GROUNDINGS FOR AN ECO-JUSTICE DIALOGICAL ETHICS OF EMANCIPATION

Abstract

Through the eco-justice ethical criticism, which is the basic methodology
of research in this paper, the authors attempt to weave the concept of personal identity as a dialogical virtue, while linked to the process of interaction with a human and, inevitably, more-than-human “otherness”, commonly referred to as Nature or the holistic other. Such a gesture serves to
go beyond Humanism and turn to what Posthumanism could mean, in order
to overcome the questionable narcissistic, supernaturalizing and predatory
attitude of the latter. This gives way to seeking groundings for eco-justice ethics, by pointing to a dispossessment and dispossession of the self
as a contribution to a new, after all, more intimate degree of relationship
mediated by the forms the value love may assume. In line with these assumptions, a new paradigm of education for citizenship is proposed, with
relation to alterity and an indispensable form of non-reproductive emancipation, not giving up on the critical exercise of unmasking the practices of
naturalization of injustice, namely through carrying out the parrhesiastic
function of telling a truth to power. This not only resituates the problem
in the educational field, as in the awareness of the more-than-human to be
considered, but it also looks for the caring about the natural and human
(material and immaterial) “commons”. Finally, the main goal of this paper is to redress possible imbalances between the conditions provided by
power and the legitimate expectations of peoples, including their eco-systems, without losing sight of the defined emancipatory ethical framework
grounded in the values of love, peace, and hope.
Keywords: eco-justice, ethics, identity, otherness, emancipation, love