Abstract:
The contemporary challenges linked to the ecological crisis have long shown the limits of a traditional conception of responsibility, based on the causal link between human action and the consequences it produces: a retrospective and individual responsibility. The continuous technological progress has had as an inevitable consequence the extension of the human being’s action power: with this, the proximity between action and its effects has been lost, as the latter expand in a future that is difficult to predict; moreover, the vulnerability of nature, as the ecosystem in which human beings live, has become increasingly evident. It has therefore become necessary to develop a new form of proactive co-responsibility that accounts for these challenges. In light of this context, this paper makes use of the discourse ethics, elaborated by K.-O. Apel and by J. Habermas, and of the ethics of responsibility by H. Jonas, to bring to light, by combining them for the first time, those elements which, although often not accurately valued since they are linked to a rational foundation of ethics of Kantian mold, would allow a fundamental advance in this thorny question.
Keywords: ecological crisis, discourse ethics, ethics of responsibility, rational foundation of ethics
The article is available (Open Access) at this link: https://www.rivistapolemos.it/per-una-fondazione-razionale-della-co-responsabilita-verso-la-natura-e-le-generazioni-future/?lang=it
The whole issue is available (Open Access) at this link: https://www.rivistapolemos.it/issue/responsabilita-comunita-e-comunicazione/?lang=it
