In moral relationship with nature: Development and interaction

ABSTRACT

One of the overarching problems of the world today is that too many people see themselves as dominating other groups of people, and dominating nature. That is a root problem. And thus part of a core solution builds from Kohlberg’s commitment to a universal moral orientation, though extended to include not only all people but the more-than-human world: animals, trees, plants, species, ecosystems, and the land itself. In this article, I make a case for this form of ethical extensionism, and then present psychological evidence for it in both children and adults, including studies with inner-city Black youth and their parents. Then I build on Piaget’s, Kohlberg’s, and Turiel’s emphasis that interaction with the physical and social world is a critical mechanism for development. My corollary is this: that to reverse the incredibly fast human-caused destruction of nature—the wellsprings of human existence—we need to deepen and extend people’s interactions with nature, and with its relatively wild forms, even in urban environments. Toward this end, I discuss my current body of research and framework for urban design based on what are referred to as interaction patterns.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral development
• environmental moral reasoning
• interaction patterns
• biocentricism
• Lawrence Kohlberg

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter H. Kahn

Peter H. Kahn Jr. is Professor in the Department of Psychology and School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and Director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Laboratory at the University of Washington. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Ecopsychology. He and his students and collaborators seek to address – from a psychological and urban design standpoint – two world trends that are powerfully reshaping human existence: (1) the degradation and destruction of large parts of the natural world, and (2) unprecedented technological development, both in terms of its computational sophistication and pervasiveness. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His publications have appeared in such journals as Science, Developmental Psychology, Child Development, Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, Journal of Systems Software, and Journal of Biourbanism. His five books (all with MIT Press) include Technological Nature: Adaptation and the Future of Human Life (2011).