A Minimally Nonanthropocentric Economics: What Is It, Is It Necessary, and Can It Avert the Biodiversity Crisis?

Abstract

An important line of scholarship concludes that stemming the biodiversity crisis requires widespread nonanthropocentric modes of action and decision-making. In this regard, knowing what would even constitute a nonanthropocentric economic decision-making framework is hobbled by failing to recognize a conflation in the taxonomy of capital as supposed by traditional (anthropocentric) economics. We explain how natural capital (a basic category in anthropocentric economies) conflates natural capital without intrinsic value and natural capital with intrinsic value. Recognizing this conflation allowed us to identify instances of quantitative analyses that have elements of nonanthropocentrism but that seem not to have been previously recognized as such. We also explore inescapable consequences of recognizing this conflation, including the need to better understand how economic decision-making should take account for interspecies distributive justice and human well-being. That second need augments independent calls by economists and policy experts to take better account of human well-being.

A significant line of scholarship concludes that stemming the biodiversity crisis will require widespread, nonanthropocentric modes of action and decision-making (see the references in Holmes et al. 2017). If so, then there is an unmet need not only to exercise economic decision-making that is substantively nonanthropocentric but to also understand what a nonanthropocentric economic framework even looks like. The unmet nature of this need was illustrated by a cross-disciplinary sustainability economics lecture held at the Martin School of University of Oxford attended by several coauthors of the present article. The ensuing public discussion included critical comments by several noneconomists about how the presented work failed for completely neglecting nonanthropocentrism. The presenters, widely regarded for their expertise at the interface between ecology and the sustainable economic use of natural capital, were unable to explain that their work was, in fact, distinctive for being decidedly nonanthropocentric. They erroneously accepted the criticism of their work.

We return to the details of that presented work later in this article. For now, the salient concern is that, if nonanthropocentric economic decision-making is essential for stemming the biodiversity crisis, then it is necessary for conservation scholars (economists and noneconomists) to recognize basic features of nonanthropocentric economic decision-making. This requirement is far from sufficient for stemming the biodiversity crisis, but it is almost certainly necessary.

The phrase biodiversity crisis has various meanings in public discourse and can refer to elevated risks and rates of species extinction, loss of genetic diversity, loss of functional diversity within ecosystems, and more. A key element of the biodiversity crisis is the loss of populations of terrestrial vertebrates, especially through habitat loss and overexploitation (Rodriguez 2002, Ceballos and Ehrlich 2002, Lalinerte and Ripple 2004, Ceballos et al. 2017, Wolf and Ripple 2017). In particular, a majority of studied terrestrial vertebrates has been extirpated from two-thirds or more of their former geographic ranges (Ceballos et al. 2017). Those losses are also associated with elevated risks and rates of species extinction, the loss of genetic diversity, and the diminishment of species richness and ecosystem functioning across large portions of the planet. In this analysis, when we refer to the biodiversity crisis, we mean specifically the loss of vertebrate populations and the aspects of biodiversity that are affected by and associated with those losses. We focus on this aspect of the biodiversity crisis because it is connected to robust principles in ethics to which we draw attention and because this aspect of the biodiversity crisis is like economic decision-making insomuch as both are manifest across a variety of spatiopolitical scales.

Some may see isolated signs that economic decision-making is slowly transforming to lessen environmental catastrophes that threaten human well-being. This perception may be represented by nascent efforts to shift from weak sustainability toward strong sustainability (see box 1 for the key jargon). Strong sustainability differs profoundly from weak sustainability and is distinguished by treating much natural capital as vital to human well-being and not readily substituted by human-made capital. However, strong sustainability is typically a fundamentally anthropocentric framework for presuming that the objective of all economic activity is maximization of human well-being (Neumayer 2003, Vucetich and Nelson 2010). Decisions about the use of biodiversity, under weak and strong sustainability, are ultimately made by comparing costs and benefits (pecuniary and otherwise) to humans. The benefits are varied and may include use values (such as consumption) and nonuse values (such as certain instances of existence value). Nevertheless, the well-being of other organisms, species or ecosystems is deemed worthy of consideration and inclusion in benefit–cost calculus if, and only if, they have impacts (real or perceived) on human beings.

Box 1. Glossary of disciplinary terms.

Anthropocentrism. In environmental ethics, a belief system based on the notion that only humans and all humans possess intrinsic value. This term is not to be confused with anthropogenic, which refers to things of human origin (e.g., ideas generated by humans).

Binding constraints. A mathematical term referring to a condition that if changed results in a change to the optimal solution.

Ecological communities. In ecology, a collection of populations of different species living in the same area; also, the biotic portion of an ecosystem.

Economic decisions. Decisions pertaining to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (Krugman and Wells 2017).

Misanthropy. Either neglecting the intrinsic value of humans or unduly disparaging humans.

Nonanthropocentrism. A broad class of beliefs focused on the notion that all humans and at least some nonhumans possess intrinsic value. Particular categories of nonanthropocentrism include biocentrism (all living organisms possess intrinsic value) and ecocentrism (ecological collectives—especially species and ecological communities—possess intrinsic value). See McShane (2014) for an introduction to the differences between biocentrism and ecocentrism.

