Reimagining Ethics: Non-anthropocentric Perspectives on Morality

Matteo Andreozzi

Jul 2025 · Ecology and Ethics Book 7 · Springer Nature

Ebook

130

Pages

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About this ebook

Several environmental problems are currently seriously undermining the traditional belief that the moral community should be restricted to human beings only. New scientific theories, especially in the fields of biology, ethology, and ecology, together with recent scientific discoveries demonstrating how human activities are jeopardizing ecosystem services urge for a paradigmatic change in our moral convictions. Environmental ethics has taken up the challenge and opened an extremely urgent and inspiring call for philosophical research. This is the call for extending the moral community to non-human and non-paradigmatic entities, regarding them as moral patients. The main aim of this book is to analyze the possibility and the legitimacy of a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic. In pursuing this aim, I primarily demonstrate the possibility and need to extend the status of moral patient beyond the ideal paradigmatic human being. I also provide an original categorization of several theoretical projects that have been proposed in the last few decades. Secondly, this book comprises a constructive critique of the most significant moral theories debated in the field and outlines a personal theoretical proposal for a new environmental ethic. My claim is that the refusal of ethical and ontological supremacy of human beings is not only necessary, but also sufficient to set the foundation for a formally and materially valid ethical system. Even without abandoning the most accepted forms of moral epistemology, it is nonetheless possible to admit the need to respect different kinds of non-human and non-paradigmatic moral patients.

About the author

Dr. Andreozzi earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Milan in 2014. He has authored and co-edited 10 books, over 15 journal articles as well as contributed to more than 20 chapters. He has served as the secretary of the GREAD - Research Group on Environmental Ethics within the Department of Humanistic Studies at DISTUM, Carlo Bo University of Urbino. Currently, he works for GREAD, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy.

He has held various editorial roles for academic journals and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journal "Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism" and the book series "IRENE: Interdisciplinary Researches on Ethics and the Natural Environment."

Throughout his career, Prof. Andreozzi has garnered numerous accolades, including top honors in the UN - Earth Charter competition and the Young People in the Country's Public Life contest, as well as a special jury prize in the "Darwin: Past and Future" competition.

Dr. Andreozzi's deep-rooted passion for environmental philosophy and teaching is evident in his extensive experience developing and delivering university courses, which cover topics such as environmental ethics, bioethics, media sociology, and the anthropology of cultural and communicative processes.

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