BY Laura Anne Clark

Abstract: Recent scholars have challenged a long-held system of valuation of the environment as either intrinsic or instrumental, introducing a new way of understanding the value of the environment: relational. In this paper, I adopt a relational approach to answer whether virtual reality simulations can be a useful tool to motivate and facilitate the formation of robust relationships with the physical environment, which I grant for the sake of the argument hold relational value. Ultimately, I argue that by understanding environmental value as relational, virtual reality (VR) simulated ecosystems prove to have instrumental value insofar as they facilitate flourishing relationships with biodiverse, more-than-human beings and spaces, provide self-knowledge, and prompt the formation of caring attitudes to conserve the physical environment. I consider skeptics’ worries that VR ecosystems are inauthentic because they are created, lacking appropriate historical origins and connection to the world. Finally, I close by posing future questions for consideration.

1. Introduction:

Recent scholarship has recognized that the categories of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” do not fully capture the value of the environment (Chan et al. 2016; Himes and Muraca 2018). Further, the differing philosophical bases of each camp have left environmental thinkers steeped in deep controversy about what approach is correct. Responding to these two factors, recent scholars have introduced a new way of valuing the environment: relational. They argue that relational valuation resonates with a broader range of personal and collective understandings of nature (Norton and Sanbeg 2021). This new way of valuing the environment coincides with the advancement of virtual reality (VR) technologies which have opened up the possibility for wide-ranging simulated experiences. Some of these experiences include simulations of natural environments, processes, and non-human animals.[1] This paper does not consider ethical challenges surrounding the VR industry, but focuses instead on the potential of the technology itself. I consider whether VR simulated environments can facilitate and deepen our relationships with physical environments, which I grant for the sake of the argument have robust relational value. In the first section of this paper, I give a description of this debate and the argument for a relational valuation of the environment. Then, I take on a relational approach to environmental valuation for the remainder of the paper. Using this framework, I consider whether VR can facilitate relational connection and specifically whether it can provide self-knowledge that increases one’s motivation and caring attitudes for the physical more-than-human world. Ultimately, I argue that when understanding environmental value through a relational approach, VR environments have instrumental value insofar as they can promote flourishing relationships with biodiverse more-than-human beings and spaces by offering different forms of embodiment, allowing for access to environments that you are not physically near,[2] and providing self-knowledge. I address a potential worry about whether VR ecosystems are authentic and therefore valuable, specifically whether they meet the criteria of appropriate historical origins and connection with the world (Walter 1939, Elliot 1997, Katz 2009, Dill 2021). I contend that since VR does not have the same restrictions as physical space, it can simulate scenes or facts that make users more aware of ecosystems’ historical origins. Further, building on Cogburn and Silcox (2014), VR gives users important knowledge-how to interact with and have connection to the physical more-than-human world. The paper concludes with a consideration of future questions emerging from this discussion.

2. A New Way of Understanding the Value of the Environment: Relational

Within environmental ethics, particularly applied efforts, there have been two broadly accepted categories of value: intrinsic and instrumental. Intrinsic values capture value that is independent of human valuation while instrumental values point to their usefulness to humans. Each broad position rests on differing bases, with instrumentalists favoring utilitarian justifications to maximize sentient well-being, while those in favor of an intrinsic approach argue that nature has a level of Kantian dignity and therefore should be given rights and respect (Norton & Sanbeg 2021, 697). Responding to the inability to harmonize the two positions, in addition to a newfound understanding that the categories of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” are too narrow to capture environmental value, recent scholarship has proposed a new type of value: relational (Muraca 2016; Muraca & Himes 2018; Chan et. al 2016).

Relational views of environmental value fall under the umbrella of response-dependence (RD) theories which are a way to reconcile reality with subject-relatedness. They provide an explanation for why certain concepts such as beauty or moral rightness or wrongness exist outside of the subject’s experience of them. A basic schema is as follows: an action x is A (appropriate) if and only if subject S would have response R to x in circumstances C (Kauppinen 2021).[3] There are a variety of theories that fit within this schema. I do not take on one specific form of response-dependence or relational valuation of the environment.

