Pollution; Theories IDENTIFIERS Biocentrism

How do people whose identities appear so deeply connected to the land they love engage in environmentally harmful activities? This paper explores this question, presenting selected research on children's moral relationships with nature and examining the boundaries of the moral domain to more precisely delineate relations between moral constructs. Findings from five studies using structural-developmental interviews are presented. Study participants included black children and parents from a poor Houston community, Brazilian children in urban and rural parts of the Amazon jungle, and children and young adults in Lisbon, Portugal. The paper identifies anthropocentric and biocentric reasoning in the studies, finding the latter more common in older than in younger children. The paper finds that biocentric reasoning appeals to a larger ecological community than anthropocentric reasoning and uses justifications based on the intrinsic value of nature and nature's rights. The paper notes that one strikin