Deutsche Gesellschaft
für phänomenologische Forschung

Lecture Series | Paper

Eco-Phenomenology and Relational Values

Bryan E Bannon

Montag 14 Oktober 2024

18:15 - 19:00

The concept of relational value has recently emerged as an alternative paradigm for the valuation of nature. The idea is that relational values, by focusing on the ways that human beings value a relationship with nature, both transcends the debate in environmental circles over whether instrumental or intrinsic value is a better course for environmental conservation and opens a pathway to a more nuanced account of how human beings value nature. The idea has been supported by ecophenomenologists such as Barbara Muraca, Thomas Greaves, and Christophe Gilliand. But the dominant approach has been to focus on how humans and cognitively sophisticated animals value their environment, which has led to two criticisms: first, that the relational value approach remains a more egalitarian form of anthropocentrism and, second, that the account of relational values fails to describe accurately how human beings value the environment and is therefore unhelpful in decision-making. I will answer  these challenges in two ways: 1) making the case that the phenomenological account of relational value in nature requires us to think about meaning and value as occurring in the more-than-human (and perhaps more-than-living) world and 2) sketching how this phenomenological theory of relational value can aid environmental decision-making.