Regarding theories of relational valuation of the environment, I pull from both descriptive and normative elements of different approaches. Relational valuations of the environment are concerned with whether certain actions elicit a response that grounds or strengthens the relationship between the subject and the more-than-human world. Some actions will be deemed fitting while others not. For example, planting a tree (action) is appropriate (A) if and only if Jane (subject) would have the response of empathy for the ecosystem (response) in the context of (circumstances) of a relational valuation of the environment. To understand these circumstances of a relational valuation of the environment, I will now look at a few papers that define such values.

One such paper that embraces a relational system of environmental valuation is Kai M.A. Chan, et al. (2016). They define relational values as “preferences, principles, and virtues associated with relationships, both interpersonal and as articulated by policies and social norms” (Chan et al 2016, 1462). Accordingly, relational values are not found in objects (as an intrinsic property) but derive from systems of relationships and responsibilities. Chan et. al (2016) expresses how notions of the good life are rooted in relationships and that by thinking through a lens of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” valuation one likely misses other bases for environmental concern. In being relational, “values always involve a person or persons [subject S] choosing an outcome that is possible [response R], in a situation/context [circumstance C]” (Norton & Sanbeg 2021, 698).

Take for example, respect. Katie McShane explains that “to respect something is in part to see it as making a claim on your moral attention in its own rights. It is to attribute to the thing a kind of independent standing in your scheme of ‘things that matter’” (2007, 176). Thus, respect (a response) for biodiverse environments is only appropriate when some subject S would attribute (an action) an independent standing as a thing that matters to the environment through recognition of its relational value (circumstances). Some uses of the environment will be deemed inappropriate because they harm the relationship at hand. For example, ocean pollution harms both the ecosystem and the non-human animals within it but also the human communities that enjoy the ocean and use it as a resource. At the same time, certain actions and attitudes (responses) that include the use of the environment can be deemed appropriate when they support human welfare. Take for example the practice of salmon fishing in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska by many indigenous tribes (Brooks 2022). The tribes rely on salmon as a source of protein and salmon is included in various rituals and celebrations. An instrumental valuation of the environment would view the salmon as valuable only as a source of food for the Indigenous communities. An intrinsic valuation would see the salmon as intrinsically valuable themselves and might consider the fishing practices harmful to that inherent value.

When assessing from a relational valuation, there are two parties and the relationship between them that must be considered. Relationally, for these tribes, the value of the salmon does not only come from their nourishment but from the annual migration of the salmon and the communal identity that emerges from such relationships (Carothers et al. 2021; Norton and Sanbeg 2021, 702). Thus the salmon fishing supports human welfare and is not simply used in a transactional manner nor are the integrity of inherent value of the salmon ignored through the reverence and celebration included within the ceremonial significance.

I argue that a relational way of understanding the value of the environment is better for the following reasons:

1. Endorsing a relational approach to environmental valuation does not require one to side with intrinsic or instrumental theories which have contradictory philosophical bases.

2. Encompasses a broader and more diverse understanding of “nature” (pluralist) because relational values attach to a specific place and situation.

3. And is, therefore, more morally localized - each person can consider what to do through their cultural understanding of nature and act accordingly.

2. a. Incommensurable Philosophical Bases

Regarding point one, I argue that the debate about environmental value has reached a standstill, as each position remains open to objections. The instrumentalist viewpoint results in reductionism and has been critiqued for its anthropocentrism (Plumwood 1993, Haraway 2003, Gruen 2015).[4] Even so, those in the intrinsic camp often lack the grounding to express how the environment can hold value for humanity at all. As J.B. Callicott (1994) argued, environmental value cannot be purely objective as value must be attributed by a valuer. I will not consider responses to these objections. Instead, I side with scholars such as Chan et al. (2016), Himes and Muraca (2018), and Norton and Sanbeg (2021) who proposed relational valuation as an alternative way of understanding environmental value. Moving ahead, I will argue that a relational understanding of the value of ecosystems is better than its “intrinsic” and “instrumental” rivals.

