Luca Valera – författare

This book offers an authoritative analysis of the challenges that have arisen as a result of modern technologies. It covers several environmental problems, such as climate change, overexploitation of natural resources, loss of natural habitats, pollution and human population growth, and discusses practical scenarios for sustainable human dwelling of our planet.  Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the first part introduces “global changes”, describing how they are happening in reality, and the challenges arising from them. The second part introduces methodological approaches borrowed from various disciplines, such as engineering, management science, philosophy and theology, which can help deal with the contemporary challenges resulting from global changes.

Lastly, the third part discusses some of the themes presented in the light of novel concepts, such as the Anthropocene, and includes interesting proposals and ideas about how human beings could dwell the Earth in this new age. Offering a comprehensive theoretical reflection on the relation between technology, environment and human beings, it also provides a practice-oriented guide for researchers and decision-makers working on a new ethical paradigm of acting in the Anthropocene.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of philosophical, social, ethical, and legal challenges arising as a consequences of current advances in neurosciences and neurotechnology. It starts by offering an overview of fundamental concepts such as mental privacy, personal autonomy, mental integrity, and responsibility, among others. In turn, it discusses the influence of possible misuses or uncontrolled uses of neurotechnology on those concepts, and, more in general, on human rights and equality. Then, it makes some original proposals to deal with the main ethical, legal, and social problems associated to the use of neurotechnology, both in medicine and in everyday life, suggesting possible policies to protect privacy, neural data, and intimacy. Crossing the borders between humanities, natural sciences, bio-medicine, and engineering, and taking into account geographical and cultural differences, this book offers a conceptual debate around policy and decision making concerning some of the key neuroethical challenges of our times. It offers a comprehensive guide to the most important issues of neurojustice and neuroprotection, together with a set of new paradigms to face some of the most urgent neuroethical problems of our times.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between pantheism and ecology, particularly considering different cultural approaches and diverse religious, theological, and philosophical traditions.

Environmental ethics arises from the dangerousness and harmfulness of human beings with respect to nonhuman species and, more generally, with respect to the environment. A common starting point for environmental ethics standpoints is that human beings are responsible for damaging nature. The famous four laws of ecology drafted by Barry Commoner precisely express this guilt on the part of human beings, who very often voluntarily violate the behavioral indications that emerge from nature itself. These aspects concern environmental ethics outlooks.

Eco-theology, then, takes a further step: not only do we damage the ecosystem but also, as many authors suggest, when we humans destroy the natural world, we are wounding God. Such an idea implies a possible coincidence of God with the natural world –or the ecosystem. From this assumption, different questions may emerge: what is the kind of coincidence between God and the natural world? Are God and the ecosystem coextensive? If so, are we re-sacralizing the natural world and grounding intrinsic values in theological postulates and statements?

These questions lead us to reconsider the cosmological assumptions that ground our environmental judgements, from theology to different religious traditions and cultures to philosophical worldviews. In particular, we will focus on the cosmological assumptions of pantheism (considering its differences with panentheism), discussing the symmetrical (or asymmetrical) relationships between God and the finite ways in which God manifests Godself.

In this regard, the book is divided into three main parts: in the first part, the question of pantheism is approached from different traditions and with a special focus on the main thinkers in the history of thought, from Greek Stoicism to the present day. In the second part, some current ecological concerns are considered in relation to pantheistic cosmology: the authors will deepen issues from the discussion of the different “pan-conceptions” to the problem of evil, to Anthropocene. Finally, in the third part, the different chapters will focus on ethical issues in the field of the current environmental crisis with a huge connection with the pantheistic cosmologies.

This book is oriented to a wide public, interested in environmental issues and looking for an approach from different cultures and traditions. Evidently, due to its “academic” nature, this book is also intended to be a great support for researchers interested in eco-theology and, more specifically, in the relationship between pantheism and ecology.

It is not, in this sense, a “classic” book on environmental ethics, but a book that delves into the fundamentals of environmental philosophy, privileging the Ibero-American approach.