Ethics and morality have to go beyond gender and anthropocentrism, as it is absolutely wrong to think of the environment – natural and technological – only in terms of human satisfaction. Any distinction between organisms somehow “worthy” of moral consideration and others that are not is plainly a case of discrimination. In fact, everything in the universe has a physical or phenomenal aspect and also an invisible or noumenal aspect. The Hybrid Constitution defines this as the “intellect” with which all living things, as well as apparently lifeless things, are endowed. According to this “Intellect” the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Just as cells living in harmony form a complex living being, so the parts of nature constitute a super-organism of which the inorganic world and technology (the beginning of the culture), the earth, water, mechanisms, energy, are all integral parts. This superorganism is alive, because if it lacked any of its constituent parts it would have ceased to exist, just as any living being ceases to exist if it loses one of its vital components. Through the Hybrid Constitution Animal, Vegetal, Technology, living and non-living beings become an integral part of whole nature, which has a value in and of itself, as well as having a value for all living and non-living, animate and inanimate beings. Living and non-living things are not simply objects, but entities; since they tend to protect and heal themselves, also with an absolute immobility, it is not plausible to deny that living beings have an interest in remaining alive, just as it cannot be asserted that non-living beings do not have any interest for themselves, but have interest only for the living beings that are related to them. Non-living beings, even if they do not have desires or feelings, can be damaged or aided, and it is our duty to seek their welfare – in the sense that we have prima facie moral obligations towards non-living beings, insofar as they are part of the earth’s biotic community, and we are morally bound to them insofar as they participate in keeping ecosystems alive and complete. It is a major moral duty for the above “intellect” to consider as good what is good for them (the things), and to help them keep their form, information and life (if they are living), a healthy existence in a whole natural state. A living or non-living being is a spontaneous system that maintains and reproduces itself and also executes a program (to exist is a program). Inside this system there is information that supervises procedures, and without which the animate and inanimate would be nothing of substance. This information supplies all animate and inanimate things with a telos or end purpose – even if they may not be aware of this. Value, then, is not anthropologically or biofilically projected onto the object, it is already present in the object in a sense of telos. So there is no reason to exclude slow living things such as plants and inanimate beings like technologies from moral consideration.
The single element could not communicate, survive or even live on its own. It would have no value without its surroundings, with which it is engaged in a set of living, non-living and technological relations. The principle considers the plant as adapted inside an ecosystem, considers technology as a product of the ecosystem, and considers the single organism, animate or inanimate, as a “point of experience” in the network of interconnections between living and non-living things. It is this that has intrinsic value per se, and it is this that uses its own specific techniques and know-how to carry out its life and, at the same time, to modify our whole shared environment.
[This is] a participative artwork in liberty and dignity, on the rights of the common world of all beings and non-beings; the HYBRID CONSTITUTION will produce the FIRST PRINCIPLES (8 →) The first Nine articles of the HYBRID CONSTITUTION are the so-called basic principles.
