Collective Responsibility towards Nature and Future Generations

Project Information

ReNa

Grant agreement ID: 101064728

DOI

10.3030/101064728

Project closed

EC signature date 14 June 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 31 October 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 288 859,20

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ReNa (Collective Responsibility towards Nature and Future Generations)

Reporting period: 2024-11-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This research project aimed to redefine a collective and proactive understanding of responsibility toward nature and future generations. It addressed a central problem in contemporary environmental ethics, namely the persistent tension between anthropocentric and biocentric approaches. While biocentric and physiocentric perspectives emphasize the intrinsic value of nature and life, anthropocentric positions tend to attribute to nature an instrumental value to in relation to human agency and interests. The project sought to move beyond this opposition by elaborating a concept of responsibility that integrates both dimensions: human moral agency and the value of life as a unifying horizon encompassing nature, present generations, and future generations.

The research built upon the concept of nature developed within German Idealism in the early nineteenth century and on the theory of responsibility formulated by Hans Jonas in the twentieth century. On this basis, it was structured in two main stages, each with a distinct but closely connected objective.

1. The Rational Foundation of Collective Responsibility:

The first stage of the project focused on establishing the rational foundation of a collective and proactive responsibility toward the world we inhabit, understood as a duty to care for it. This constituted the “objective side” of the research and was grounded in the Kantian conception of human beings as inherently rational, moral, and responsible agents. Developing such a foundation required a renewed philosophical account of the relationship between humanity and nature. In this context, the research addressed two closely related aspects. First, it clarified the ontological continuity between nature and human beings, emphasizing the intrinsic value of life as such. Second, it articulated the primary responsibility that human beings bear toward the natural world and toward future generations, precisely in virtue of their distinctive moral and rational capacities. By revisiting and critically reinterpreting key concepts from German Idealism and Jonas’s philosophy, the project elaborated a framework in which human responsibility does not stand in opposition to the value of life, but is instead grounded in it.

2. The Role of Human Motivation and Context:

The second stage of the project addressed the “subjective side” of responsibility, focusing on the motivations and contexts that enable responsible action toward nature and future generations. Its role within the overall research design was to bridge the rational foundation of collective responsibility with its practical realization. Within this framework, the research examined ethical concepts such as respect, in the Kantian sense, and care for the vulnerability of nature and future humans, drawing on Hans Jonas’s ethics of responsibility. Particular attention was devoted to the role of fear as a potential driver of responsibility. The project clarified the conditions under which fear can acquire normative relevance, distinguishing a form of “productive fear” that is appropriate to environmental threats, guided by reason, and capable of motivating action rather than paralysis. By addressing these subjective dimensions, the project contributed to a conception of responsibility that is not only normatively justified, but also practically effective at individual, social, and political levels.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first 24 months of the project, I conducted an in-depth analysis and reinterpretation of the concept of nature within German Idealism—particularly Kant and Hegel—and German Romanticism, focusing on its ethical implications (Work Package 5).This investigation was conducted in parallel with a systematic engagement with Hans Jonas’s philosophical biology and his ethics of responsibility, with the aim of clarifying the relationship between nature, human beings, and moral responsibility (Work Packages 4-6). This phase of the research led to the completion of Work Package 4 and the implementation of Work Packages 5 and 6. The analysis of the ontological continuity between nature and human beings is reflected in the following publications: Giulia Battistoni, Ambiente e responsabilità. Verso una riattualizzazione delle filosofie della natura di Hegel e di Jonas, in C. Chiurco (ed.), Il contagio e la cura, QuiEdit, Verona 2023, pp. 111–135; Giulia Battistoni, Lebensprozess e organismo vivente. Elementi di contatto tra le filosofie della natura di Hegel e Whitehead – attraverso Jonas, «Giornale di Metafisica» 1/2023, pp. 59–72 (Work Package 5). The ethical dimension of human responsibility toward nature and future generations is addressed in: Giulia Battistoni, A biocentric ontology at the basis of an anthropocentric concept of co-responsibility, «Filosofia Morale/Moral Philosophy» 2/2023, pp. 101–110 (Work Package 6); Giulia Battistoni, Per una fondazione razionale della co-responsabilità verso la natura e le generazioni future, «Pòlemos» 1/2023, pp. 101–120 (Work Package 4). The two lines of inquiry converge in the following contribution: Giulia Battistoni, Einsichten für die gegenwärtige Umweltethik: Romantik, Hegel, Jonas, in M. Lewin (ed.), Klassische Deutsche Philosophie, Brill/Mentis, Boston 2024, pp. 211–228.