2. b. Diverse Understandings of Nature

Because people come from different cultural contexts, geographies, climates, and so on, we must have a way of valuing the environment that captures these different perspectives. While instrumental and intrinsic viewpoints may be able to answer the question of varying contexts and perspectives, I argue that a relational approach handles this better through an integration of pluralism within the approach. A relational valuation of the environment is not wholly incompatible with an instrumental or intrinsic valuation. It remains more broad and specifically centers the needs of a relationship which include a variety of sustaining practices, considering the interests of human individuals and communities alongside the environments and ecosystems they live among and how the flourishing of one is entangled with the flourishing of the other. Therefore relationalism inherently embeds pluralism into its framework of valuation, which is a strength of its approach. Embracing a pluralistic way of relating to the environment acknowledges the value of traditional ways of knowing and relating to the environment which may not have the same share of the environmental literature. There are many notions of the good life and many ways of understanding relationships with nature. Gould et al. (2015) even point to the fact that most cultures value nature in multiple ways, even within one cultural system. One specific example is discussed by Robin Wall Kimmerer who also points to the Potawatomi valuation of the pecan groves (2013). She says, the land is “our identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us.” (Kimmerer 2013, 17). Here, Kimmerer describes how for the Potawatomi, the land or the more-than-human world is valued in many ways. To say that one is better than all would lose the richness of understanding found in contexts outside of our own. While there will not be one way of understanding relational environmental value, Raymond et. al (2013) notes how there are common elements of relational values and that environmental values come from a metaphorical basis, shaping people’s relationships.

2. c. Moral Localization

I define moral localization as an understanding that one’s self-identity is entangled and contextualized by the local environment and therefore having rootedness in local ecosystems and ways of knowing allows for deeper relationships with nearby environments and the more-than-human creatures that live within them. Bio-regionalist movements adopt this sort of framing, arguing that sustainability on a regional scale can be more effectively accomplished (Hourdequin & Wong 2005, 28). Moral localization is desirable because it can be more easily applied and understood within one’s context. Universalized categories are difficult to understand in real-life situations. Chan et al. (2016) argue that relational values therefore could resonate better with policy advocates and lay people in their varied contexts and ways of interacting with the environment. Further, relational valuation allows communities to center local ways of knowing the ecosystems they inhabit and interact with, which they argue could increase local appreciation and concern for their land and seascapes. Relational values base themselves on relationships that already exist and do not try to fabricate solutions to environmental issues from an outside perspective of what is best. Some communities have special relationships with the ecosystems nearby and understanding environmental value as relational makes centering those relationships possible and good. Because relational values rely on an individual and their context, each person has a ‘way in’’ to environmental ethical relating.

Having considered the incommensurable divide between the “intrinsic” and “instrumental” camps of environmental valuation, the benefit of including a diversity of understandings of nature, and moral localization, I’ve shown that a relational valuation of the environment is beneficial and should be further pursued. For the remainder of this paper, I will take on a relational approach to environmental values.

3. The Problem: Virtual Reality Ecosystems

Having established a basis for relational values, I will consider whether VR simulations of the environment have instrumental value insofar as they motivate caring relationships with the more-than-human world. The advancement of VR technologies has created the possibility to simulate ecosystems, processes, and non-human animals. Some may argue that simulations of the environment don’t have the same value or any value at all as they are human-created rather than naturally occurring, or that they do not emit the same transformational virtues that physical ecosystems can. Further, in taking on a relational approach to environmental value, there could be arguments that VR environments hinder our ability to relate to the physical more-than-human spaces, as spending time within technologically mediated spaces takes people away from the more-than-human world. Even so, with the increasing use of VR, these simulations will be used by more and more people. I take the advancement and increasing use of VR technologies as an invitation to consider their value and impact on users, specifically as they relate to environmental ethics. I aim to examine if VR-simulated ecosystems can facilitate relationships with the physical environment, provide self-knowledge, and if our interactions in VR environments can prompt motivation and attitudes of care for the physical environment.

4. VR Simulated Ecosystems: Tool, Self-Knowledge, and Motivation

First, I establish how VR technologies are different from other technologies in their immersive affordances and possibilities for blended forms of identity. There are three main ways of thinking about technology’s relationship with society. This paper adopts a cultural approach to technology (Borgmann 1984; Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2011) which argues that technologies can influence the way humans perceive the world and their behavior within it, attributing a degree of moral agency to technologies.[5] Following the cultural approach to technology, phenomenologists would suggest that “to understand the technology/society relationship we need to reveal how they co-constitute each other—i.e. draw on each other for their ongoing meaning and sense” (Introna 2017). Such co-constitution means that the technologies we engage with shape our view of the world and our interaction with it. This is particularly relevant for VR technologies due to their level of immersion. Unlike other online or virtual spaces, VR allows for full immersion with synchronous sound and haptics technologies that make virtually real experiences possible. This includes a feeling of “presence” in which a person feels located in their environment and senses that they are physically doing things within it (Sanchez-Vives & Slater 2005). In addition to presence, a sense of embodiment or “body transfer,” where the user experiences their virtual body as their own, can emerge (Maselli and Slater 2013). Virtually real experiences go beyond presence and refer to when someone experiences their virtual embodiment as more than fictional and separate from their physical embodiment, but real in itself (Ramirez 2022). Users can experience a sense of ownership-illusion that their virtual avatar is part of them (Maselli and Slater, 2013). Therefore, how one interacts with a simulated environment is not qualitatively different from how they interact with a physical environment.