Nonuse values. In economics, a class of values that includes, e.g., existence value, bequest value, and aesthetic value (Swanson and Barbier 1992). When nonuse values are used in economic analyses, they are typically considered on the benefit side of cost–benefit analyses (e.g., Garrod and Willis 1997, Dutton et al. 2010, McVittie and Moran 2010), and the value is often quantified by methods such as contingent valuation or willingness to pay (Bishop et al. 1997). Some scholars highlight concerns about the conceptual and empirical shortcomings of quantifying nonuse values cannot or should not be adequately quantified (Spash 2000). The conceptual basis and precise meaning of some aspects of nonuse value is also an area of active scholarship (Veisten 2007). The benefits of some nonuse values are of a psychological nature. For example, religious beliefs are of psychological benefit to some humans (Pargament 2002), and a human can experience psychological benefit from the existence of an entity that is associated with a religious belief. For an example of the nonuse value applied to the economics of natural systems, see for example, Marre and colleagues (2015).

Opportunity cost. In economics, when a choice is made (e.g., to make a particular purchase or spend time in a certain way), the opportunity cost is the benefit that cannot be realized from having made a different choice (e.g., Frederick et al. 2009).

Strong sustainability. In economics, the notion that natural goods and services are not substitutable with manufactured goods and services (Neumayer 2003). A heuristic example of strong sustainability is to not so readily presume that clean water provided by a healthy watershed is substituted by human-made water filtration systems.

Use value. Used in economics and environmental ethics. In economics, use value is contrasted with nonuse value. In environmental ethics, use value may be contrasted with intrinsic value. An entity can have both use and nonuse values. An entity can also have use value and intrinsic value. For example, a child may possess intrinsic value (by virtue of being human) and use value (in doing chores around the house). Benefiting from the use value of an intrinsically valuable entity is not necessary a violation of its intrinsic value, but it can be.

Weak sustainability. In economics, the notion that natural goods and services are often substitutable with manufactured goods and services (see figure 1).

Figure 1.

Anthropocentric economics acknowledge forms of capital that may be taxonomized as in panel (a), where the intended uses of (and impacts on) natural capital are constrained to preclude overexploitation that diminishes human well-being. Furthermore, human capital may be used to benefit other humans, but these uses are constrained to preclude unfair or undignified treatment of other humans. Minimally nonanthropocentric economics acknowledge a taxonomy of capital (b) that includes natural capital with intrinsic value. That category is very likely to at least include most vertebrate organisms and is like human capital in that it may be used to benefit humans, but use is constrained to preclude unfair or undignified treatment of those entities with intrinsic value. The constraints are represented by norms and legal instruments. The connection between conservation of biodiversity and intrinsic value of individual organisms is detailed in constraint 2. Both models are idealizations to which real economies can be compared. The bottom model can be viewed as an adaptation of the natural capital framework for economic decision-making (Bateman and Mace 2020).

Strong sustainability, even with its admonition to not so quickly underestimate the importance of biodiversity, is unlikely to counterbalance what seems a common view among conservation experts, as was indicated by recent sociological work, where more than 450 conservation experts from around the world were asked “Of all Earth's biodiversity, what portion is likely to be protected by economic valuation?” About two-thirds of the respondents said, “less than half.” (box 2). That view represents the likely reality that much biodiversity is not necessary for human well-being.

Box 2. Survey methodology.

The survey results reported in the present article are part of a larger survey (75 items) on attitudes abouttrade-offs on conservation. The sample was collected using Qualtrics’ Research Core, an online survey platform. Responses were collected in October 2019. The sample was taken from scholars in conservation or sustainability who had recently published in referred literature. Specifically, invitations were sent to 2,702 corresponding authors of papers published in 2017 and 2018 from these journals: Biological Conservation, Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters, Sustainable Development, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Population and Environment, Ecological Economics, Environmental Politics, and Society and Natural Resources. The survey and the plan we used to implement the survey was approve by Michigan Technological University's Human Subjects Committee (IRB no. M1508 [949408]). The precise wording of this survey item was “In the past two centuries, the median terrestrial vertebrate species is thought to have lost approximately 60% of its historic range. Taking account of human needs, what would be an acceptable loss of historic range for most species (0, no range loss and complete restoration; 60, current median loss; 100, complete extirpation).”

In the sections that follow, we outline the ethical principles that lead to recognizing a basic error that has been overlooked in the taxonomy of capital as supposed by traditional (anthropocentric) economic decision-making. Afterward, we explain critical consequences of recognizing this error. We also identify instances in which failure to recognize that error in taxonomy of capital contributed to failure to recognize the distinctively nonanthropocentric nature of particular quantitative economic decision-making frameworks. We conclude by explaining the practical import of these observations for all professionals hoping to stem the biodiversity crisis.

Moral basis

The central feature of minimally nonanthropocentric (MNA) economics is to acknowledge the intrinsic value of human life and at least some forms of nonhuman life. The phrase intrinsic value is jargon and carries multiple meanings in philosophy and ethics. We use the phrase as it is commonly used in conservation ethics (e.g., Vucetich et al. 2015). Specifically, entities with intrinsic value are entitled to be treated with respect or fairly—that is, with at least some concern for their well-being or interests, irrespective of whether humans derive any benefit (or loss) as a result. This obligation is well supported by ethical theory and social norms, including but not limited to the traditions of the world's major religions. This conceptualization does not preclude harming nonhuman life; it can also be related to, for example, ideas developed in Singer (1975), as well as ideas associated with deontology. For details, see Vucetich and colleagues (2015).

