options or states of affair can be ordered.
Two scales of measurement be distinguished:
• a cardinal scale, roughly speaking, a scale that provides information on precisely how
much value different options offer.
• an ordinal scale, i.e. a scale that simply ranks the value different options offer - 1st, 2nd,
3rd and so on – without assigning them any specific value on how much they differ.
Value monism: the claim that there is only one intrinsically valuable property or state which is
valuable in itself, and that other values are reducible to this value. One example is hedonism
which holds the ultimate single value to be pleasure.
Value pluralism: the claim that there are a number of distinct intrinsically valuable properties,
such as autonomy, knowledge, justice, equality, beauty, which are not reducible to each other nor
to some other ultimate value such as pleasure.
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Appendix 2 - Some first epistemological and critical
comments in the marge
As far as philosophical contribution to the discussion of ecology in general and biodiversity in
particular is concerned it can additionally be placed in the framework of discussing the sociopolitical role of science. More precisely science is here not understood as a “neutral” field of
knowledge but as discourse or social bond that produces effects in the formation of subjectivity
and plays a crucial role in the constitution and perception not only of external reality in general
but also of social and subjective reality in particular. Despite the heterogeneity of philosophical
traditions one can frame the discussion around the following general sections:
a) Nature and representations of nature: from critical-philosophical perspective the important
question is not so much what is nature but rather what representations humans make of nature
and how do these representations determine the way humans relate to and/or intervene in the
natural environment. On the level of representations we immediately detect a discrepancy or
contradiction between scientific representations of nature, on one hand, and those
representations that were historically formed in various worldviews (religion, morality,
philosophy of nature etc.), on the other. The critical-philosophical discussion of biodiversity
turns around this contradiction.
b) The problem and the role of ideology in contemporary appropriations of nature as the object
of political interventions: as already indicated nature constitutes one of the central points of
worldviews throughout the history. Analyzing the place of nature in ideological formations
therefore focuses more explicitly on the aspect of worldview representations of nature, which
normally tend to stand in contrast or in even explicit contradiction with scientific knowledge. The
necessity of ideology critique shows how ideological formations can be understood as a form of
resistance against scientific innovations and revolutionary epistemological breaks. The history of
modern science is, as it is well known, also a history of its struggles for recognition in the
ideologically dominated environment.
c) Discourse and discourse analysis: theory of discourses is a methodological support enabling
critical evaluation of general understandings of the relation between nature and culture. It
provides a formal-logical analysis of social bonds and their functioning. Here, too, the field of
research is intimately linked to the analysis of the logical structure of ideological formations.
Discourse analysis also highlights the circulation of concepts in social contexts (i.e. media,
education, political discourse etc.) and their adaptation to specific social goals and interests.
a) Representations of nature
The notion of nature has been subjected to several modifications in history. These modifications
were produced both by the development of scientific knowledge and the emergence of new
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sciences throughout the history and also by the various worldview formations such as religion.
One can today claim that the notion of nature is a complex notion not only because science
revealed deep complexity of natural laws but also because scientific and cultural representations
of nature play an important role in the way people relate to and interact with the natural
environment. It is therefore important to focus on the impact of these representations
themselves on the notion of nature as such. It is precisely these representations that determine
and motivate people to relate to nature in the way they do (or don’t).
Three fields of investigation are taken into consideration: science, ideology and discourse. Within
these fields the common nominator is the understanding of the nature/culture dichotomy, which
forms a sort of “transcendental” frame of Western thought. Despite being critically challenged by
the emergence of modern science it persists in our minds as a constant even today (for the
historical account see Milner, 2008). The dichotomy takes the form of division on physei (i.e.
natural laws) and thesei (i.e. cultural laws and/or conventions): natural laws are supposed to exist
as necessary and unchangeable structures external to the contingent laws that form society and
change together with its historical development. The notion of nature in this dichotomy is
fundamentally static and even homeostatic. Lacan, but also others, often pointed out that the
notion of “nature” is an unclear notion and that it can be thought only in relation to its negative,
anti-nature that traditional understanding defines as culture or also as (alienated) human nature.
