Values embedded in scientific language

Philosophers of science have recently emphasized a wide range of ways in which scientific research is ‘value-laden’, in the sense that scientists make numerous choices or judgements that are not settled by the available evidence, but that can support particular social or ethical values (Longino Reference Longino1990, Lacey Reference Lacey1999, Douglas Reference Douglas2009). For example, scientists have to decide what topics to study, what questions to ask about those topics, how to design their studies, what methods to use for collecting and analysing data, how to interpret ambiguous results and how to frame and conceptualize their findings (Elliott Reference Elliott2017a). When undertaking applied research that informs environmental decision-making, it is common that some research choices are more likely to generate results that support values like public and environmental health, whereas other choices are more likely to yield results that support different values, such as short-term economic growth.

Like many other elements of scientific practice, choices involving scientific language can be value-laden (Elliott Reference Elliott2009, Larson Reference Larson2011, Johns & DellaSala Reference Johns and DellaSala2017). First, scientists can end up supporting some values over others depending on how they frame the topics under investigation. For example, members of the public respond differently to climate change depending on whether it is framed as a matter of scientific uncertainty, unfair economic burden, religious morality or public accountability (Nisbet & Mooney Reference Nisbet and Mooney2007). Second, scientists often use terms that have metaphorical or otherwise value-laden connotations. For example, Brendon Larson (Reference Larson2011) argues that it is important to consider the metaphorical significance of terms like ‘invasive’, ‘alien’ or ‘exotic’ species, which may subtly encourage people to draw connections between biological issues involving these species and social issues such as military invasions or disputes over immigration. Similarly, John Dupré (Reference Dupré, Kincaid, Wylie and Dupré2007) has argued that when scientists take terms such as ‘rape’ that are used in human social contexts and apply those terms in biological contexts, they may import ethical or social connotations into those non-human contexts. Third, choices about how to define the terms or categories used in scientific research are often value-laden. For example, the increasing use of the concept of ‘wetlands’ in the second half of the twentieth century helped prompt limited conservation of these areas, but major political and legal disputes have arisen about how to define what counts as a wetland because there are competing interests (e.g., Rapanos v. United States 547 US 715 (2006)). During the George HW Bush presidency, his administration tried to shrink the number of lands classified as wetlands – thereby facilitating his campaign promise of ‘no net loss’ of wetlands – but this plan came under intense opposition from environmental groups (Elliott Reference Elliott, Bensaude-Vincent, Loeve, Nordmann and Schwarz2017b).

These choices about frames, terms and definitions can have major social, policy and ethical consequences when dealing with environmental issues (Elliott Reference Elliott2009). For example, they can influence the future course of research by drawing scientists’ attention to some problems and lessening their attention to other problems. Sheldon Krimsky (Reference Krimsky2000) has shown that developing a unifying concept such as ‘wetlands’ or ‘endocrine disruption’ or ‘climate change’ to describe a set of phenomena can be a powerful stimulus for promoting research efforts. Choices about language can also change the burdens of proof or the kinds of evidence required for taking action in response to environmental concerns, as illustrated by the Bush administration’s efforts to influence environmental policymaking by changing the definition of wetlands. Finally, choices about language can influence the extent to which policymakers and members of the public pay attention to environmental problems, as Nisbet and Mooney (Reference Nisbet and Mooney2007) have argued in the case of climate change. One way in which particular language choices can promote attention to environmental problems is by framing them in such a way that they connect or resonate with particular ethical theories, value frameworks or emotional attachments (Johns & DellaSala Reference Johns and DellaSala2017). The following sections of this paper focus on this issue in detail, showing how concepts such as ‘biodiversity’ are conceptually linked more closely with some value frameworks than others, thereby potentially communicating the importance of environmental conservation more effectively to some stakeholders than others.

‘Biodiversity’ and environmental ethics

Biodiversity is notoriously difficult to define (Takacs Reference Takacs1996, Holt Reference Holt2006), which contributes to both its strengths and its weaknesses. On the one hand, Georg Toepfer (Reference Toepfer, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019) argues that it is particularly useful because it is an ‘umbrella term’ that is vague enough and rich enough in its connotations to mediate between many different disciplines and discourses (see also Burch-Brown & Archer Reference Burch-Brown and Archer2017). On the other hand, Carlos Santana (Reference Santana2014) contends that the open-endedness of the biodiversity concept means that it is difficult to measure and that it does not clearly pick out the specific elements in nature that are valuable (see also Meinard et al. Reference Meinard, Coq, Schmid, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019). Another worry is that the slipperiness of the concept provides an opportunity for scientists to surreptitiously import their own values into policymaking. If biodiversity is assumed to be valuable and worthy of protection, but if scientists are the ones operationalizing the concept, then they end up with significant power to determine which elements of nature are prioritized for conservation (Morar et al. Reference Morar, Toadvine and Bohannan2015).

