Worldviews and environmental ethics: Contributions of brain processing networks.

Worldviews shape how people relate to the environment, including their sense of environmental responsibility. This paper contrasts the materialist worldview, described as dominant in Western society, with a post-materialist worldview, arguing that shifting worldviews is key to changing environmental ethics. The authors propose that recent neuroscience indicates brain filters and networks hide an expanded nonlocal awareness, fostering self-referential thinking and a limited conceptual framework typical of materialism. They discuss the concepts of both worldviews and their environmental impact, examine neural filters and processing networks that sustain materialism, and explore methods to modify these filters and transform worldviews.

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Abstract

Research suggests that worldviews define our relationship to the environment, including our responsibility to the environment and our planet. This paper examines two specific worldviews and their potential environmental impact: the materialist worldview, considered to be the dominant worldview of Western society, and the so-called post-materialist worldview. We believe that changing the worldview of both individuals and society is key to changing environmental ethics, specifically attitudes, beliefs, and actions towards the environment. Recent neuroscience research suggests that brain filters and networks contribute to concealing an expanded nonlocal awareness. This creates self-referential thinking and contributes to the limited conceptual framework characteristic of a materialist worldview. We discuss the underlying concepts of both materialist and post-materialist worldviews including their impact on environmental ethics, then explore the various types of neural filters and processing networks that contribute to a materialist worldview, and finally explore methods for modifying neural filters and changing worldviews.