The immersive affordances of VR technologies not only impact one’s sense of embodiment but also, one’s identity formation and selfhood. A study by Guo Freeman et. al (2020) found that users create avatars similar to their physical appearance, reflecting a level of connection and how they see themselves, not simply their avatar as engaging in these experiences. Further, they found that VR affordances of haptics and full-body tracking made users feel more engaged and intimate with their avatars. VR even allowed some participants to realize undiscovered parts of themselves. Such levels of intimacy provide strong evidence that users’ environment and interaction within VR spaces can motivate or alter their behavior in physical life. Since VR spaces obtain a multitude of possibilities for representation both of the user themself and of the virtual environment, there is potential to expose people to virtual places that they would not be able to interact with otherwise. For example, someone could be placed into a virtual war environment in which they are embodied as an infantry member, and their experiences within this environment and how it makes them feel may inform their beliefs about human rights or their understanding of war which become integral to their identity. Thus, VR spaces are different from other online spaces that only permit two-dimensional interaction and provide unique affordances such as full body tracking, haptics, and synchronous sound that make the user feel as though they are truly participating rather than watching their avatar complete tasks or engage in activities. Such participation entails a potential transformation of one’s understanding of their self and identity, as their identities inside and outside VR cannot be neatly separated. Thus, the potential for embodiment shapes users’ sense of identity and its formation in ways that other technologies cannot.

4. a. VR Ecosystems Can Facilitate Relationships With Physical Environments

Because VR landscapes themselves are not sentient, intelligent, or welfare subjects they cannot flourish and therefore they do not have robust relational value.[6] However, I defend that VR allows users to gain self-knowledge that can improve people’s ability to form relationships with the physical environment, which, recall, I granted for the sake of the argument do have relational value. The basis for my argument rests on two points:

1. VR can increase self-knowledge because users can gain first-person agential experience in many different types of ecosystems, including ones that they might not be able to access otherwise.

2. VR has been shown to prompt caring attitudes and motivation to conserve.

4. b. Self-Knowledge: Experiencing Different Types of Ecosystems

Martha Nussbaum (1985) in “Finely Aware and Richly Responsible” argues that literature can expand our moral imagination as we can consider moral actions at a distance. Using Nussbaum’s argument as a framework so too can we consider how VR avatars, like characters in literature, can assist in our consideration of moral actions at a distance. In VR, users have the capacity to choose what their character looks like. Not only can users embody themselves within a different sex or gender than they are physically presenting, but further they can embody themselves as non-human animals, fictional characters, and even color-changing mist. I am not arguing that being embodied in such ways allows you to know what it is like to be physically embodied in that way, as each person and non-human animal has a variety of experiences and backgrounds that shape their perspective. However, VR can, for example, allow us to experience a simulated leaf from the size of an ant or experience a simulation of flooding which may be outside of our personal experience. Such experiences can prompt further conservation by more deeply understanding the perspective and context of ecological systems and non-human animals. I contend that these provide self-knowledge as one experiences to some degree something which one has not as well as one’s reaction to this new experience. This information informs future action within the physical more-than-human world.

VR also opens up the option to simulate types of environments that you are not physically near. Take for example someone who lives in the middle of New York City. While there are surrounding parks and states that are less urbanized, you likely do not have access to diverse ecosystems. Even those who live in the Rocky Mountains or Yosemite Valley do not have easy access to other types of ecosystems that move and function in ways that are hard to grasp without experiencing them. VR removes these constraints of place and provides the opportunity and unique affordances to experience simulations of these ecosystems without leaving your home.[7] Admittedly, VR could diminish the grandeur that comes with the many variations of nature that we want to see by making it too accessible. Perhaps someone who has a reverent relationship with nature draws this in part from the knowledge that they will never experience everything. Still, exposure to such ecosystems through VR could narrow a knowledge-gap and prompt further concern for environmental issues. Thus, VR environments facilitate self-knowledge by giving users an entrance into spaces in which they are not hindered by physical constraints.[8]

Building on this, I argue that the potential for blended identities exemplifies a capacity to increase self-knowledge and therefore facilitate intentionally relating with the physical more-than-human world. From a relational value approach, responsibility and accountability emerge from an understanding of human and environmental selves as entangled and interdependent.

