2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
An exploratory investigation of the foundations of environmental ethics: self and nature in Japanese philosophy
| Project/Area Number |
20K00007
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 01010:Philosophy and ethics-related
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| Research Institution | Akita University (2022)
Kyoto University (2020-2021) |
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Principal Investigator |
PASCA Roman 秋田大学, 教育文化学部, 准教授 (90758583)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | philosophy / ethics / nature / environment / self / environmental ethics / deep ecology |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
The four main areas and directions in which this project made significant contributions are:
1) understanding that the value of nature is intrinsic, i.e. it is not the result of any kind of attribution or projection from the realm of the human. Nature is valuable by the mere fact of its existence; 2) as part of nature, human beings need to find the balance between their own place within the world, and the rest of the environment. Philosopher Ninomiya Sontoku describes this in terms of the constant interaction between “the way of humans” and “the way of heaven”; 3) to reshuffle our understanding of environmental ethics we need to start from the premise that the human self is inherently a self-with-everything; 4) in order to de-anthropocentralize environmental ethics, we need to listen to nature. The PI argues that the only possible way to do that is to listen to what nature tells us, and that one of the few ways in which it is actually possible to do that is the imaginary.
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| Free Research Field |
Philosophy
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
The main purpose of the project was to analyze the fundamental tenets of environmental ethics and examine the contributions Japanese philosophical ideas and concepts can make toward a new understanding of our relationship with nature, and toward a much needed re-framing of environmental ethics.
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