Ethicists have developed a variety of reasons to justify the intrinsic value of various kinds of nonhumans. In the present article, we focus attention on a particularly influential reason for acknowledging the intrinsic value of individual vertebrate organisms. This reasoning begins with the supposition that humans possess intrinsic value because we have interests, such as the interest to avoid pain or to flourish. It follows that any entity with such interests would also possess intrinsic value. Because all vertebrate organisms possess those interests, they possess intrinsic value. The force and universality of that reasoning is indicated by the principle of ethical consistency—that is, that you should treat others as you would consent to be treated in the same position (Gensler 2013). Most human cultures are undergirded by some variant of this principle (e.g., the golden rule).

This logic extends to any form of life that possesses acknowledgeable interests (Callicott 1999, Nussbaum 2006). Although a case has been made that all individual organisms possess such interests (Taylor 1986, Naess 1990), the case for vertebrates is indisputable because of the objectively verifiable interests they possess, especially their interests to flourish and avoid suffering. Cases, rooted in different kinds of reasoning, have also been made that other forms of life (populations, species, ecosystems) also possess intrinsic value (Vucetich et al. 2018, 2019).

Answers to the question of who possesses intrinsic value and why are not fixed and have tended toward greater inclusion over time. Our interest is not to consider economic decision-making under the most inclusive or provocative answers to the question. Rather our interest is to explore the consequences for economics of the most basic and widely accepted answers to the question.

As such, if one accepts the principle of ethical consistency, then acknowledging the intrinsic value of individual vertebrates is obligatory. The acknowledgement of intrinsic value in nonhuman nature does not emerge merely from ethical reasoning; it is also widely acknowledged around the world, as is reflected by sociological evidence (Pierce et al. 1987, Bruskotter et al. 2017), legal instruments (Chapron et al. 2019, Cretois et al. 2019), and religious tenets (Szűcs et al. 2012, Stewart 2014, Rahman 2017, Caruana 2020).

Finally, the scholarly literature in environmental ethics includes various understandings for what kinds of things might possess intrinsic value and how one's acknowledgement of intrinsic value in another ought to affect one's treatment of that other (e.g., Taylor 1983, O'Neill 1992, Jamieson 2002, McDonald 2012, Sandler 2012). See also Maier (2012) for an incisive and wide-ranging account of different ways of valuing different aspects of biodiversity.

These various understandings are not all mutually compatible, and none is unassailable. Analyses based on other understandings of intrinsic value may lead to other conclusions; those analyses are beyond the scope of the present article. Except to say that many ethicists also understand sentience to be the feature that distinguishes those with intrinsic value from the rest. Claims about the full extent of those who possess sentience vary with changes in scientific knowledge and different conceptual understandings of sentience (Chandroo et al. 2004, Duncan 2006). The analysis that follows, although it is focused on vertebrates, is readily translatable and not appreciably altered if sentience is taken to be the trait that imbues one with intrinsic value.

Natural capital

Anthropocentric economics may be characterized by three broad categories of capital, including natural capital (figure 1a; e.g., Bateman and Mace 2020, Dasgupta 2021). By contrast, a MNA economic framework recognizes that natural capital conflates two basic kinds of capital (figure 1b): natural capital without intrinsic value and natural capital with intrinsic value. Members of the former category might include air and minerals. Members of the latter category include, at least, most vertebrate organisms and other forms of life that possess intrinsic value. In MNA economics, there are constraints on the use of capital that possesses intrinsic value.

For emphasis, MNA economics do not entail wholesale preclusion of the use of nonhumans any more than anthropocentric economies entail wholesale preclusion of the use of humans (e.g., humans are fairly compensated for their work and provided safe working conditions). This comparison does not imply perfect parity in judging what counts as the fair use of humans and nonhumans. Rather, the comparison only highlights that considering fair constraints is not tantamount to wholesale preclusion of use. Highlighting this point is important because some scholars, including economists, have mistaken nonanthropocentrism for wholesale preclusion of use of nonhumans (see Vucetich et al. 2015 for examples).

Constraining the use of the intrinsically valuable is neither foreign nor uncommon in real economies. Such constraints are well established and govern key aspects of human behavior in most societies. Slavery, torture, and child abuse are prohibited, even if an economic cost–benefit assessment indicates a net economic gain.

Human behavior is often constrained for the sake of nonhuman interests, again, irrespective of whether those constraints limit economic activity. Examples include animal welfare laws for animals under the direct guardianship of humans and some environmental laws for the protection of species and their habitat (Callicott 2006). These existing constraints are, however, insufficient to claim that existing economic decisions are adequately nonanthropocentric. Rather, they indicate that constraining use because of another's intrinsic value is already established and widely accepted.

