Modernism and nihilism of the Constitution for the Earth

• Main Author: Lesňák Slavomír
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2019-06-01
• Series: Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe)
• Subjects: evolutionary ontology; ethics; culture; nihilism
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2478/ebce-2019-0005

This article uses the post-modern Nietzsche affirmation as a criterion for an analysis of the philosophical concept of the Constitution for the Earth (Šmajs, 2015) and other texts by Josef Šmajs, the principal author of the theory of evolutionary ontology. The author draws the attention of the group of authors of the Constitution for the Earth to the risk of the modernist and nihilist application of evolutionary ontology and proposes that the theory be extended to include new criteria and methods to enable it to be applied in a more acceptable manner. The author places efforts aimed at the biophilic transformation of culture into the value-based and ethical framework of moderate anthropocentrism instead of the ecocentric approach preferred by the creators of evolutionary ontology. The author also underlines the risk of the application of an ecocentric approach through the application of recent analysis of media presentations of those who support and deny climate change in the work entitled Environmental Ethics and Behavioural Change (Franks, Hanscomb & Johnston, 2018).