Abstract

What does it mean to be moral toward nature and the natural environment? This is the question addressed empirically in this dissertation. ;Current global environmental degradation can be attributed to misguided moral values toward the environment and distorted normative perceptions of nature. To reverse the human destruction of the environment and the exploitation of nature, philosophers are aiming to construct an environmental ethics theory consisting of normative principles that will govern human conduct toward the natural environment. Commonly, the search for a normative system of environmental values is approached deductively: Philosophers rely on ethical theory or ecological theory to generate moral proscriptions--an approach that extends moral philosophy beyond the traditional anthropocentric bias but leaves unexamined whether the general public has the psychological capacity to execute the normative guidelines philosophers prescribe. ;This dissertation seeks to complement the deductive-normative view of environmental ethics with an inductive-psychological approach. The normative guidelines philosophers prescribe are more likely to be accepted by society at large when they match people's moral intuitions and their psychological moral functioning. Empirical analysis of real-life moral experience results in moral-psychological data which, when placed in dialectic with moral philosophy, can inform the construction of an environmental ethics theory congruent with human psychology. ;Thirty-one high school juniors were interviewed repeatedly over the course of four months, using a semi-clinical interview technique. The interpretive-hermeneutic analysis revealed the moral ideals of "care" and "respect" as guiding the students' moral deliberations and actions; moral ideals which contrast with the justice-dominated environmental ethics discourse. The meanings of care and respect are identified and their manner of expression in the students' moral functioning is explored. Implications for environmental ethics theory are outlined. ;In drawing on moral psychology to investigate environmental ethics, this thesis also attempts to broaden the psychological study of morality and moral development beyond the traditional social bias to include nature and the natural environment. Methodological concerns for research in environmental moral psychology are discussed