Appropriate levels of constraint are determined by noneconomic considerations and are tied to answering the question, what counts as fair use of another? In the parlance of economics, exogenously determined constraints preclude activities that breach certain ethical principles, irrespective of individual preferences or gains. This emphasis on fair use of humans and nonhumans, contrasts with neoclassical economics, which does not prescribe “using” humans for economic gain. Rather, it presumes that economic relationships among intrinsically valuable entities are mutually agreed and mutually beneficial exchanges (e.g., wages for labor). An MNA economy would benefit humans and nonhumans by not presuming that the relationships are fair in the sense of being mutually agreed and beneficial, but rather by evaluating the fairness of use. In doing so, an MNA economy would begin to accommodate a widely appreciated shortcoming of many applications of neoclassical economics: the neglect of the distribution of benefits and burdens of economic activity.

In MNA economics, ecosystem services are understood to be what nonhumans provide, not what they are. The distinction is analogous to the distinction between humans and human services. That distinction means the value of a human exceeds the market price of any services provided by that human. Anthropocentric economies (are supposed to) account for the distinction between the value and price of humans by constraining the impact of economies on humans according to, for example, legal instruments and norms that honor the intrinsic value of human life, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. MNA economics extend these ideas to nonhumans by acknowledging the intrinsic value of many nonhumans is distinct from its market price or utility to humans.

Because many real economies contain elements of nonanthropocentrism (e.g., anticruelty to animal laws), an economy may be judged as more or less nonanthropocentric. To judge an economy as more or less nonanthropocentric is, again, analogous to judging an economy as more or less anthropocentric, according, for example, to the extent that is it classist, sexist, racist, and so on.

The ideas presented in the present article are MNA in two specific senses. First, a minimum requirement for a nonanthropocentric economy is a taxonomy of capital that acknowledges natural capital with intrinsic value. Second, vertebrate organisms are the candidate members of this category for which there is both robust ethical reasoning and whose membership is either widely acknowledged or conceded.

Constraints

Acknowledging that taxonomic error in the categories of capital (figure 1) draws attention to inescapable trade-offs between potentially competing interests. These trade-offs represent what economics refer to as binding constraints. In the present article, we explore the nature of these constraints and possible approaches to their adjudication. A general result of tending these constraints is realizing a need to better understand how economic decision-making should account for human well-being and interspecies distributive justice—that is, a better sense of what does and does not count as fair use of nonhumans.

These constraints might also be thought of as general principles whose specific manifestations vary with context. The distinction between general principle and specific manifestation is also characteristic of anthropocentric economies that are constrained—for example, to fair hiring practices (general principle)—for which a more specific manifestation or policy instrument is affirmative action.

Constraint 1

The first proposed constraint (C1) of an MNA economy is adapted from Vucetich and colleagues (2018): Economic decisions should not enable any human to infringe on the well-being of others any more than is necessary for a standard of living that would reasonably allow for a healthy, meaningful life.

Because others refers to any entity imbued with intrinsic value, C1 arises straightforwardly from Moral Basis. C1 is closely related to a widely appreciated notion that one should be free up to the point of undue infringement on the well-being of others. C1 is also related to a central notion of a widely appreciated theory of justice, known as the capabilities approach to justice, whose foundation is a normative claim that justice is having the capability (via social relationships and material possession) to realize a healthy, meaningful life (Robeyns 2016, Fukuda-Parr 2003).

The phrase healthy, meaningful life is far less vague than may be initially apparent. It is closely related to subjective well-being and objective well-being—topics of considerable research in the social and behavioral sciences, which indicate that important aspects of individuals’ requirements for living a healthy, meaningful life can be objectively quantified (Seligman 2008, Diener 2009, Sen 2009). The relevance of these quantifications is increasingly acknowledged by economists (Fitouss et al. 2010, Raworth 2017) and sustainability scholars (Costanza et al. 2007). Such quantifications are beginning to be used to explicitly inform policy (Stutzer and Frey 2003, Layard 2006, Dolan and White 2007, Dolan et al. 2011). Other bases for objective quantification of well-being include various measures of multidimensional poverty (Atkinson 2019), the Human Development Index (Herrero et al. 2012), and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (Jolly 2004).

A growing body of research also indicates how an individual's self-reported subjective well-being is related to objective phenomena. These relationships indicate that subjective well-being increases with income and wealth, but only up to a certain point and the relationship is context specific. Subjective well-being is also associated with basic features of a life: physical health, meaningful employment, strength of social bonds, and even commute times between work and home. For a broad review of those and other relationships, see Diener (2009) and Costanza and colleagues (2007). These empirical relationships can be used to design economic policy in a manner that greatly limits one from exaggerating the influence of resource use on subjective well-being for a group of people.

These notions of well-being rise from the psychological sciences but have not been an important element of traditional economic decision-making. However, some prominent economists have argued for their use in anthropocentric economic thinking (e.g., Costanza et al. 2007, Fitouss et al. 2010, Raworth 2017). These notions of well-being also arise from psychological sciences and include many studies by non-Western scholars from non-Western institutions on non-Western subjects (e.g., Asadullah et al. 2018), as well as considerable cross-cultural assessments spanning scores of nations (e.g., Aknin et al. 2013).

The objective elements of an agent's capacity for well-being do not dissolve the normative elements of judging minimum standards for such capacity. These normative elements may be decided, like any other policy, by some combination of popular consent, technocratic knowledge, judicial decision and legislative authority. Those processes allow, as they should, the consideration and expression of intercultural differences in what constitutes well-being.

