Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Conference | Paper

Earth as the Shared Home-world of Every Living Being. A Husserlian Approach of Eco-phenomenology

Bence Peter Marosan

Wednesday 4 September 2024

16:20 - 17:00

TU-Coworking

In my presentation I would like to speak about how Husserl’s conception of monadological intersubjectivity and axiology offer an up-to-date and plausible position for a contemporary eco-ethical and eco-political theory. In Husserl’s opinion every organism capable of conscious lived experiences should be conceived as a monadic ego, a concrete subject, ultimately, as a transcendental ego—even non-human subjects (e.g. in Cartesian Meditations, 1929/1960). It was also his opinion that world was constituted through the entire, universal community of egos, which community should be considered as transcendental intersubjectivity, and non-human subjects were also “members” of this community. A world that is constituted by a community of subject of a wider variety is richer than a world which is constituted by fewer subjects of fewer types.

 

This is the point where Husserl’s axiology is also coming into play. Husserl kept lectures on ethics and axiology throughout his entire career as a philosopher (e.g. Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre. 1908-1914, 1988, Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920 und 1924, 2004, Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie, 2014). According to him, life has an inherent value—both human and non-human. When we are confronted with values around us, they demand our respect, and they affect us as responsible agents. In Husserl’s view if we want to live authentically, as rational and responsible subjects, we must respect life in all of its different forms—that means, we shall not treat any living being in exclusively instrumental terms.

 

Husserl thought that we have a moral obligation to realise as many axiological potentials as possible and help also other subjects to realise their axiological possibilities. According to this stance, as I will try to show, we must strive after protecting the ecological integrity of our planet.