The goal in this paper is not to revisit these debates about the ambiguity of the biodiversity concept, but instead to explore its connections to major value frameworks used in environmental ethics. The upshot of this analysis is that the biodiversity concept has conceptual features that are likely to make it more effective for working with communities who attribute intrinsic value to nature than communities who approach nature with instrumental or relational value frameworks. Historically, the major value frameworks employed in the field of environmental ethics have focused on ‘instrumental value’ and ‘intrinsic value’ (Afeissa Reference Afeissa, Callicott and Frodeman2009). Instrumental value is the value that something has because of the ways in which it serves other interests. For example, biodiversity has instrumental value to humans insofar as it contributes to other things of value, such as economic benefits and ecosystem services. Building on this instrumental value, one can construct an ‘anthropocentric’ ethic that justifies concern for the environment because of the ways it serves human interests. During the final decades of the twentieth century, however, a number of figures challenged anthropocentric approaches to ethics as inadequate for addressing environmental problems. They argued that elements of the environment should be appreciated for their intrinsic value (i.e., the value that they have ‘in and of themselves’, independently of the ways they serve human interests; White Reference White1967, Routley Reference Routley1973, Rolston Reference Rolston1989). This notion that entities in the environment have intrinsic value provides the basis for ‘non-anthropocentric’ approaches to environmental ethics, which have roots in many sources, including Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and a variety of environmental writings.

Biodiversity clearly has value. As Toepfer puts it, “The impressive success of the concept ‘biodiversity’ in the last decades, in particular in the arena of politics, is in a large part due to its power to amalgamate facts and values: the fact that living beings show variety on every level of their existence, and the assumed values that are associated with this variety” (Reference Toepfer, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019, p. 341). Some philosophers have gone so far as to say that biodiversity should be defined primarily as a normative concept (Sarkar Reference Sarkar, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019). Taken to the extreme, this view would define biodiversity simply as whatever the field of conservation biology aims to protect (Sarkar Reference Sarkar2002). Thus, the concept of biodiversity is value-laden in at least two interrelated senses. First, as Toepfer emphasizes, it is a concept that incorporates both factual and normative elements. Second, it is conceptually tied more closely to some value systems than to others, thereby framing environmental discourse in ways that encourage some ways of thinking about nature over others.

Given that biodiversity has value, the deeper question is what kind of value it has and to which kinds of value systems it is most closely connected. The argument in this paper is that biodiversity has conceptual features that tie it particularly closely to the notion that nature has intrinsic value. The reason for this is that it refers primarily to entities in nature rather than to the usefulness of those entities or their relationships with humans. As noted in the previous paragraph, one can argue that biodiversity has other forms of value, but the concept itself does not explicitly draw attention to those other forms. Consider, for example, the classic definition of biodiversity in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD): “[T]he 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” (CBD 1992). This definition focuses scientific and public attention on many elements of nature that merit conservation: genes, individuals, populations, species and ecosystems. However, it does not explicitly include the connections between humans and these elements of nature. Because it focuses solely on these entities and their differences rather than the ways they relate to human beings, the concept’s primary focus appears to be the intrinsic value of these entities.

Commentators on biodiversity have consistently affirmed this intrinsic value. For example, in his influential essay laying out much of the groundwork for the field of conservation biology, Michael Soulé explicitly stated that the most fundamental normative postulate of the field is that “Biotic diversity has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value” (Soulé Reference Soulé1985, p. 731, emphasis in original). Similarly, the first line of the Preamble to the CBD states that biological diversity has intrinsic value, and one of the five organizational values of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) is as follows: “There is intrinsic value in the natural diversity of organisms, the complexity of ecological systems, and the resilience created by evolutionary processes” (SCB 2011). A number of other legal and policy statements also affirm the intrinsic value of biodiversity or other aspects of nature (Vucetich et al. Reference Vucetich, Bruskotter and Nelson2015). And Georg Toepfer, who emphasizes how biodiversity brings together both facts and values, emphasizes that “the term maintains its strong non-instrumental ethical dimension: it expresses a non-anthropocentric value of plants and animals” (Toepfer Reference Toepfer, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019, p. 342).

