Finding Purpose in the Conservation of Biodiversity by the Commingling of Science and Ethics

Abstract

Averting the biodiversity crisis requires closing a gap between how humans tend to behave, individually and collectively, and how we ought to behave—“ought to” in the sense of behaviors required to avert the biodiversity crisis. Closing that gap requires synthesizing insight from ethics with insights from social and behavioral sciences. This article contributes to that synthesis, which presents in several provocative hypotheses: (i) Lessening the biodiversity crisis requires promoting pro-conservation behavior among humans. Doing so requires better scientific understanding of how one’s sense of purpose in life affects conservation-relevant behaviors. Psychology and virtue-focused ethics indicate that behavior is importantly influenced by one’s purpose. However, conservation psychology has neglected inquiries on (a) the influence of one’s purpose (both the content and strength of one’s purpose) on conservation-related behaviors and (b) how to foster pro-conservation purposes; (ii) lessening the biodiversity crisis requires governance—the regulation of behavior by governments, markets or other organization through various means, including laws, norms, and power—to explicitly take conservation as one of its fundamental purposes and to do so across scales of human behaviors, from local communities to nations and corporations; (iii) lessening the biodiversity crisis requires intervention via governance to nudge human behavior in line with the purpose of conservation without undue infringement on other basic values. Aligning human behavior with conservation is inhibited by the underlying purpose of conservation being underspecified. Adequate specification of conservation’s purpose will require additional interdisciplinary research involving insights from ethics, social and behavioral sciences, and conservation biology.

Conservation scholars' perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation

“…This finding highlights the degree to which moral beliefs drive both sides of the trophy hunting debate. Moreover, it emphasizes the need for more interdisciplinary work on conservation ethics, which should involve both scientists and humanities scholars (Vucetich, Macdonald, et al, 2021). We also found that trophy hunting's consequences for local communities were the most salient predictor of both opponents' and proponents' views.…”

Mitigating Human Impacts on Wild Animal Welfare

“…I agree the necessity, potency and ethical imperative of the integration, although as a conservation biologist and practitioner I have always included animal welfare as an important arrow in the quiver of conservation considerations [ 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 ] (Macdonald & Boitani 1979, Macdonald and Dawkins 1981, Macdonald 2001, Macdonald et al 2006a, Macdonald and Willis 2013). In a way compatible with non-anthropocentrism [ 22 , 137 ] (Vucetich et al 2018a. 2021), the experiences of animals themselves are central to Beausoleil et al’s [ 21 ] (2018) conception of welfare.…”

“…Towards the other end of a continuum of positions, a consequentialist view, while striving to minimise suffering might offset any residual welfare disbenefit against potential conservation benefits. In charting a route to an ethically sound framework for conservation, that incorporates animal welfare and is non-anthropocentric, Vucetich et al [ 22 ] (2021) review these two ethical frameworks, Kantian deontology and the consequentialism or utilitarianism generally associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They also introduce a third, yet more venerable, framework, virtue ethics, which emphasises virtues and the Aristotelian quest for well-being termed eudemonia, ‘a word that while not readily translated into English, refers to a kind of human flourishing, a rich sense of happiness that transcends hedonism’.…”

“…Hence, in addition to the powerful logic that individual vertebrates have ‘interests’ (in avoiding suffering and in surviving) and intrinsic value, another and practical reason why conservationists may be vigilant regarding the welfare of individual animals is its potential as an early warning for the security of populations. Mention of value is a reminder that ethical frameworks differ (e.g., [ 22 ] Vucetich et al 2021), but many converge on the conviction that where humans have negative impacts on wild animal welfare there is a moral duty to minimise these impacts wherever possible. However, in order to minimise negative welfare impacts, these first need to be identified and understood.…”

Planning for Human-Wildlife Coexistence: Conceptual Framework, Workshop Process, and a Model for Transdisciplinary Collaboration

“…The management of human-wildlife interactions (HWIs), the effects of which include collisions with vehicles, damage to property and agricultural production, zoonotic diseases, and the use of animals as a resource, is becoming more challenging (Broad et al, 2014;Aguirre, 2017;Pooley et al, 2017;IUCN, 2020). Behind this trend are the rapid and profound changes in the physical environment and societal values associated with the Anthropocene and modernization, including factors such as climate change, expanding infrastructure, urbanization, economic globalization, the digital revolution, and the expanding scope of ethical considerations (Vucetich et al, 2021a). One view, that we share, is that in an increasingly complex and interconnected human-dominated world, turning HWI into large-scale coexistence requires thorough planning (Marchini et al, 2019).…”