Finally, C1 operates directly on humans’ per capita use of resources, which is a basic cause of the biodiversity crisis (Waggoner and Ausubel 2002). Although C1 may be necessary for lessening the biodiversity crisis, it may not be sufficient for several reasons. First, C1 is not expressed directly in terms of the biodiversity crisis. Second, the necessarily indefinite elements of C1 (e.g., the meaning of healthy, meaningful life) are potentially vulnerable to corruption. Third, abiding by C1 might fail to avert the biodiversity crisis in any of the following cases: the number of humans was too many (regionally or globally; Pimentel et al. 2010), the mean per capita resources required by humans to realize healthy meaningful lives was too great, or the distribution of per capita resource use among humans was too unequal. These circumstances are addressed by a second and third constraint.

Constraint 2

The connection between MNA economics and the biodiversity crisis is clarified by acknowledging that an individual organism's well-being generally requires a healthy ecosystem, a property of which is to support at least most of its native species. This view is consistent with formal notions of well-being, which are said to include positive networks of relationships (Bishop 2015). From these considerations, a second proposed constraint (C2) emerges: Economic decisions should, where feasible, allow most species to securely occupy most of their historic range, especially portions of range lost because of human indifference, greed, imposition or unjustified dislike.

C2 is important because it would mitigate basic threats to biodiversity, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, land conversion, pollution, and overexploitation. C2 is usefully parsimonious by jointly accounting for global extinction, regional extinction, and ecosystem health (Vucetich and Nelson 2018). The political tenability of C2 is indicated by its being closely aligned with the structure of the US Endangered Species Act (Vucetich et al. 2006). (This alignment is not weakened by acknowledging that the US Endangered Species Act is motivated by a felt obligation to species, not individual organisms.)

In C2, the phrase where feasible acknowledges the infeasibility of some cases, such as allowing certain large carnivores to inhabit urban landscapes or restoring particular species where climate change makes doing so impossible. The phrase where feasible is a specific instance of a general concern. That is, it involves a potentially uncomfortable but unavoidable indefiniteness that is prone to abuse—for example, in the presence of unbalanced power dynamics. The phrase securely occupy means to inhabit range at densities (organisms per unit area) that allow the population to perform its ecological function (Soule et al. 2003). Assigning precise (and quantifiable) meaning to the two instances of most in C2 would result in more specific expressions of this general constraint.

MNA economics is not distinctive for resting on qualitative notions such as most or feasible. Such notions are common to many powerful public policies. For example, the US Endangered Species Act defines an endangered species as one that is “at risk of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range” [emphasis added]. Important elements of the European Union's Habitat Directives rest on similarly unquantified notions (Epstein et al. 2016).

The phrase historic range refers to a significant line of thinking in the conservation literature (e.g., Vucetich et al. 2006, Tadano 2007, Enzler and Bruskotter 2009, Greenwald 2009, Carroll et al. 2010, Kamel 2010). Although the phrase historic range is intentionally indefinite, it is not vacuous; it refers to when human enterprises representing indifference, greed, imposition, or unjustified dislike began to appreciably reduce a species’ geographic range. As such, it does not necessarily refer to a single, fixed point in the past. The qualifier dislike is intended to take account of cases in which an element of biodiversity is especially harmful to human the vital human interests (for more discussion on this topic, see Bouyer et al. 2019). This line of thinking (and counter lines of thinking) is inescapably normative, because there is no exclusively scientific line of thinking that can determine the appropriate degree of coexistence between humans and nonhumans.

In any case, more specific expressions of C2 depend on ecological knowledge and normative judgments (Vucetich and Nelson 2018). This normativity is not fundamentally problematic and a basic feature of all policy. Primary influences on policies involving acceptable loss include statutory guidance, decisions or guidance by policymakers, the common practice of experts, and public attitudes (Hunter and Fewtrell 2001). As such, there is value in understanding the attitudes of experts and the general public as they pertain to C2, as it is depicted in figure 2. Although more research on such attitudes is necessary, these results are encouraging insomuch as these attitudes point toward an ambitious goal for lessening the biodiversity crisis.

Figure 2.

Results of a sociological survey that contribute to understanding constraint 2. Survey participants (n = 909 Americans) were presented with these statements: (a) “The geographic areas where a species lives is called their ‘range.’ Most mammal species have been driven to extinction from half or more of their historic range because of human activities” and (b) “Humans have driven to extinction more than half of the mammal species that had once lived in most regions of the eastern United States, though these species still persist elsewhere” [emphasis was included in the survey]. For each piece of information, participants were asked whether those amounts were too low or too high. The distributions of response are given in (a) and (b). Finally, the participants were asked, “What percentage of historic habitat loss would be acceptable?” The distribution of response is depicted in (c). The black line is the median response (10%) and the dashed line approximates the actual loss (67%, see Ceballos et al. 2017). The questions posed in (c) were also presented to a sample of 438 scholars of conservation and sustainability from around the world; the results are presented in (d). The data for (a), (b), and (c) are from Offer-Westort and colleagues (2020). The survey methodology and details for (d) are given in box 2.