The nature/culture dichotomy can therefore be extended with the opposition
homeostasis/alienation.
Nature has been traditionally understood only through its dichotomy with culture – one can say,
up until the emergence of modern science, when this dichotomy was finally challenged and
nature became an object of positive sciences and approached through strict formalization, a
procedure that forecloses the dimension of meaning, which still determines worldview
representations of nature. With this shift nature itself became subjected to contingency, internal
development and, conditionally speaking, alienation. (See Lacan, 2001; Meillassoux, 2006; Koyré,
1973.)
What is particularly interesting in contemporary thematization of the traditional dichotomy,
notably in ecological debates, is that it is often accompanied by a certain anti-scientific anxiety
(see notably Heidegger, 1954; for critical reading, see Meillassoux, 2006). Though this anxiety
poses an interesting problem, notably from psychoanalytic perspective, one can read it as a
symptom of cultural resistance against the epistemological break produced by modern science
and against the consequences of this break in the field of human representations of nature. As
Freud himself has pointed out scientific modernity produced three sciences, physics, biology and
psychoanalysis, which produced a series of “decentralizations”: of reality, life and thinking. Freud
claimed that in this series of decentralizations modern scientific paradigm inflicted three wounds
to human narcissism. Modern science not only alienated human being from itself but it also
produced a discrepancy between scientific and subjective experience. One of these discrepancies
concerns the ancient dichotomy between culture and nature, because modern science grounds on
its rejection and overcoming. An important role of interrogation concerning representations of
nature is therefore linked to the idea of alienation: nature as an object of science is not without
any relation to the alienation of human beings.
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Modern science challenges the homeostatic representation of nature. In our spontaneous relation
to nature we necessarily presuppose it as static order outside culture, an order grounded on
necessary and stable natural laws. David Hume made precisely this point when he analyzed the
philosophical notions of necessity and causality, demonstrating that they are in the end rooted in
human habits. But with modern philosophy another model of natural homeostasis was
constructed. If before nature as God’s creation was considered to be subject to Divine necessity
and order, it is now thought from the perspective of its immanent teleology. With this idea
philosophical reflections progressively separate from religious worldviews and introduce nature as
a realm of Being, which can on one hand be thought without any reference to God but which on
the other hand nevertheless preserves teleological determination as its immanent characteristics.
The persistence of this homeostatic model or understanding of nature was never abolished but
remains present even today, when scientific discourse is considered to dominate the field of
knowledge production.
A particular echo of the homeostatic model can be detected in the discussions of natural
catastrophes. As J.-P. Dupuy has pointed out on several occasions (see Dupuy, 2004, 2005)
catastrophism, or public discourse on natural catastrophes, strives to reduce the contingent
character of an existing catastrophe to human factors. Natural catastrophe is therefore necessarily
transformed into a “moral” catastrophe, raising the question of human responsibility for the
disturbance of the supposed natural “homeostasis”. This transformation strives to return back to
the existing dichotomy between nature and culture, hence to recentralize the natural around the
human intervention. But this is merely one of the problematic aspects of catastrophism, which in
our opinion requires further philosophical investigation.
The historical analyses of modern scientific revolution (Koyré, 1973; Lacan, 2001; Milner, 2008)
show that the introduction of nature as scientific object (and as object of “strict formalization”)
produces a conflict of representations. It problematizes the notion of nature, notably by
introducing the notion of contingency as an immanent feature of natural laws (see notably
Meillassoux, 2006). To put it in a simplified way, if the homeostatic model represents nature as a
supposed realm of necessary laws and repetitions then the dynamic model introduces a
representation of nature that excludes the idea of homogeneous totality and predictability.
The rejection of physei-thesei dichotomy therefore means rejection of the homeostatic
representation of nature. Through this epistemological rejection nature appears as an internally
instable yet consistent field of laws that develop in time. Philosophical significance of modern
scientific revolution is fundamentally linked to the introduction of change, i.e. natural change in
the field of philosophical and broader discussions. Scientific representation of nature also
introduced the idea of “contingent laws” or “contingent necessity”. This means that necessity
does not function as the opposite of contingency (chance) but is instead its stable product.
