Testing Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Attitudes toward the Sustainable Development (EAATSD) scale with Bachelor students

Helen Kopnina

doi:10.7213/rebrae.10.003.ao08

Abstract

The Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Attitudes toward the Sustainable Development (EAATSD) scale is adapted from other scales measuring environmental concern with the aim of specifically targeting the subject of sustainable development. This scale was tested with three groups of students, those of International Business and Management Studies, and of Sustainable Business, both at The Hague University of Applied Science; and students of Environment and Development at Leiden University College. It was hypothesized that students who chose elective courses concerned with sustainability will be more ecocentric than those from a general business course. Analysis of the findings demonstrates however that while there are individual differences in attitudes between the students within the course, there are no significant differences between the students in different courses. This suggests that anthropocentric and ecocentric values are independent of the students’ chosen course, and that students that follow sustainability course are not more ecocentric.

Highlights

Anthropocentric and Ecocentric Values While there is some debate about the precise definition of ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, ecocentric orientations broadly encompass concern for the ecosystems and their elements, and anthropocentric orientations are focused on human welfare
While pragmatist environmental ethics postulates that the intrinsic values have little practical value (Norton 1984; Light 1996), ecocentric ethics argued that the intrinsic value discourse is to environmental policy what the human rights discourse has been to social reform movements (Vucetich and Nelson 2013)
The comparison of all three groups, the pilot group in 2013 and environment and development (E&D) group in 2016 being both selfselected for sustainability-related courses, and Business Ethics and Sustainability (BE&S) group from 2016 being a control group shows that the differences between ethical orientation between groups to be rather insignificant

Summary

Introduction

Anthropocentric and Ecocentric Values While there is some debate about the precise definition of ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, ecocentric orientations broadly encompass concern for the ecosystems and their elements, and anthropocentric orientations are focused on human welfare. Naess 1973), environmental justice associated with social justice (Gleeson and Low 1999) and pragmatic environmental ethics (Light 1996) are associated with anthropocentric environmental values. While pragmatist environmental ethics postulates that the intrinsic values have little practical value (Norton 1984; Light 1996), ecocentric ethics argued that the intrinsic value discourse is to environmental policy what the human rights discourse has been to social reform movements (Vucetich and Nelson 2013). It is argued that without acknowledging the intrinsic value, the rights and welfare of nonhuman nature that are not functionally useful to human welfare are likely to be continuously ignored (Eckersley 2004; Miller at al 2013). Kopnina & Cocis / Testing Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Attitudes anthropocentric orientations make a portion of biological diversity expendable and ignore animal welfare concerns, because no negative side effects for people ensue (Cafaro 2015; Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina 2016)

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