In the subsequent phase of the project, the results of this research were consolidated and further developed. The work clarified the core features attributed to nature and living organisms in German Idealism and German Romanticism—intrinsic purposiveness, organic unity, and freedom—thereby strengthening the argument for the intrinsic value of nature and life. This led to the curatorship of a special issue of the international, peer-reviewed journal «Ethics in Progress» entitled "Unfolding Life – The Dialectic of the Living in Hegel’s Thought: Philosophical Foundations and Contemporary Resonances" (published July 2025), including my introduction (The Dialectic of Life in Hegel’s Thought) and my article (The Life of/in Nature). They also built on earlier work that had resulted in a previous special issue of the same journal on "Nature and Spirit: Enduring Legacies of Hegel’s Philosophy from the Jena Period" (Ethics in Progress» 15/2, 2024), including my introductory essay "Why Turn to Hegel Today?".

The final phase of the project focused on the subjective dimensions of responsibility, namely motivation, context, and the consequences of human action (Work Package 7). In this phase, I reconsidered Kant’s notion of respect for persons as free agents and further developed Hans Jonas’s heuristic of fear, showing how awareness of the potentially destructive consequences of human action can motivate collective responsibility toward nature and future generations. The analysis clarified the role of a “productive fear” capable of fostering responsible action without resorting to apocalyptic rhetoric. This line of inquiry was further extended to contemporary debates on responsibility, environmental ethics, and punishment, understood—especially in environmental contexts—not only in retributivist terms but also as a motivational and deterrent tool shaped by narrative forms. This resulted in the co-curatorship of a special issue of the A-ranked journal «Ordines» on "Punishment between narrative dimensions and today’s challenges", including a co-authored introduction and a co-authored article ("The Right to Punish Today: Navigating Scientific and Cultural Shifts", in «Ordines. Per un sapere interdisciplinare sulle istituzioni europee» 2025, pp. 258-261). Further outcomes include the co-curatorship of the collective volume "Dimensions of Responsibility. Beyond Traditional Paradigms, Toward New Challenges" (QuiEdit, Verona 2025), featuring my co-authored preface and a contributed chapter ("From Threatening to Threatened Nature. Tracing the Line from Kantian and Schillerian Sublimity to Jonas’s Heuristics of Fear"), as well as additional publications on moral progress, responsibility ("Il progresso morale attraverso il concetto di responsabilità", in F. Abbate/G. Pintus (eds.), Il progresso morale: sfide, opportunità e prospettive future, Inschibboleth, Roma 2025, pp. 215-230), and the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy of right for addressing contemporary ecological and global crises ("Die Herausforderungen der Verantwortung in Zeiten der ökologischen Krise. Vorschläge aus Hegels Rechtsphilosophie", in F. Iannelli/K. Vieweg (eds.), Hegel und die Herausforderungen unserer Zeit / Facing the challenges of our time with Hegel, «jena-sophia», Brill/Fink, Boston/München, 2024, pp. 53-64).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This research filled a significant scientific gap by offering an original contribution that advances both Hegelian scholarship and contemporary studies on the ethics of responsibility initiated by Hans Jonas.

While Das Prinzip Verantwortung has long been regarded as the cornerstone of theories of collective responsibility toward nature and future generations, the secondary literature on Jonas has largely remained confined to this single work. The present research went beyond this dominant approach by demonstrating that Jonas’s concept of responsibility is fundamentally grounded in his philosophical biology, as developed in The Phenomenon of Life. Through detailed textual analysis and a systematic comparison of Jonas’s and Hegel’s accounts of nature and the living organism—drawing on the critical German editions of both authors—the project showed that Jonas’s philosophical biology contains a substantial German Idealist core. This theoretical lineage has remained largely unexplored both by Jonas himself and by his interpreters.

By reconstructing Jonas’s arguments in light of their German Idealist background, the research pushed his theory of responsibility beyond its current interpretative framework. In particular, it demonstrated that the objective idealism of Schelling and Hegel provides a crucial philosophical foundation for understanding the relationship between humanity and nature. This perspective allows for a coherent articulation of the ontological continuity between human beings and nature, while at the same time grounding the distinctive responsibility of humans as rational and reflective agents. In doing so, the project moved beyond both instrumental anthropocentric models and purely biocentric approaches, offering a framework in which human responsibility is grounded in the intrinsic value of life itself.

Building on this foundation, the research extended the discussion of collective responsibility by integrating dimensions that have so far remained underdeveloped in the literature. It brought together Jonas’s notions of vulnerability and fear, the Kantian concept of respect as a moral motivator, and key Hegelian arguments concerning the human appropriation of nature. This integration enabled a more comprehensive account of responsibility that connects its rational justification with the motivational and contextual conditions of human agency.

Through this combined approach, the project not only repositioned Hegel’s philosophy as a central resource for contemporary environmental ethics, but also significantly expanded Jonas’s theory of responsibility. As a result, it offered a novel and systematic framework for understanding collective responsibility toward nature and future generations, advancing the state of the art in both philosophical and ethical research on environmental responsibility.

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