The pre-modern physics, which was grounded in Aristotelian philosophy of nature, translated the
physei-thesei dichotomy into the opposition necessity and contingency, or repetition as automaton
and repetition as tyche (chance). Everything that falls under the realm of chance, hence of
contingency and change, was excluded from the field of science: chance and change were
106
understood to be in contradiction with nature as stable and constituted external order. With
scientific modernity this dispositive changes and contingency becomes an essential element of
natural processes.
This reintroduction of change and contingency in the realm of natural laws leads to the
conclusion that nature does not exist as something that would be a priori grounded on
homeostasis and fully constituted. In other words, nature is not a self-enclosed field of absolute
necessity and stable laws. The progress of scientific knowledge shows us that nature should be
instead thought in terms of coexistence of local stability and global instability. If we take the
Koyréian idea that with scientific modernity the logical passage from the “closed world” to the
“infinite universe” effectively took place then we need to conclude that the representation of
nature in this passage radically changes. If nature includes contingency then this means that
nature is not whole and that its internal laws are subject to change and development.
This shift in representation can also demonstrate that human interventions in nature in fact
appear in an even more problematic light. The risk of these interventions, i.e. of uncontrolled
capitalist exploitation of natural resources, is high not because humans would disturb some
hypothetic natural homeostasis but its contingent local stabilization. The effects of human
intervention do not necessarily manifest on the macro level of catastrophic scenarios but even
more on the micro level of systemic changes that may remain invisible but nevertheless
accumulate and progressively lead to catastrophic macro-changes. It is for this reason that the
common representation of nature in catastrophic scenarios is misleading because it does not
acknowledge the fact that human actions have consequences also on the micro-level and that an
environmental change is not entirely reducible to the sensationalist image of natural catastrophe.
b) Nature as an object of ideology
The notion of ideology plays an important role in the discussion of ecological issues not only
because of the fact that great portions of modern science were successfully integrated in the
homeostatic “hypothesis” (i.e. evolutionary biology was incorporated into creationism) but also
because it offers an insight in the mechanisms that determine cultural resistance against
revolutionary scientific discoveries. The function of ideology has always consisted in offering a
totalizing view not only of human/social relations but also of reality. In this respect the
homeostatic hypothesis is one of the central elements of every ideological formation.
The notion of ideology is normally used to describe political ideologies but it is legitimate to
extend it on personal and cultural worldviews (Freud, 1933/2000) and in the last instance on the
field of science. Epistemologists such as Canguilhem and Foucault convincingly showed that
scientific discourse is not “innocent” or “immune” to ideological formations within its own field.
In the same line Althusser (1974) spoke of “spontaneous philosophy” of scientists, which can be
understood as an immanent production of a totalizing worldview within the scientific field. In
order to understand ideology in an exhaustive way one therefore needs to abandon its socially
most widespread understanding, which links ideology with the 20th century totalitarianisms, and
instead analyze it on its formal and logical level (cf. Žižek’s ideology critique).
107
The critical analysis of ideology in the case of ecological issues is on one hand linked with the
persistence of economism as the dominating capitalist ideology (which essentially empties the
political field of its emancipatory content and substitutes it with pragmatism of human interest)
and on the other hand with various instrumentalist understandings of science that picture it as an
object of anxiety, thereby masking that the true problem lies in the capitalist exploitation of
nature and not in scientific challenging of traditional worldviews. Another focal point of ideology
critique concerns the question of representations of nature in public discourse, not only in
scientific and moral worldviews (“spontaneous philosophy”) but also in media coverage.
The persistence of the homeostatic worldview on the other hand does not concern only
representations of nature but also representations of life. Foucault’s discussion of biopolitics
strives to demonstrate that political appropriation of life in 19th century implied a new form of
power that develops a complex network of normalization and integration techniques destined to
regulate natural deviations from the supposed biological norm. Biologism becomes a particular
ideological extension of homeostatic hypothesis.
