Inconsistent Anthropocentrism
Animals < Humans < Nature?
Teaching undergrads, I often come across the following curious combination of views:
Speciesism: We should strongly favor humans over non-human animals, to such an extent that we should donate to human charities over animal charities even if the latter turn out to be orders of magnitude more cost-effective at relieving suffering.
Ecological Anti-humanism: It would be a good thing if humanity went extinct, because we’re a scourge on the planet; nature would be better-off without us.
It isn’t strictly logically inconsistent to devalue individual animals while venerating “nature” more broadly. But it does seem odd! I guess kids are enculturated with lots of ecological anti-humanist propaganda, so it’s a familiar message that resonates with many. Singer-style concern for the suffering of non-cute animals, by contrast, is a much more foreign idea and hence prone to be dismissed as seeming “absurd” on initial exposure.
We live in a strange moral culture.
50% of your students supported human extinction? That's absolutely insane. I would have considered 20% alarming.
Do you find many individual students that strongly support both? This seems like it might be one of those cases where there’s a vocal minority that support one (and not many opposing), and a vocal minority that support the other (and not many opposing) so that it feels like the group supports both, even though relatively few individuals do.