Relational approaches see humans and the environment not only as in relation but as interdependent with one another for our selfhood. Hourdequin & Wong (2005) argue that the conception of a socially relational self entails that we are responsive to those around us. Thus, relationality and interconnectedness with the more-than-human world entail normative responsibilities to those we are interconnected with. While I am not arguing here that VR environments are selves that are entangled with users’ selves, I do defend that blended forms of physical and virtual identity are possible and that these can help us to relate and care for the physical environment.

It is understood that the physical body and self are intimately connected. Bodies can express the self and in the same way, VR bodies can express the self. Blended identities therefore refer to the self or identity that includes both experiences from one’s physical body and virtual body. This process of immersion and spending time in the VR-simulated environments and experiencing them through one’s avatar allows users to gain self-knowledge. For example, in experiencing a marine mammal getting caught in a plastic soda ring in VR through one’s virtual avatar, then the user can relate to the experience of the animal. In general, VR enables users to become aware of the processes and systems of the environment.[9] Thus, through blended virtual and physical identities and VR’s unique affordance that allows for attachment, responsibility, and immersion in the virtual environment, users are changed by what they’ve learned, understood, and experienced within VR. I will address whether the artificial creation of VR-simulated environments impacts their value in the objection section to follow.

4. c. VR Ecosystems Caring Attitudes and Motivation to Conserve

Having established that VR ecosystems have instrumental value through their capacity for embodiment outside of physical constrictions, as well as their ability to put users in contact with ecosystems that are not easily accessible to them, and having established that users gain self-knowledge through blended identities, I now argue that VR ecosystems can prompt caring attitudes and motivation to conserve the physical environment.

Let’s begin by considering an example of how caring attitudes and motivation might look like in a virtual context. Take for example Minecraft worlds. In Minecraft, users can build and design worlds. Users can form a sense of connection to and responsibility for what happens in their world, developing a sense of attachment to their worlds and fostering a desire that they be maintained and prosper (caring attitudes). Further, users often desire to spend ample time in their Minecraft worlds as they continue to build and grow them (motivation). Recognizing that feelings of attachment and responsibility can emerge from a two-dimensional game like Minecraft suggests that such feelings are more likely to be present in VR-simulated environments due to the level of immersion and possibility for presence, embodiment, and virtually real experiences.

VR technologies offer a method of engagement that is immersive and can prompt intentional interaction with the physical environment by motivating behavior and putting people in contact with the environment in a new and interesting way. One way that immersion assists motivation is through the formation of moral emotions such as empathy. According to Batson (1991, 2015), empathy is the core source of altruistic motivation. Therefore, if VR can encourage empathetic attitudes, and we accept that VR affordances including embodiment can impact our identity formation and interaction with the physical world, then it is possible that VR can elicit caring attitudes. According to Simmons, empathy “in its fullest form includes both the cognitive and affective dimensions” (Simmons 2014, 98). The cognitive dimension includes the capacity to identify and understand another’s emotions.

Regarding empathizing with the environment, there are many limitations to doing so. For instance, many people do not have access to natural spaces, particularly in urbanized areas.