The socio-political value of psychoanalysis consists in the fact that it problematizes the idea of
vitalistic homeostasis with the discovery of what Freud called the “death drive”. The notion
should not be misunderstood in the sense that it describes some sort of self-destructive tendency
within life itself. It should instead be seen as an effort to theorize life outside the frames of
homeostatic model, immanent teleology and strive for self-preservation. The “death” in “death
drive” is thus misleading, which is why we should keep in mind that Freud demonstrates the
meaning of the notion in his analysis of modern capitalist society by pointing out the
contradiction between cultural demands and cultural effects. Freud demonstrates that an entire
segment of human nature, sexuality among others, is constituted on alienation and violates the
supposedly normative biological frames. The point of psychoanalytic representation of life is not
in the dichotomy between norms and deviations – in this case psychoanalysis would remain in
the biopolitical homeostatic framework. Instead Freud points out that what humans traditionally
perceive as nature is always already internally denaturalized. Hence what some would describe as
Freud’s “pessimistic” view of culture and society based on progress (in other words on economic
liberalism): The idea of cultural discontent (das Unbehagen in der Kultur) points out that both nature
and culture are not based on “social contract” or “necessary laws” but develop their consistency
on the complex level of systemic and/or structural changes.
Žižek extended the Freudian idea of cultural discontent on the field of nature. With the mutation
of representations of nature brought about by modern scientific development nature itself
became the source and the embodiment of cultural discontent (cf. Žižek, 2008, where the notion
of Unbehagen in der Natur, discontent in nature is explicitly introduced). This discontent does not
only point out that nature and culture are in antagonistic relation but also, and more
fundamentally, that nature itself is not homeostatic. Once science grounds its understanding of
nature on the link between contingency and law the classic dichotomy between nature and
culture turns out to be insufficient and ideologically problematic.
c) Discourse analysis
108
The notion of discourse additionally problematizes the classic nature-culture relation and the
homeostatic hypothesis that supports it. If for the classic thought this division was regulatory,
normative and supported the relation between nature and culture then modern science brings
about an epistemological tension that not only concerns the two images of nature, the static and
the dynamic, but first and foremost the correlation between nature and scientific discourse. The
change that takes place is that science, which is not only founded exclusively on empiric
experimentation but also on mathematical formalization, opens up a space in which discourse has
real consequences (Lacan, 2006). This means that nature, as scientific object, can no longer serve
as foundational ground of culture and the interventions of humans into natural environment lose
their “innocent” character. It is only within scientific discourse that nature is discovered as
something that can be subjected to change, both immanently and externally. Nature is therefore
discovered as something that does not exist as a determined and fixed order but rather as an
open and inconsistent field of dynamic laws, which are themselves, in their interconnection and
relations, subjected to systemic changes and development. The most essential problem of ecology
is therefore not how to re-establish or preserve natural order – since the internal stability of
nature is not grounded on necessity – but how to regulate industrial exploitation of environment.
It is clear that capitalism is endowed with infinite adaptability, which enables it to turn ecology
into a new field of investment and competition. But here the problem remains unsolved, as long
as ecological questions remain tied exclusively to the economic and not extended to the political
sphere, that is to say until the relation between ecology and politics is intensified. In
contemporary financial crisis we can for instance notice that economy has absolute priority to
political and ecological issues.
Environmental changes with catastrophic potential are in public discourse most commonly
represented as singular catastrophic events, whereby this representation remains within the old
paradigm of nature as homeostatic order. This perspective is at work in the entire discourse on
catastrophism, which may have its public success and is present notably in media coverage of
environmental changes but one cannot overlook that such discourse is problematic not only in its
spectacularism but first and foremost in the fact that it remains tied to the old paradigm of
natural order, in which the inner-systemic dynamic remains unthematized. It is therefore
necessary to disassociate ecological questions and catastrophism, because the latter is grounded
on an irresolvable paradox between knowledge and belief and between possible and impossible.
