The Grammar of Fraternity: Conflict and Responsibility in the Anthropocene

The dissertation investigates whether the idea of fraternity can be used as a principle around which to structure a cross-cultural dialogue capable of generating and intensifying practices of cooperation and solidaristic policies at the international level, in the context of the global environmental and climatic crisis that defines one of the major political challenges of our time. The current state of knowledge regarding the human impact on the physical world has coined a word to designate the geological epoch in which we live: the “Anthropocene”. The root of the word, anthropos, is the same of the word which defines an anthropocentric culture that is largely critized today by those who think that a new set of values are necessary for the adoption of policies that escape from a vision centred only on human rights, and include also the rights of non-human living beings. However, the length (especially in terms of time) of the debates on moral (ethical-religious) and practical (legal terminologies and issues related to technical and economic development) questions, although a necessary and important part of the democratic decision-making practice, conflict with the urgency that the scientific community points out is necessary for measures to be taken to avoid a catastrophic scenario in the near future, if if the increase in the Earth's average temperature exceeds 1.5°C. We aim to demonstrate, through the lens of complexity and after an overview of the main critical issues present in the political ecology thought, that an intellectual debate able to foster policies oriented to the care and the preservation of natural environment, whether for the sake of it – due to its intrinsic values – or for the benefit of humans, including the future generations, may gain if it is grounded on a transversal principle well equipped to engage in a dialogue with different traditions of thought. This is represented by the concept of fraternity. We argue that the symbolic historical appeal it has in the West and the practices of solidarity it triggers is able to connect to myriad of ideological, cultural, and religious-informed views which, by ways of the relationality feature they cary, may be of great relevance for the adoption of cooperative policies that are also just.