Vulnerabilità della natura e prospettive etiche

This paper aims to analyze the ways in which the question of the moral value of nature has become part of the field of ethical reflection as a result of developments in modern technology and the effects it has had on subjects other than humans. The main emergent element in need of a new ethical attention has been found in the new dimension of vulnerability to which both human beings and nature and the non-human living beings that inhabit it are subjected today. Starting from this consideration, the analysis conducted has followed closely the thought of Hans Jonas to connect it to an ontological perspective within which to connect the concept of alterity with that of nature, so as to redevelop the role it plays in the constitution of human identity predicates and postulate a constitutive relationship between humans and nature that allows us to consider the latter as having its own dignity that must be respected. These assumptions have been used to expand the theoretical foundations of a principle of responsibility whose legitimacy is found as much on the affective side of feeling as on that of reason.