This paradox was pointed out by J.-P. Dupuy in his book on catastrophism. If we understand
catastrophe as a singular event then this event remains abstract and impossible up to its very
realization. To put it with Dupuy, “if a catastrophe should be prevented, we have to believe in its
possibility before its actualization. But on the other hand, if we succeed in preventing it, its nonrealization will maintain the catastrophe in the domain of impossible and the efforts of its
prevention will retrospectively appear as useless” (Dupuy, 2004, p. 13). What this paradox
demonstrates is that belief is not there where one would expect it to be. The object of belief is
not the catastrophe but its impossibility (just like Freud demonstrated that unconsciously
everyone believes in his/her own immortality despite all the empirical facts – see Freud,
1917/2000). We are then dealing with the well known “I know very well but nevertheless”
structure, which points out the discrepancy between knowledge and belief.
109
Summary and further framing
To sum up, the critical reflection on contemporary state of affairs in ecology starts by contrasting
the two basic cultural representations of nature:
a) The scientific representation based on the idea of “contingent necessity” of natural laws;
b) The worldview or ideological representation based on the homeostatic model that presupposes
necessity, teleology and stability as the fundamental characteristics of nature.
We can see that this contrast offers two different foundations to ecology or even confronts us
with two different ecological movements. To b) corresponds ecology as an apolitical civil
movement or worldview formation that often remains in the frame of traditional human
representations of nature. Here ecology risks to get entangled in the conflict of representations
described earlier.
On the other hand we can call ecology corresponding to a) political ecology. In this context
ecological issues are thought in reference to scientific knowledge, on one hand, and to the
problem of regulation of capitalism (more specific, the problem of regulation and limitation of
capitalist commodification of nature).
Symptomatic for the worldview ecology is that it tries to ground human relation to nature on the
feelings of “love”. We find this position, for instance, in what is commonly described as
“biophilia”. The most speculative claim of the biophilia hypothesis is that humans are
“unconsciously” or “instinctively” tied to other living systems. What is problematic in this
hypothesis is that is grounded on traditional representations of nature as teleological order.
Lacan, on the other hand, criticized “love for nature” by saying that one can love nature only by
presupposing that discourses do not have consequences in natural environment (see Lacan,
2006). In other words, by loving nature humans perpetuate the problematic distinction between
physei and thesei, therefore remaining in the pre-modern epistemological dispositive. This does not
mean that biophilia cannot be read metaphorically as a specific cultural mode of relation to nature
but we need to be aware that this emotional picture cannot be generally applied to all human
beings. Nor can it be understood as a universal motivation but merely one among many.
Modern science and its contemporary development, on the other hand, reveal that human
relation to nature can also be thought in terms of alienation and not love. It may seem paradoxical
but it is only by alienating ourselves from nature that we can actually fully evaluate our own
impacts on its internal dynamics. Also, political ecology that does not take “love for nature” as its
own universal foundation but instead acknowledges that human condition is also subjected to
alienation can and should bear in mind the necessity to reintroduce in the discussion the problem
of capitalism. Contemporary crisis is not merely economic but reveals itself to be three-layered. It
is economic, as far as it concerns the functioning of capitalism; it is ecological, as far as it
concerns the limits of capitalist exploitation of natural resources; and it is ideological, as far as it
simultaneously indicates a progressive separation of capitalism from parliamentary democracy as
its supposed self-evident political environment. All three layers of contemporary crisis are
intimately intertwined and form the context of political crisis (and not “merely” economic crisis,
110
as it is currently represented in the media). Ecology therefore needs to be situated also in this
frame of problematic and not remain detached from its own explicit political contextualization.
111
Appendix 3 - Duty, beauty & delight
In her PhD thesis, Duty, beauty, delight and happiness, Booth (2006) argues that the field of
environmental ethics needs a motivational turn to contribute more effectively to conservation.
