S&F_scienzaefilosofia.it (Dec 2022)
L’umiliazione di Darwin. Le radici biologiche degli sviluppi non-antropocentrici dell’etica ambientale contemporanea
Abstract
The Humiliation by Darwin. Biological Roots of Non-Anthropocentric Developments in Contemporary Environmental Ethics In a 1916 essay, the famous founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud compares his theory to the discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus and Charles Darwin, talking about three severe humiliations inflicted by scientific investigation on human narcissism. The main aim of this paper is to show how some of the most famous non-anthropocentric environmental ethics are rooted in the humiliation inflicted by Darwin further developments of his theory. The paper focuses on authors such as Aldo Leopold, John Baird Callicott, Paul Taylor, and Holmes Rolston III. Leopold and Callicott’s land ethic claims that moral community will sooner or later correspond to the entire biotic community, following a process of social-ethical evolution characterized by the gradual extension of that same moral feeling of communitarian altruism of which Darwin discusses great evolutionary advantages. Taylor brings a famous epigram wrote by Darwin – in which he recommends himself to never define “superior” or “inferior” the structure of an organism – to its extreme ethical consequences, to the point of founding a biocentric ethics articulated around the intrinsic value of every living organism. Rolston’s Earth ethic pick up a humanity “humiliated” by Darwin’s discoveries and their further developments and offer a chance to redeem itself, moving from its great uniqueness to its great moral responsibility. Through an analysis of the main thesis of the theories of the above cited authors, the paper shows how, in order to found a non-anthropocentric environmental ethics, we should not deny, but rather put in dialogue – and thus highlight – both human natures: the one of a biological organism that lives adapting to the world, and the one of a moral agent who decides how to live his life.
