Parte della natura o a parte dalla natura? Alienazione e responsabilità rispetto all’ambiente naturale

In this article, I outline a perspective of responsibility towards the natural environment grounded both on reason and on passions; it rests on a concept of disalienation, which, in turn, is drawn from the idea of alienation from nature that I trace in the first paragraph of this essay. To this end, I examine at first some examples of environmental ethics which postulate a constitutive separation between human beings and nature; secondly, I consider ethical conceptions affirming an original unity between humanity and nature; finally, I take into account perspectives that perceive elements of continuity as well as elements of separation between the two terms. I then proceed to delineate an idea of alienation from nature as the rupture of a relationship between connected but dissimilar elements, putting it in relation with Adorno’s thoughts on this theme. From this, and by referring to some of Elena Pulcini’s reflections on vulnerability, responsibility, and denial, I finally trace the outlines of an idea of ethical responsibility towards the natural environment, based on the idea of disalienation from nature and appealing both to our rational and our emotional side.