Emotion as a source of moral understanding in conservation

Abstract

Recent debates around the meaning and implications of compassionate conservation suggest that some conservationists consider emotion a false and misleading basis for moral judgment and decision making. We trace these beliefs to a long‐standing, gendered sociocultural convention and argue that the disparagement of emotion as a source of moral understanding is both empirically and morally problematic. According to the current scientific and philosophical understanding, reason and emotion are better understood as partners, rather than opposites. Nonetheless, the two have historically been seen as separate, with reason elevated in association with masculinity and emotion (especially nurturing emotion) dismissed or delegitimated in association with femininity. These associations can be situated in a broader, dualistic, and hierarchical logic used to maintain power for a dominant male (White, able‐bodied, upper class, heterosexual) human class. We argue that emotion should be affirmed by conservationists for the novel and essential insights it contributes to conservation ethics. We consider the specific example of compassion and characterize it as an emotional experience of interdependence and shared vulnerability. This experience highlights conservationists’ responsibilities to individual beings, enhancing established and widely accepted beliefs that conservationists have a duty to protect populations, species, and ecosystems (or biodiversity). We argue compassion, thus understood, should be embraced as a core virtue of conservation.

The virtue of compassion in compassionate conservation

“…Accordingly, if the virtuous person, motivated by the virtue of compassion, adopts a conservation policy or practice that intentionally harms or kills animals, they are not performing a morally wrong action. By definition, and contrary to assertions by Batavia et al (2021) and , their act of adopting this harm-causing policy is not disrespectful, cruel, or otherwise morally wrong. The virtuous person's characteristic actions determine the morality of a particular action in a particular situation, not the action's conformity to a moral rule.…”

“…Most agree with Batavia et al (2021) that "compassion should animate and inspirit conservation actions, intentions, and interactions." Most conservationists of all persuasions care about animals and are to some extent motivated by compassion, as critics of the compassionate conservation movement are apt to point out (e.g., Russell et al, 2016;Driscoll & Watson, 2019;Hayward et al, 2019).…”

“…With this picture of virtue ethics before us, we turn to the virtue of compassion. The virtuous person is compassionate and compassion involves a particular affect, proper judgment, and motivation to act (Sandler & Cafaro, 2005; Sandler, 2007; Crisp, 2008; Palmer, 2010; Abbate, 2014; Gilbert, 2017; Alvaro, 2017a, 2017b; Batavia et al., 2020; Batavia et al., 2021). The virtue of compassion is grounded in one's shared relation to others and allowing oneself to be appropriately affected by the suffering of others.…”

Biodiversity Monitoring in Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas: Scientific and Methodological Challenges

“…For species, the main evaluation criterion is "sympathy". Animals (especially mammals) should be protected mainly because they appear cute and friendly [192]: this has been called the "Walt Disney effect" [38]. Eating dolphin meat is a crime, eating lobster meat is just a gourmet choice.…”

What is valued in conservation? A framework to compare ethical perspectives

“…Compassionate conservation Bekoff 2015, Wallach et al 2018), also incorporates animal sentience, but from a virtue ethics perspective. Although conservation welfare aims at aligning with more traditional conservation approaches presented above (Beausoleil et al 2018), compassionate conservation appears to be set on different values and proposes, for example, to incorporate emotion to provide insight in conservation (Batavia et al 2021).…”