La ética de Thoreau y su relevancia para la cultura global

Resumen

The aim of this thesis is the research of the ethical proposal of the North American philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). This aim is divided into two concerns: first, the comprehensive and systematized analysis of Thoreau's moral philosophy; second, the relevance of this philosophy to the contemporary age. A general hypothesis has been proposed for its development: Thoreauvian ethics can contribute to reflection on current problems in moral sphere, and particularly on the conflicts arising from the historical transformations that lead to global culture. Grounded on this hypothesis, this research has been divided into three fundamental perspectives: historical, theoretical-practical, and present. From a historical perspective, we propose the analysis of 19th-century North American society and its links to global culture, both social and ideological. We have analyzed the particular relationships between the problems Thoreau faced in his days and those that ethics has to face in our day, prioritizing information from historical and journalistic sources. This perspective has allowed us an approach to the historical development of industrial society, the mass press, and the ideologies linked to notions such as Manifest Destiny and globalization, which provides a basic and indispensable background for the main aims of this thesis. The theoretical-practical perspective studies Thoreauvian ethics in detail through an original analysis and in dialogue with several historical, literary, and philosophical studies on Henry Thoreau's work. We have researched in detail the critical nature of Thoreauvian ethics, its principles, grounded in a bio-ecocentric conception of ?????? and the defense of wildness as the basic impulse of life, and its two main methods: the pragmatic critique of civilization, and walking as a way for scientific study and reflection. For this purpose, it has been essential to consider novel researches in this field, such as those carried out by Laura Dassow Walls, Philip Cafaro, Leonard Neufeldt, and Antonio Casado da Rocha. Antonio Casado da Rocha has realized the most relevant contributions in Spanish, among them the analysis of civil disobedience and the contemporary relevance of Thoreauvian ethics. Leonard Neufeldt has provided an original analysis of the concept of 'economy' in Thoreau's works, which has been essential to the development of our study on ethical undertaking. Philip Cafaro has carried out one of the most thorough studies on Thoreau's ethics in Walden, especially relevant for its relationship with environmental ethics. Finally, Laura Dassow Walls' research on Thoreau's scientific career and his links with the thought of Alexander von Humboldt, together with studies on Thoreauvian ecocentrism, have been an essential support in analyzing the relationships of his ethics with empirical science. The third perspective, gived to present, contemplates two questions with which we conclude the aim of our research: first, an analysis of some of the main questions of ethics in global culture, in dialogue with Thoreau's philosophy, and, second, a synthetic systematization of the characteristics of Thoreauvian ethics and its methods, directed toward its contemporary practice. The results presented in this research show that adapting thoreauvian ethics to global culture is not only possible, but also valuable. Its close relationship with some ethical problems, such as the destruction of nature, mass communication, and consumerism, allows doing very few modifications to Thoreau's original proposal, and its critical nature ensures that its contents aren't external to our current circumstances.