Of course, as noted earlier, biodiversity can have intrinsic value while also having instrumental value for achieving other goals or purposes. For example, the Preamble to the CBD states that biodiversity also has “ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational, and aesthetic values.” However, the concept of biodiversity does not inherently bring these other values to light; one must draw attention to them and, in some cases, argue for them. To take one particularly noteworthy example of how these arguments can play out, the stability–diversity debate among ecologists explored the extent to which reductions in biodiversity are likely to generate instability in ecosystems, which in turn has important implications for human well-being (McCann Reference McCann2000). The huge amount of ink spilled over this debate illustrates how difficult it can be to take a concept like biodiversity and demonstrate the ways in which it has instrumental value (e.g., see Hooper et al. Reference Hooper, Chapin, Ewel, Hector, Inchausti and Lavorel2005, Hautier et al. Reference Hautier, Tilman, Isbell, Seabloom, Borer and Reich2015, Wang & Loreau Reference Wang and Loreau2016, De Boeck et al. Reference De Boeck, Bloor, Kreyling, Ransijn, Nijs, Jentsch and Zeiter2018). One might object that the tendency among ecologists to analyse biodiversity in a quantitative way could still promote instrumental perspectives that connect biodiversity with ecosystem services and human well-being (e.g., see Worm et al. Reference Worm, Barbier, Beaumont, Duffy, Folke and Halpern2006, Cardinale et al. Reference Cardinale, Duffy, Gonzalez, Hooper, Perrings and Venail2012, Sandifer et al. Reference Sandifer, Sutton-Grier and Ward2015). However, the tendency to analyse biodiversity in a highly quantitative way does not seem inherent to the concept itself; in many cases, biodiversity is analysed in very simple terms as a matter of the number of species present in a given location. Norton quotes biodiversity expert Thomas Lovejoy as stating that “the term is really supposed to mean diversity at all levels of organization. But the way it’s most often used is basically relating to species diversity” (Norton Reference Norton, Askins, Dreyer, Visgilio and Whitelaw2008, p. 18). Norton emphasizes that this simple approach to the concept is especially prominent when it is used in popular, non-scientific contexts.

A promising new approach to environmental ethics is to focus on ‘relational values’, which have the potential to transcend conflicts over whether nature has intrinsic value or only instrumental value. As the term suggests, relational values are grounded in the relationships between humans and nature. For example, relational values can stem from the ways in which nature contributes to the identity of a person or a community of people, or they can stem from the ways in which being in nature strengthens the ties between people (Chan et al. Reference Chan, Balvanera, Benessaiah, Chapman, Díaz and Gómez-Baggethun2016). Proponents of the relational value framework argue that it effectively captures the ways in which many people value nature; in other words, they view nature neither as a resource to be exploited nor as something that has value completely independently of its connections with human life. An important strength of this approach is that it can encompass traditional Western philosophies while creating more space for contemporary feminist approaches, Eastern philosophies and Indigenous worldviews. Thus, relational values have the potential to capture the lived experiences of many different people and their connections with nature. Although it might seem like relational values perpetuate a dualistic distinction between humans and nature, with humans being treated as superior, this is not necessarily the case. Relational values could emphasize the interconnections between all living things while starting from the lived experiences of humans in nature.

Just as biodiversity can be justified for its instrumental value, it can be defended based on relational values as well. For example, the recent report from IPBES includes the concept of ‘nature’s contributions to people’ (NCP), which explores the many ways in which biodiversity contributes to people’s quality of life (Diaz et al. Reference Díaz, Pascual, Stenseke, Martín-López, Watson and Molnár2018). These contributions can include ecosystem services such as the provision of food, water and materials, but they can also involve social relationships, opportunities for recreation or inspiration and spiritual experiences. An advantage of the NCP framework is that it can capture local, context-specific ways in which people relate to biodiversity that are sometimes missed by analyses drawn from the natural sciences and economics (Diaz et al. Reference Díaz, Pascual, Stenseke, Martín-López, Watson and Molnár2018). Stephen Kellert has documented a host of ways in which human beings relate to the natural world, including “attraction and curiosity, affection and kinship, knowledge and understanding, mastery and control, moral and spiritual relation, even fear of and aversion to the natural world’’ (Kellert Reference Kellert, Moore and Nelson2010, p. 375). Of course, there are tensions among these ways of relating, and some may be ethically preferable to others, but they illustrate the multifaceted ways in which different stakeholders connect with nature.

