A sustainable, just future means humans must shift away from profit-fueled values toward those that are more environmentally focused, according to a recent Nature journal article penned by dozens of academics including a College of Arts and Sciences faculty member.

Barbara Muraca, a philosophy associate professor, took part in United Nations-organized research focused on “relational values” between humans and nature. She hopes to emphasize the importance of viewing the two as connected rather than separate entities.

Muraca participated in the 2022 Assessment Report on the UN-funded Diverse Value and Valuation of Nature for IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), serving as a writer for "Chapter 2: Conceptualizing the Diverse Values of Nature and Their Contributions to People."

A year later, the journal Nature published an article in its August 2023 issue arguing that humanity needs to shift its environmental values away from short-term, profit-oriented values. The authors, including Muraca, present more sustainable values to achieve a more just and sustainable future. 

When beginning her research, she felt the topic chose her rather than the other way around. After studying the traditional perspectives in environmental ethics and the debates about whether nature has an intrinsic value or a value for what it delivers to people—instrumental value—she felt disappointed with this narrative. 

“It served to frame nature as something separate from people, either to be protected regardless of people or only insofar as it is useful to them,” Muraca says. “And yet there was so much more out there, so many people, many of which belong to small rural communities or Indigenous communities, for whom this dichotomy made no sense. For whom the very word ‘nature’ did not actually exist.”

Muraca’s research has been both rewarding and challenging for the same reason: the people of all disciplines she interacts with.

“Finding ways of communicating and understanding each other, being open to cross-fertilization, and willing to question one’s own assumptions and approaches,” she says.  “Just as challenging was to translate our results in a language that would speak to and be interesting and useful to policymakers.”

For too long, society has reduced its attention to environmental issues for the sake of economic benefits, or to protect wilderness areas that people don’t inhabit.

“The richness of values mirrors the richness of biodiversity or, as many of us prefer to say, the biocultural diversity that makes life on earth worth living,” Muraca says.

Muraca hopes that the public reevaluates their relationships with nature on both large and small scales.

“It matters how people express how they value nature and their relationships with it,” she says. “It matters to listen carefully to these specific ways to create institutions, and that includes methods and forms of participation.” 

—Alyson Johnston, College of Arts and Sciences