Additionally, there are epistemic limitations to our ability to know what it is like to be a non-human animal or plant or fungi. There are further limitations surrounding the types of environments that we have access to which hinder our ability to conceptualize how our actions (such as traveling by plane or recycling) can impact environments that we do not directly interact with. Since VR facilitates actor-based action rather than simply remaining a spectator, the further virtual agency suggests an additional potential to impact real-world behavior.[10] I am not arguing that VR resolves these issues entirely nor am I arguing that even if VR could elicit caring attitudes they would always lead to moral behavior and ethical relating with the physical environment. Some fear that VR may lead people to abandon conservation efforts, seeing virtual alternatives as replacements. This paper recognizes VR’s instrumental value as a tool to form habits, learn, and gain new experiences, not as a substitute. VR environmental experiences could allow students and at-home users to immerse themselves in environments and the impacts of environmental change that they would not otherwise be able to, and such exposure has been shown to alter behavior (Dari et al 2024). For example, Rueda argues that “VR allows us to reinforce moral qualities through doing and establishing habits, which is fundamental to moral development according to ancient Greek thinkers and contemporary pragmatists” (Rueda 2023, 5). Such experiences, even though virtual, can inform and motivate environmental behavior, providing context for why and how animals or ecosystems respond to particular events and underscoring a deeper commitment to ensuring the flourishing of environments.

While new and still emerging, some studies have already shown the connection between VR environmental experiences and heightened senses of environmental interest and action. For instance, Villena-Taranilla, et. al. (2022) found that VR can help people remember things and understand them better by using more than one sense and creating an interactive learning experience. This allows students to become involved in the learning process. Lo and Tsai (2022) considered how well VR can help people care about the world and act in ways that are good for it. People who took part in the study used VR to feel what climate change is doing to coral reefs. The results showed that the VR experience made people feel much more connected to the environment and made them more likely to support environmental efforts. Additionally, Biasutti (2015) showed the relevance of the setting, and the methods applied to develop environmental awareness and skills related to managing sustainability issues, finding the importance of natural and ecological concepts. This exemplifies how VR allows for the creation of such settings that increase environmental literacy by exposing people to concepts and even allowing them to practice problem-solving that would lead to environmental care and empathy.

5. Objections/Response:

In this section, I consider a skeptical concern that VR ecosystems are inauthentic because they are created, and therefore engaging with them hinders our relational formation with the more-than-human world and in turn does not lead to conservation.[11] Skeptics may argue that VR technologies pose a potential threat to the formation of relation-based interventionism[12] because in being created rather than naturally occurring, they do not have the same psychological benefits. The inauthenticity of VR simulations is argued to fail to confer value.

Suspicion surrounding VR’s mediation (Mander 1978) and synthetic nature (Virilio 1994), frame VR as ultimately deceptive. Not only this but Dill (2021) cautions that even if VR simulations can increase access to simulated ecosystems “we should avoid focusing on the widespread dissemination of immersive, simulative technologies as the primary [emphasis added] means to combat environmental, access inequity” (Dill 2021, 2). It is argued that VR simulations are less valuable because they only confer instrumental value and are not intrinsically or relationally valuable in and of themselves. Dill (2021) specifically points to the fact that VR simulations of environments do not have historical origins and do not connect us to the world which make them only “parasitically” useful. Dill uses the replicas of artwork as a thought experiment for VR simulations saying that because they were not created by the original artist at the time the work was made in addition to the fact that there are distinctive transformational powers that emerge from things that have persisted, simulations are less valuable and do not prompt people to conserve to the same extent. Regarding connection to the world, Dill uses the experience machine (Nozick 1974) example, specifically someone immersed in the High Rockies (via physical reality vs. simulated reality), to argue that there is a shift when the person realizes they are in the simulation “for she values her connection to the world insofar as it partially determines her self-identity” (Dill 2021, 13).

I am willing to accept that virtual reality simulations are less relationally valuable than the physical more-than-human world. However, regarding historical origins, I defend that while VR-simulations cannot replicate or imitate the historicity of physical ecosystems, they can help make users more aware of the value of persistence over a long period of time. VR simulations do not have the same limitations as physical space which allows for the simulation and therefore experience of things that are not possible to replicate in physical reality. For example, VR could simulate the way that particular environments looked before human settlement or could present interactive facts about the age of old-growth forests that facilitate users’ interest and understanding of the value of the historicity of the more-than-human world. Thus, I contend that VR can confer intellectual transformation about the historical origins of physical environments, just in a different way. Just as a person’s avatar is not just a virtual body that someone steps into, but a true extension of their identity and selfhood, so too can VR simulated ecosystems confer intellectual transformation and therefore prompt people to conserve.