C2 also highlights the need to better understand the meaning of ecosystem health. There are as many definitions for ecosystem health as there are authors who have written on the topic. Most definitions gravitate toward one of two poles (Vucetich and Nelson 2010): Either ecosystems are healthy when they produce what humans want or ecosystems are healthy to the degree that humans have not affected them. The former definition is overly simple to the point of being anthropocentric. The latter definition rests on a false dichotomy between humans and the rest of nature and is not sufficiently distinct from misanthropy. We use the term misanthropy to mean neglecting humans’ intrinsic value; avoiding misanthropy does not require satisfying every expressed desire of every human. Being distinct from misanthropy requires distinguishing justified impacts from unjustified impacts (Vucetich et al. 2018). C1 and the last phrase of C2 (i.e., “portions of range lost due to human indifference, greed, imposition or unjustified dislike”) navigate between misanthropy and anthropocentrism (Vucetich 2021).

Constraint 3

In some instances, C1 and C2 will be synergistic with collective action advancing the well-being of both humans and nonhumans (e.g., Lima et al. 2017). C1 and C2 also have the potential to create a conflict between vital interests of humans and nonhumans. C3 is the proposed basis for adjudicating such conflict and is an adaptation of the safeguard principle (Vucetich et al. 2018): If constraint C1 or C2 calls for restricting a human interest in ways that would result in injustice, then every effort should be made by all involved parties to mitigate the restriction to the point of it no longer being unjust.

Cases of potential injustice would be evaluated against the basic values of social justice, which also represent principles of fairness (Hülle et al. 2018; see also Miller 1999, Sandel 2010): need, equality, desert, and entitlement. Need satisfies C3 in a manner that allows as many as possible to realize a healthy, meaningful life. Equality satisfies C3 in a manner that distributes resulting benefits and burdens without fostering extreme inequality. Desert satisfies C3 in a manner that distributes the resulting benefits and burdens with regard for individuals’ efforts and contributions to society. Entitlement satisfies C3 in a manner that satisfied the previous values with the least disruption to existing agreements pertaining to entitlement and rights. For economic decision-making to be nonanthropocentric, the subject of such evaluation is not only humans, but also any entity with intrinsic value.

Although those constraints are substantive, they are also far from fully determinative. Their application depends critically on good governance, which ought to be a synthesis of robust scholarship and sociopolitical processes. Ultimately, a nonanthropocentric economy depends greatly on how its principles are applied and on indefinite concepts such as fairness. Those circumstances are no less applicable to neoclassical economics. For context, neoclassical economics have tended to give too much weight to particular senses of desert and entitlement at the expense of equality and need.

C3 may beg the question of which entities (humans or nonhumans) are more important or have more intrinsic value. The question is deeply concerning because most humans would likely answer that humans are simply more important and because that answer would likely doom much biodiversity to destruction. A possible counterweight to that concern is to balance attention given to that question with a second question: When two interests compete, which interest ought to prevail in any particular case? That is, many conflicts between humans and nonhumans may be more appropriately resolved by giving due attention to competing interests, rather than competing agents.

This idea of competing interests is at least roughly illustrated by circumstances familiar to anthropocentric systems: When two humans settle a dispute in a civil court, a dispassionate and impartial judge does not ask which of the two agents is more important. Rather, the question is which interest ought to prevail—for example, an essential interest or an inessential interest.

At the highest order, the central issue is whether the constraints should be applied in a manner that lessens the biodiversity crisis while being as fair as possible to individual interests, that treats individuals fairly while mitigating the biodiversity crisis as much as possible, or that is somewhere between. Or, rather than focusing on some desirable end state, MNA economics could focus more on letting human–nature relationships emerge more organically (as opposed to being targeted a priori) from application of the aforementioned social justice values. The end state of an MNA economy would also depend on the balance between individualism and collectivism. Although this balance is the subject of considerable research for exclusively anthropocentric contexts (Triandis 2018), much less is known about contexts involving humans and nonhumans (Vucetich et al. 2019).

Finally, although C3 presupposes that conflicts of genuine interests are a basic feature of MNA economics, we emphasize that many perceived conflicts are more accurately misjudgments about resources required for human well-being or points at which one's resource use unduly impairs another. This difficulty is present at the most basic level, with uncertainties over the extent to which human impacts on biodiversity can be lessened by managing human abundance, managing per capita resource use, and increased efficiency of economies and technologies (Waggoner and Ausubel 2002, Pimentel et al. 2010, Bowen et al. 2017, Pradhan et al. 2017).

Finally, the appropriateness of including (at least some) nonhuman animals as subjects of social justice has been explained by a number of scholars (e.g., Nussbaum 2006, 2012, Schlosberg 2007, Coeckelbergh 2009, Cripps 2010, Armstrong 2012, Horta 2013, Pellow 2014, Jones 2015, Vucetich et al. 2018, Wienhues 2020). However, not all scholars agree. For example, some think it wrong to include nonhumans as subjects of social justice because doing so would be anthropocentric, insomuch as this inclusion would requires, according to some, “seeing nature as being part of culture” (Washington et al. 2018). And scholars who do agree vary with respect to important details about how interspecies distributive justice should be manifest. That variance does not undermine the substantive conclusion that some accounting of interspecies distributive justice is necessary. Finally, much insight about how to adjudicate these constraints can also be found in the literature on environmental ethics, environmental justice, interspecies distributive justice, and global justice.

