Debates sobre ciudadanía y ambiente

Abstract

Since the late twentieth century the question of human impact on the environment is of scientific, political and philosophical interest; in that sense it is worth to discuss the interrelation between the environment and the exercise of citizenship. Different approaches arise from the principles of political philosophy that offer different points of view of man’s relationship with nature. The anthropocentric radical positions consider the individual as all that matters, and the nature, but also that the communities, cultures and human institutions are merely an instrumental value. More environmentalists believe that human preferences should be based on a whole assumed conception of the world. Among environmentalists approaches we focus this work on the study of eco-philosophies concern with ecological citizenship, good living and political ecology. The essential components of each one of them bring us to a new way of thinking, which tries to overcome the defi ciencies of modern thought that dominated the Western wordld since the sixteenth century, characterized by the voluntarist individualism, the validation of scientific reason, and the predominance of governmental institutions and the market, as constituents of man and society. The eco philosophies that were analyzed call into question the project of modernity, providing alternatives to integrate the exercise of citizenship, with a global, multicultural and coherent approach to the link between man and nature, aimed at an ecological conscience.