While ‘relational values’ constitute an emerging theory in environmental ethics, they hold important continuities with the broader human-ecological social sciences. Human ecology, particularly as developed by qualitative research, has long considered the environment in relational terms. Core findings of this field underscore that ‘humans’ and ‘nature’ must not be held conceptually distinct from each other; that human communities’ use of and interaction with environmental resources are mediated by social values, which sometimes outweigh economic concerns; and that value systems concerning the environment are neither static, nor isolated from larger cultural value frameworks. More recent theoretical developments in materialism, ontology, and multispecies ethnography expand the scope of socio-environmental inquiry, offering avenues for moving beyond anthropocentric approaches to human-environment relations. Three elements of social science-based human-ecological research are indispensable to the relational values conversation: qualitative, immersive fieldwork; an emphasis on language; and acknowledging the possibility of incommensurability among knowledge and value systems.

虽然“关系价值”构成了环境伦理学中的一个新兴理论，但它们与更广泛的人类生态社会科学具有重要的连续性。长期以来，人类生态学，特别是通过定性研究开发的生态学，一直以关系学的角度考虑环境。该领域的核心发现强调，“人类”和“自然”在概念上绝不能区分开。人类社区对环境资源的使用和与环境资源的相互作用是由社会价值来介导的，而社会价值有时超过了经济问题；与环境有关的价值体系既不是静态的，也不是与更大的文化价值框架相隔离的。唯物主义，本体论和多种族民族志的最新理论发展扩大了社会环境研究的范围，提供了超越以人类为中心的方法解决人与环境关系的途径。基于社会科学的人类生态学研究的三个要素对于关系价值观的对话是必不可少的：定性，沉浸式实地考察；强调语言；并承认知识和价值体系之间存在不可通约性的可能性。