Considering connection to the world, I turn to Cogburn and Silcox (2013) who point to two main worries emerging from popular and philosophical literature. First there is a worry that no genuine value could come from objects in a virtual environment and secondly there is a worry about knowledge of the external world. Addressing the first, they distinguish between passive and active VR because a concern in Nozick’s experience machine is that we would be giving up being a certain way (Nozick 1974). According to them, a measure of active VR is the extent to which the virtual and actual personhood become indistinguishable. Thus “in active, non-solipsistic VR, the player is not only “doing something,” but is also “being” a certain way at least insofar as her/his behavior has ethically significant effects upon the lives of others” (Cogburn and Silcox 2013, 569). Recognizing that VR is active, means that actions within it have ethical weight outside of the virtual realm, as active experiences within VR shape users’ beliefs and ethical choices when interacting with the physical world. Also, VR experiences do not inhibit one’s ability to “be” a certain way. Ultimately, they argue that VR should be seen as an improvement upon fictional media giving users important knowledge-how to deal with and learn about the actual world. Thus, VR’s status as “created” rather than naturally occurring does not hinder intellectual transformation and users’ ability to “be” is not diminished in any way.

I will now consider one specific example of how VR can facilitate knowledge-how, providing experiences that are only possible through our imagination. Consider a VR experience that places you in the perspective of a butterfly. Butterflies are insects. They have six legs, antennae, and wings. Unlike humans, butterflies cannot eat from their mouthparts. Instead, they use a long straw-like appendage to suck up nutrients from flowers (“Butterfly Behavior”).[13] Butterflies engage in a process of metamorphosis, shedding their adolescent bodies.

Additionally, butterflies are signs of biodiversity and indicate a wide range of other invertebrates.[14] Therefore, not only are butterflies different in many ways to humans, in their life cycles and natural processes but they are also significant to the flourishing and biodiversity of environments worldwide. Such differences in experience could make it particularly difficult for humans to relate to or understand butterfly experience. To partially close this gap, a butterfly pavilion could utilize VR technologies within its exhibits to foster caring attitudes and interest in butterfly conservation.[15] This VR experience may look as follows. The virtual environment could simulate what it is like to see from the perspective of a butterfly. The user could see other butterflies and interact with them. Further, as a butterfly, you could use an antenna to eat and shed your body in metamorphosis (possibly using haptics technologies as well). While this experience will not result in epistemic certainty surrounding what it is like to be a butterfly, it could prompt knowledge and relational connection with physical butterflies. Won et al (2015) found that humans have the mental plasticity to adopt virtual body representations including having eight limbs like a lobster. By experiencing what I will call “butterfly seeing,” users are motivated to form empathy for butterflies by experiencing in some way what they experience. The formation of empathetic attitudes for butterflies could contribute to the formation of a sense of care and concern for butterflies and their flourishing.

In this way, these technologies can “illuminate aspects of reality that are normally concealed from ordinary perception” (Cogburn Silcox 2013, 564). Therefore, while features including historical origins are unquestionably significant to environmental health and conservation efforts, I have shown that VR environments can confer transformative experiences and provide knowledge-how to learn about and apply to the physical more-than-human world.[16]

6. Conclusion

This paper used a relational way of understanding environmental value to consider whether VR simulations of ecosystems, processes, and non-human animals have instrumental value in facilitating relationships with biodiverse beings and spaces. Considering a potential worry surrounding the inauthenticity of VR-simulated ecosystems, this paper argued that VR can improve users’ awareness of the historical origins of the more-than-human world and that VR can increase knowledge-how which they can apply to interaction with physical environments. Thus I have shown that VR simulated ecosystems provide opportunities for moral formation, including issues relating to the environment.

Having done so, I recognize there are some unexplored issues that I did not have room to address but must be acknowledged which I bring up here. I acknowledge that I did not comment on the ethical status of virtual actions themselves. This would include questions regarding whether any action done in VR, such as virtual killing, has the same weight as in physical reality and whether taking part in certain actions impact one’s moral formation.