Environmental ethics needs to “reference its explanatory, normative, and strategic work to
naturalistic accounts of motivations for conservation” (2006: 4). The two questions, ‘what
motivates people to conserve nature?’ – an empirical question, and ‘what ought to motivate
people to conserve nature?’ – a philosophical-ethical question, need to be investigated jointly,
relying on the best empirical data available. Unfortunately, so Booth (2006), “conservation
motivations have been neglected in both philosophy and psychology” (2006:4); this lacuna has,
however, been noticed by some psychologists who are developing the field of conservation
psychology (cf. Clayton & Myers 2009). Booth (2009) requests an “adequate philosophy of
psychology for moral philosophy” (2009: 53). Drawing on Elizabeth Anscombe (1958 in Booth
2009), Booth (2009) proposes a framework for understanding motivations and for developing
criteria which are motivationally relevant for environmental ethics.
From a philosophical perspective, empirical data that “most people in modern industrial
societies agree there is a moral need to conserve nature” (Booth 2009: 53) does not suffice to
adequately answer the question why nature or biodiversity should be conserved. Similarly, Booth’s
(2009: 55, cf. 60) question, ‘ought people be morally motivated to conserve nature’ requires
normative reflection, as well a precise conceptual-philosophical analysis of motivations for what –
i.e. what specifically do we mean by ‘nature’? – and why. Answering the ‘ought’ question in the
affirmative without philosophical justification, as Booth (2009: 60) does, is not satisfactory from
and for environmental ethics. We need good moral theory to be able to differentiate between
sound and poorly justified arguments for nature conservation (Ott pers comm, cf. Booth 2009:
67).
A deontological approach to motivation, appealing to people’s obligations for nonhuman entities, appears limited. As Lichtenberg’s (2004) studies on alleviating global poverty
have indicated, the consequences of failing obligations – social and/or legal punishment, guilt –
do not exist sufficiently in our western society to bring about the desired effects (in Booth 2009:
56). “As with poverty alleviation, conservation is considered morally admirable, but most people
neglect its specific behavioural demands beyond a few easily adopted reforms” (Booth 2009: 56).
Philosophers are thus asked to contribute alternative considerations, such as an axiological
approach to motivation (cf. Muraca 2011) and to “concern themselves more with the question of
motivation” (Booth 2009: 56). Furthermore, Booth (2009: 57) calls for “a project to expand the
motivational repertoire of moral demands beyond law-like obligations” – such as a relational
ethic of care, biophilic arguments of identification with nature and virtue ethics with link
eudaimonia with nature conservation (Booth 2009: 57).
One of the questions that needs addressing is the question whether “anthropocentric
ethics are motivationally superior to biocentric ethics because they appeal to human interests”
(Booth 2009: 61). Psychological studies are needed to address this question from an empirical
vantage point. Insights from human psychology will then illuminate the vexing ‘demarcation
problem’ in environmental ethics; i.e. the question which entities in nature have moral standing
and which do not, and the criterion or criteria (e.g. sentienism) which are used to ‘draw the line.’
112
Given inadequate theories of motivation, Booth (2009: 62) proposes a framework to
structure the available scientific evidence regarding (moral) motivations. She proposes four
dimensions:
(1) domains – broad classes of motivation (e.g. moral, aesthetic, and relational motivations)
(2) constituents – psychological elements and processes of motivation (e.g. empathetic emotions
and moral reasoning)
(3) capacities – psychological, social, institutional, conceptual and other types of capabilities and
vulnerabilities for different types of motivation (e.g. social norms and environmental education)
(4) sources – evolutionary, social and cultural bases and histories of different motivations (e.g. the
evolution of moral emotions, the history of cultural perceptios of nature).
These dimensions are not to be understood as causal models, since only a neurobiological
understanding of motivation can ultimately illuminate motivational models and motivational
complexity (Booth 2009: 62).
With respect to a psychological perspective on human motivations for nature
conservation, Booth (2009: 66) advises that the image we have of ourselves influences
motivations. I.e. the image of the human – e.g. as greedy, as morally inclined but vulnerable –
affects dispositions to act for nature. Consequently, popular and alternative conceptions of the
human need to critically analyzed with respect to their impact on motivations for nature
conservation, and philosophically justified.
113
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