Humanity is facing rapid declines in both biodiversity and cultural diversity. As effective conservation policies often require strong public support, it is critical to understand whether individuals view diversity loss through a moral lens and whether they value diversity for its own sake, independent from instrumental or individual‐centric concerns. Across two studies (N = 796), we found that individuals assigned moral value to both biodiversity and cultural diversity. Individuals assigned greater moral value to animals, plants and – to a lesser extent – languages when diversity was threatened, compared to when it was not threatened, despite an equal number of entities at risk, and they were willing to sacrifice a large number of these entities to prevent a loss in diversity. Additionally, we found (N = 12,000) that a general concern for diversity underlies concern for both biodiversity and cultural diversity. These findings suggest that emphasizing the inherent value of diversity may be effective for increasing public support for conservation of diversity.

中文翻译：

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生物多样性和文化多样性在道德上受到重视


人类正面临着生物多样性和文化多样性的迅速下降。由于有效的保护政策通常需要公众的大力支持，因此了解个人是否通过道德视角看待多样性的丧失，以及他们是否为了多样性本身而重视多样性，独立于工具性或以个人为中心的关注，这一点至关重要。在两项研究 （N = 796） 中，我们发现个体为生物多样性和文化多样性赋予了道德价值。当多样性受到威胁时，与没有受到威胁时相比，个体赋予动物、植物和语言更大的道德价值，尽管面临风险的实体数量相同，他们愿意牺牲大量这些实体来防止多样性的丧失。此外，我们发现 （N = 12,000） 对多样性的普遍关注是关注生物多样性和文化多样性的基础。这些发现表明，强调多样性的内在价值可能有效地增加公众对保护多样性的支持。