ONLINE FIRST
published on August 8, 2018
Jayne Svenungsson
https://doi.org/10.5840/ecoethica20187251
Interdependence and the Biblical Legacy of Anthropocentrism
On Human Destructiveness and Human Responsibility
This article engages with the biblical legacy of anthropomorphism from a contemporary perspective. First, it revisits the biblical creation myth and questions the deeply ingrained notion that what it offers is an account of ¡®creation out of nothingness.¡¯ Second, this rereading is followed by a closer look at how this particular theology was elaborated by Hans Jonas in his philosophy of life. In the final part of the paper, Jonas¡¯s philosophy of responsibility is linked to a reflection on humanity¡¯s unique capacity for destruction and self-destruction. Contrary to much of contemporary posthumanism, it is argued that a recognition of the interdependence between the human and the non-human worlds must never be a matter of erasing the distinction between them, since such a blurring of distinctions runs the risk of overshadowing the uniqueness of human destructiveness and thereby of undermining a serious discussion of human responsibility.