Further, while I focused on the potential of VR technologies to facilitate relationship building with the more-than-human world, there are many factors, particularly relating to the business of technological creation of VR which require further consideration especially relating to whether VR will lead to more pro-environmental behavior and moral formation. For instance, the exploitative potential of VR technologies and companies, particularly of younger users must be further considered. A key to VR promoting pro-environmental behavior is how the simulations are created and what they depict. Power relations will remain a key piece of the puzzle and will determine whether VR simulations promote or inhibit positive moral consequences. A continual challenge remains that influential technology companies will portray environments using a capitalistic mindset, reducing VR ecosystems to objects for consumption. Particularly if we take the relational approach to understanding environmental value to be an improvement upon “intrinsic” and “instrumental” conversations, then the potential extension of colonialism into these spaces must be scrutinized. Relational valuation is centered around building relationships with the more-than-human world which require continual care and interaction with local landscapes. Colonialism can become a problem when creators of VR spaces are more concerned with profit, failing to reflect upon the fact that technologies often harm the environment in their creation and use. In addition, the values embedded within technological spaces have lasting impacts on the moral formation of users and could further the dominance of Western cultural understandings of environmental value which conflicts one of the keys to relational valuation: moral localization. Overall, a consideration of who profits from these spaces will remain relevant to understand considering the ethical consequences of such facts.

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[1] Take for example: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/experience-your-carbon-footprint-vr

[2] To understand the value of accessing environments we are not physically near through VR, we might look to a view called the transparency method. This method finds that we ascertain our own thoughts by looking outward instead of through introspection, which is unique to self-knowledge. In “looking through” the (transparent) mental state, the transparency method finds that one directly sees the state of the world it represents. Thus, through the transparency method, VR’s capacity to place users in environments that they may not be able to experience otherwise, such as scorched forests or flooded marshes, the user can gain insight into that state of environmental issues directly without needing to travel to those places in physical reality. Gertler, Brie. “Self-Knowledge.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 9 Nov. 2021, plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/#TraAcc.

[3] See for further explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-sentimentalism/supplement2.html

[4] Plumwood (1993) and other feminist scholars (Haraway 2003, Gruen 2015) have been quick to point out how instrumentalist frameworks inherit capitalistic and colonial perspectives, leading to an orientation toward the world of dualization. “Nature” becomes something that can be justifiably dominated and controlled, understood both descriptively and normatively. In seeing nature as valuable for human use, hierarchical power relationships form and legitimize a ruler/ruled dynamic. This leads to continued inferiorization and objectification of all that is perceived as lower, including “nature.”

[5] Cultural approaches emerged largely out of developments in science, technology, and society and often have a basis in phenomenology. For phenomenologists, the technological artifact emerges from a prior ‘technological’ attitude towards the world such as that discussed by Heiddeger in (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Questions. Because of this technological attitude or script, it is argued that technologies influence people’s perception of the world and even their behavior.

[6] There may be limitations on what we can have relationships with e.g. abiotic environments. I do not have room to consider in depth whether we can relate in a robust way with simulated characters or environments. For now I accept that relationships as understood through a relational value account which are reciprocal, entangled, and include responsibility and accountability relations must be between two living or non-artificially created entities.

[7] Take for example: https://vhil.stanford.edu/downloads/soae

[8] I acknowledge that there is a potential objection that simulated environments do in fact incorporate a societal context. I do not have space to consider this here but hope to pursue this line of inquiry in a later paper.

[9] We can also look to relationships that formed between two human users in VR environments as an indicator that relating to VR environments is possible. In a study by Freeman and Acena (2021) many users entered VR spaces without the intent of making social connections but as they engaged further with the technology and had experiences they started wanting to meet others. One user described meeting others as “accidental” but “a good thing.”

[10] Brey 1999 as cited in Rueda (2023). “Doing Good with Virtual Reality: The Ethics of Using Virtual Simulations for Improving Human Morality.”

[11] I acknowledge that there may be an additional objection that there is a slippery slope concern of virtual technologies entirely replacing physical interaction with the environment and in addition, causing domineering interaction with it when we do engage with the more-than-human world. Under a relationalist view, such replacement would be particularly harmful to human relationships with the physical non-human world. Also, approaching nature through domination would hinder relational formation and put humans and the more-than-human world in tension with one another. I do not have space to consider this objection here.

[12] I am using “interventionism” here to refer to arguments that humans should intervene and work to find solutions to environmental problems which are often justified by human participation in climate change and ethical arguments to reduce animal suffering as described in McCumber and King’s (2020) “The Wild in Fire: Human Aid to Wildlife in the Disasters of the Anthropocene.”

[13] Find out more at: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/butterflies/butterfly-behavior

[14] https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/why-butterflies-matter

[15] See example in a Colorado butterfly pavilion: https://butterflies.org/learn/schools-and-youth-groups/virtual-learning/

[16] More empirical studies are necessary to confirm these claims.