Nevertheless, while it is possible to identify ways in which the protection of biodiversity can be supported based on relational values, the biodiversity concept itself does not capture relational connections between humans and nature; one must deliberately draw attention to these connections. This is because the concept of biodiversity describes elements of nature (such as genes, individuals, populations or species) and the differences between them (i.e., diversity) rather than the relationships between humans and nature. In fact, contemporary critics of traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation argue that biodiversity has too often been conceptualized as being in conflict with human activities (Kareiva et al. Reference Kareiva, Marvier and Lalasz2012). For example, journalist Mark Dowie (Reference Dowie2011) contends that conservation groups have frequently pushed Indigenous peoples off their historic lands because those groups felt it was easier to achieve their goal of preserving biodiversity in the absence of human interference. Dowie cites a speech by Martin Saning’o, a Maasai leader from Tanzania who addressed the Third Congress of the World Conservation Union in 2004, claiming that “in the interest of a relatively new vogue in conservation called ‘biodiversity’ … more than one hundred thousand Maasai pastoralists have been displaced from their traditional homeland’’ (Dowie Reference Dowie2011, p. xv). Saning’o asserted that “‘We [the Maasai] were the original conservationists,’ but ‘now you [conservationists focused on biodiversity] have made us enemies of conservation’” (Dowie Reference Dowie2011, p. xv).

In sum, although the biodiversity concept can be employed in conjunction with multiple approaches to environmental ethics, the concept itself focuses on the intrinsic value of nature. Because the concept does not draw explicit connections between humans and nature, arguments are needed to establish the instrumental and relational value of biodiversity. Of course, this does not mean that biodiversity fails to have these additional forms of value; they are just not immediately captured by the concept itself. Thus, from the perspective of the philosophy of science, the concept of biodiversity is ‘value-laden’ insofar as it is conceptually tied more closely to some ways of approaching environmental ethics than others. This embedding of values within the biodiversity concept is significant because some people can appreciate instrumental or relational approaches to valuing nature more than intrinsic approaches. Thus, if conservationists want to frame their efforts in ways that will motivate as many different stakeholders as possible, they should work with social scientists to explore whether other concepts could be effectively employed alongside or in place of biodiversity.

Other ways of framing conservation

The notion that the biodiversity concept could be replaced or augmented with other concepts is not new. For example, Norton has argued that different definitions of biodiversity could be used in the scientific and political spheres, and he has suggested that other productive terms should be investigated as well: “Rather than clinging to definitions that don’t work, we can investigate which terms and linguistic forms are conducive to communication and cooperative behavior within the community seeking to protect the wonders of the biologically diverse world” (Norton Reference Norton, Askins, Dreyer, Visgilio and Whitelaw2008, p. 19). Similarly, building on the work of Sahotra Sarkar (Reference Sarkar2002), Carlos Santana has argued that conservation science operates via a series of representations: “estimator surrogate → true surrogate → biodiversity → biological value” (Santana Reference Santana2014, p. 762). In other words, when conservationists focus on particular entities, they may be useful primarily because they represent something else that is of more fundamental importance. According to figures such as Sarkar and Santana, biodiversity is a general concept that is used to represent the many different biological entities and processes that are valuable in nature. Thus, if ‘biodiversity’ does not turn out to be the best way to refer to those valuable things, we can and should pursue alternative terms and concepts for representing them (Santana Reference Santana, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019). The novel contribution of this paper is to focus specifically on exploring how alternative terms and concepts relate to the major value frameworks employed in environmental ethics so that conservationists can think more deeply about the potential ramifications for conservation of making different language choices.