Economic tools

The preceding constraints may pertain to the behavior of individuals or collective behaviors. Economics routinely deals with both kinds of behavior. In the present article, we provide examples to illustrate how these constraints can be incorporated into decision-making tools already used by economists. Before doing so, there is also value in recognizing that economic decision-making is often expressed in quantifiable terms. As such, there is value in showing how the constraints can be expressed graphically, which is a key step toward quantification (figure 3).

Figure 3.

The (maximum) level of well-being a human agent is capable of experiencing (y-axis) for a given level of resource use (x-axis). When y<y’ metrics of one's well-being are inappropriately low. When x>x’ the agent's resource use unfairly infringes on others’ well-being. Values of y<y’ or x>x’ are violations of either constraint C1, C2 or both. Sufficiently nonanthropocentric economics aim for states in which every human is well characterized by points along the curve located in quadrant II (b). In these states, no constraints are violated and no corrective action is required. Other states require corrective action. For points along the curve located in quadrant I (a), economic decisions should result in reductions in x. For points along the curve located in quadrant III (c), economic decisions should result in increases in x and y (doing so is possible because a portion of the gray curve lies in quadrant II). For points on the curve lying in quadrant IV (d), economic decisions should to the extent possible result in some combination of these changes: shifting the gray curve so that portions of it exist in quadrant II, lowering the value of y¢, and invoking C3. Invoking C3 means application of principles of fairness (see main text) to result in prescriptions for economic decisions that represent a fair trade-off between competing interests.

Figure 3 is just such a graphical representation of the constraints of MNA. The red curves in figure 3 need not be linear or always positive or the same for all agents or time invariant. The other key elements of figure 3 are not fixed. For example, if the number of agents increase without an increase in total resources, then x¢ decreases. More equitable allocations of x (especially among humans) may result in increases in x¢. More equitable distribution of x may result in a reduction of y¢. This is so because one's well-being is diminished by inequitable distribution of resources. Changes in y¢ might occur with technological advances. The influence of some good or service, Z, on one's well-being depends on the values a society places on Z, where Z might be an automobile, luxury travel, expensive wardrobes, and so on.

MNA economics also require tools that aid decisions in accordance with those principles. We offer two examples.

An anthropocentric approach to ecological economics can involve calculating the net economic value for alternative policies (e.g., patterns of land use) on the basis of monetizing goods and services derived from natural capital that pertain to human well-being (e.g., production of food and timber, greenhouse gas emissions or sequestration, clean air and water, recreation) and accounting for diminishment of natural capital that may impair subsequent production of said goods and services. Such an approach was used to consider alternative patterns of land use in the United Kingdom (Bateman et al. 2013). The results were compared to those from an analysis that differed only by imposing an additional constraint: land-use decisions could not reduce the current diversity of birds within and among ecosystems of the United Kingdom—a target set by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Because the impact on birds was constrained and not monetized, the analysis represents a substantively nonanthropocentric approach to economic analysis. Importantly, this nonanthropocentric element of the analysis has not previously been appreciated as being such. No less interesting, the constraint had an important effect on the spatial distribution of resource use in the United Kingdom, but little effect on the net economic value of land use (Bateman et al. 2013).

We began the present article with a vignette about a presentation on sustainable economic use of natural capital (i.e., Mace and Bateman 2018). That presentation focused on the results of Bateman and colleagues (2013). This example indicates how understanding the defining feature of MNA economics is an unmet need.

The second example involves an efficiency frontier that was estimated to assess trade-offs involving land use in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, in the United States (Polasky et al. 2008). This efficiency frontier depicts the trade-offs between monetary value of various land uses and the biodiversity supported in the watershed given various land uses (figure 4). Such information can aid decisions in an MNA economics framework about the fair allocation of resources to humans and nonhumans, where a central consideration in fairness is the capacity for flourishing of humans and nonhumans.

Figure 4.

Efficiency frontiers for Willamette Valley, Oregon, United States (a). Each symbol represents a different possible pattern of land use in the valley (e.g., portions of the valley used for agriculture, rural residential, managed forestry and conserved areas). The x-axis is the monetary value of each pattern of land use. The y-axis is the predicted number of (terrestrial vertebrate) species that can be supported. The star approximates current conditions (which are a less than optimal pattern of land use). The trade-off in panel (a) would be easier to adjudicate if the x-axis better conveyed the capacity of affected humans to live a healthy, meaningful lives, as was indicated by panel (b). Panel (b) is entirely heuristic and illustrates a sense by which economic decisions are a synthesis of empirical and normative elements. Panel (b) is useful to the extent that it conveys the idea that nonanthropocentrism can be deviated from by neglecting the intrinsic value of humans or nonhumans. The amount of state space deserving to be labeled misanthropic, nonanthropocentric, and anthropocentric may vary greatly from case to case. Because being sufficiently nonanthropocentric requires fair allocation of resources (as opposed to granting all agents what they express an interest to have), a sufficiently nonanthropocentric solution is always possible and there will be some cases in which the application of principles of fairness reduces misanthropic or anthropocentric solutions to the null set. The tools for quantifying the x-axis of panel (b) are available. Although these efficiency frontiers highlight land use decisions, then can be readily applied to economic decisions focused on other segments of an economy. Panel (a) was adapted from Polasky and colleagues (2008).

