Nutrition, Place, and Climate. Nietzsche’s Environmental Ethics.

Project Information

NET

Grant agreement ID: 101105454

DOI

10.3030/101105454

Project closed

EC signature date 15 March 2023

Start date 1 April 2023

End date 31 March 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 172 750,08

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NET (Nutrition, Place, and Climate. Nietzsche’s Environmental Ethics.)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The environmental crisis we are witnessing today is becoming always more severe. Life on planet Earth is at the risk of extinction and we have almost arrived at a point of no return. We, human beings, cannot continue behaving as we did over the course of history so far, almost completely ignoring the needs of nature and non-human beings. The environmental degradation calls on us all to radically change our approach to the natural realm. For this we need a new ethical paradigm, one that can potentially reestablish our lost harmony with nature. In this respect, philosophy must assume its historical responsibility and help guide us towards this goal.

This project aims to demonstrate how Nietzsche’s philosophy is best suited to play this role. Indeed, Nietzsche was one of the few Western philosophers to carry out one of the strongest attacks against the traditional Western devaluation of nature. He called on us all to ‘translate humanity back into nature’, thereby negating any superiority of humans above other living beings. By reconstructing Nietzsche’s positions on nature and ethics throughout his works and bringing them into dialogue with the literature on environmental ethics, this project aims to show how we can infer an environmental ethics from Nietzsche’s philosophy. This environmental ethics can potentially foster respectful behaviour towards nature, ultimately leading to a society mindful of the needs of nature and non-human beings.

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

On the one hand, I investigated the secondary literature on environmental ethics, particularly analysing its classic authors. On the other hand, I examined the secondary literature on Nietzsche, with a particular focus on the relationships between Nietzsche and environmental ethics and Nietzsche’s concepts of nature. This work was instrumental in providing the groundwork for all the journal articles on the topic of Nietzsche and environmental ethics so far published, in press and planned.

I analysed the entire oeuvre of Nietzsche, including all his letters and works, both published and posthumous. Through this research, I was able to chronologically trace the development of Nietzsche’s views on nature and ethics. This work was essential for arriving both at the outcomes already published and those planned and to be published.

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)

The possibility of deriving an environmental ethics from Nietzsche’s philosophy has been rejected by most scholars. While they acknowledge that Nietzsche’s thought holds value as a pars destruens, that is, in showing the devaluation of nature embedded in much of Western philosophy, they deny that it can offer a constructive contribution to environmental ethics. In contrast, this project aims to demonstrate that Nietzsche’s thought does provide the foundations for an environmental ethics capable of potentially restoring our lost harmony with nature.

In my project-related essays, both published and in press, I have already demonstrated how we can infer an ethics of place from the middle-period works of Nietzsche’s thought. This ethics of place has the potential to foster individuals’ attachment to the places in which they live and, consequently, promote environmentally-friendly behavior. I am the first to make the case for an environmental ethics within Nietzsche’s philosophy, specifically an ethics of place.

This ethics of place can potentially have a quite significant societal impact. Indeed, it has been acknowledged that fostering citizens’ attachment to their place may in turn lead them to take care of it, ultimately promoting environmentally-friendly behaviour. Particularly emblematic is the case of the Government of Western Australia, which in its State Sustainability Strategy (2003) listed the love of place or ‘attainment of a sense of place’ among its main objectives. This document stresses the importance of developing a sense of place with the aim of taking care of it. In this respect, a Nietzschean ethics of place has the potential of enhancing people’s environmental awareness, which in turn may contribute to shaping a more environmentally-friendly society.