Before proceeding to consider the ethical ramifications of alternative concepts, however, it is important to address two potential objections to pursuing a project such as this one. First, one might think it would be more effective (and perhaps more ethically satisfactory) to convince people to value nature intrinsically rather than shifting to terms that are conceptually tied to instrumental and relational value systems (e.g., see Crist Reference Crist2019). This objection might be supported by evidence from social psychology, which indicates that people are more likely to engage in pro-social and environmentally friendly behaviour when they are motivated by intrinsic values (e.g., see Crompton Reference Crompton2011, Sheldon et al. Reference Sheldon, Nichols and Kasser2011, Cetas & Yasué Reference Cetas and Yasué2017). However, this research should be interpreted carefully. These studies do not define intrinsic values in exactly the same way that environmental ethicists do; they tend to define these values as “those pursuits that are generally congruent with the psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence proposed by self-determination theory” (Grouzet et al. Reference Grouzet, Kasser, Ahuvia, Dols, Kim and Lau2005, p. 801). Under this definition, intrinsic values include things such as community feeling, self-acceptance and physical health, as opposed to extrinsic values such as money or popularity (Grouzet et al. Reference Grouzet, Kasser, Ahuvia, Dols, Kim and Lau2005, p. 801). Thus, this research does not establish that the intrinsic values discussed in this paper are more motivationally efficacious than all instrumental or relational values. Rather, it shows that community-orientated instrumental and relational values, as well as what environmental ethicists call intrinsic values, are more efficacious than shallow, self-centred instrumental and relational values. This conclusion is supported by the empirical evidence that many Indigenous cultures have held relational value frameworks and have conserved significant amounts of biodiversity for millennia (Dowie Reference Dowie2011, Chan et al. Reference Chan, Balvanera, Benessaiah, Chapman, Díaz and Gómez-Baggethun2016). Thus, it would be premature to conclude that concepts associated with intrinsic value systems (in the sense used by environmental ethicists) will typically be more motivationally efficacious (or ethically superior) in comparison with other concepts. Given the ambiguity of the available evidence and the complexity of shifting people to different value orientations, it makes sense to engage in further social science research to determine what suite of concepts is likely to be most effective at promoting biodiversity conservation in response to the range of values that people currently hold.

Another objection is that it might seem manipulative for conservationists to choose terms and concepts with the express goal of convincing people to engage in conservation activities. By employing this approach, one might think conservation scientists fall into a stance of ‘stealth issue advocacy’ that is inappropriate for scientific researchers (Pielke Reference Pielke2007). This is an important concern, but it is not a compelling reason to avoid using value-laden language designed to promote conservation. Given that conservation biology is a highly policy-relevant discipline, it is doubtful that any language employed in this field could be completely value-neutral; any terms and concepts used in the public sphere are likely to have some connotations, either positive or negative (Elliott Reference Elliott2017a). Philosophers of science have argued that scientists should respond to the inevitability of these value-laden choices both by making the most responsible choices they can and by trying to be transparent about them (Kourany Reference Kourany2010, Elliott Reference Elliott2018, Brown Reference Brown2020). With this advice in mind, and given the importance of biodiversity conservation to the future well-being of humanity and all other living things, there appear to be good ethical reasons for scientists to make value-laden choices in ways that promote conservation rather than detracting from it (Cox Reference Cox2007). It is also noteworthy that the use of multiple terms and concepts in the context of biodiversity conservation could actually be a productive way to promote greater transparency among information recipients by helping them to recognize the value-laden connotations and nuances of different terms (McKaughan & Elliott Reference McKaughan and Elliott2013). Focusing on the single concept of biodiversity could actually detract from transparency because of its vagueness; different groups could be using the same term without realizing that they have very different value orientations and intentions (Meinard et al. Reference Meinard, Coq, Schmid, Casetta, Marques da Silva and Vecchia2019).

Assuming, then, that it makes sense to explore alternative language choices, the remainder of this section briefly explores the strengths and weaknesses of five terms that could be used either as additions or as alternatives to the biodiversity concept: life support systems, sustainability, food security, environmental justice and care for nature. The section focuses especially on how these concepts relate to intrinsic, instrumental and relational value frameworks. This group of terms is intended neither to be exclusive nor exhaustive. Rather, it provides a sampling of terms with different strengths and weaknesses in relation to the major value frameworks. For example, life support systems and sustainability resemble biodiversity in that they are somewhat vague umbrella terms, but they have a stronger instrumental and relational focus than biodiversity does. The concept of food security also has very strong instrumental and relational connotations, but it has a much narrower focus. The concept of environmental justice is another term with a narrower focus, and it illustrates how conservation can be conceptualized in ways that resonate with broader social movements. Finally, the concept of respect for nature illustrates that not all alternatives to the biodiversity concept must have a strong instrumental focus; respect for nature bridges relational and intrinsic value systems. Taken together, these terms exemplify major avenues open to conservationists interested in exploring linguistic choices that resonate with different value frameworks.