The current state of the Willamette Valley (estimated by point I in figure 4) is well within the efficiency frontier, indicating inefficient land use. Inefficiencies often arise from distorted incentive structures that lead to the destruction of natural resources. Figure 4 indicates that more efficient decisions can result in improvements to the well-being of both humans and nonhumans of the present day and of future generations. The mutual benefits of efficient investment may be more common and important than appreciated. We hasten to add that striving for investment efficiency is unlikely to lessen the biodiversity crisis unless motivated by an underlying nonanthropocentric ethic (York and McGee 2016).

The application of efficiency frontiers to MNA economics also focuses concrete attention on important normative questions that nonanthropocentrism necessarily raises: What positions on the efficiency frontier are nonanthropocentric and which are not? Given an answer to that question and given some current states of affairs (e.g., point I in figure 4), there will be multiple paths, composed of incremental steps, for reaching a nonanthropocentric state. Which paths are nonanthropocentric and which are not? These paths can be developed and evaluated with recent advances in scenario planning (Riahi et al. 2017).

The value of these examples is to indicate that MNA economics and anthropocentric economics are alike in that both are constrained (regulated) to account for competing interests among intrinsically valuable entities; that elements of MNA economics have already been incorporated, in isolated cases, although they are not widely recognized as such; and that advances toward a MNA economics need not be an onerous burden to humans. These examples may also inspire further advances in MNA economies.

Conclusions

The normative foundation of MNA economics is robust. As such, MNA economics do not create difficult trade-offs among humans and nonhumans. Rather, they draw attention to existing trade-offs that require transparent tending.

Nevertheless, conventional economic thought is rooted in egoism, so it is important to ask whether MNA economics is untenably altruistic. Hyper self-interest is routinely overused in economics, via the archetype Homo economicus, which is meant to provide no more than a stylized simplification for analysis, rather than an adequate description of human behavior. Human behavior routinely serves more than self-interest and is not always self-interested (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003, Fehr and Rockenbach 2004, de Waal and Suchak 2010, Kluver et al. 2014, Yamagishi et al. 2014).

Hyper self-interest is also an impediment to anthropocentric economics that aim to honor the intrinsic value of all humans regardless of gender, race, religion or class. Moreover, hyper self-interest is not a reason to dismiss efforts to realize economies that better honor such intrinsic value. Rather, it is a reason to strive for social norms and public policy that effectively and acceptably constrain inappropriately self-interested behavior. When such developments do occur, they are often realized through organized collective action that mitigates powerful selfish tendencies of individual action. And, that collective action is often preceded and triggered by the voices of what would seem to be too few to have an influence. This view is aspirational, but it is not quixotic, as is evidenced, for example, by the implementation of regulations for workplace equality in recent decades in the United States and elsewhere. The development of such regulations is imperfect and ever developing but worthwhile. These circumstances can also apply to nonanthropocentric economics.

Those positive remarks in no way obviate that a great deal of biodiversity is almost certain to be lost before the manifestation of a sufficiently nonanthropocentric economy. No proposed collective action or line of scholarship promises or even offers reason to think that stemming the biodiversity crisis will occur at the swift pace that it should. But the likelihood of quick implementation of a sufficiently nonanthropocentric economy is independent of whether it is necessary.

A significant line of scholarship concludes that widespread nonanthropocentric modes of action and decision-making will be necessary for stemming the biodiversity crisis (see the references in Holmes et al. 2017). If so, then a basic and unmet prerequisite for stemming the biodiversity crisis is a common ability to recognize what makes an economic framework MNA. This ability would need to be held not only by sustainability economists but also by conservation professionals with less training in economics. For emphasis, this ability is not sufficient for stemming the crisis. Rather, it is currently an unmet prerequisite. This essay contributes to meeting this prerequisite.

If nonanthropocentric economics is necessary, for moral or pragmatic reasons, then the present article is also valuable for articulating inescapable consequences of nonanthropocentric economics. Those consequences transcend economics, especially the need to better understand how economic decision-making should take account of interspecies distributive justice and human well-being. This essay makes no claim to have solved the challenges about how to take account of those issues. But we have provided good, accessible reason for conservation professionals to engage knowledge domains they might otherwise have considered too remote to be worthy of attention. Attention to these matters by scholars from a broader swath of disciplines—including conservation professionals—is likely essential for stimulating advances in how to handle these trade-offs in a manner that favors stemming, rather than worsening, the biodiversity crisis.

Author Biographical

John A. Vucetich () is affiliated with the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Sciences at Michigan Technological University, in Houghton, Michigan, in the United States, and with the Martin School at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, England, in the United Kingdom. Richard Damania is affiliated with the World Bank Group, in Washington, DC, in the United States. Sam A. Cushman is associated with the US Forest Service in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United states. Ewan A. Macdonald is affiliated with the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, England, in the United Kingdom. Dawn Burnham and David W Macdonald are affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, England, in the United Kingdom. Thomas Offer-Westort and Adam Feltz are affiliated with the Department of Psychology at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, Oklahoma, in the United States. Jeremy T. Bruskotter is affiliated with the School Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, in the United States. Lily van Eeden is affiliated with the Arthur Rylah Institute in Heidelberg, Victoria, in Australia.