SPACE, JUSTICE AND UNIVERSAL ETHICS:

expanding the conceptual horizons of environmental sustainability through deliberative democracy

Abstract

Environmental sustainability is a key concept in natural, social and human sciences. The naturalistic reading, which is focused on describing the natural framework dissociated from the humanity that integrates it, however, may weaken the discussion, generating a deficit of criticality and act as a source of ideology. Therefore, the sustainability discourse cannot be reduced to issues of forest deforestation, carbon emissions, or the greenhouse effect, for example. The environmental discourse from 1990 onwards has been accompanied, in turn, by the appreciation of the spatial dimension. The objective is to contribute to the expanding the conceptual horizon of environmental sustainability as geoethics, which emerges from the relationship between justice and geographic space, which is seen as a hybrid between the natural environment and the artificial environment. Geoethical issues that can be resolved via deliberative democracy are able to take the form of universal ethics, considering that the environment is, currently, a global problem. The research is bibliographic and of review. From Google Scholar, Dial Net and Periódicos Capes, relevant and current texts were selected that conceptually address environmental sustainability in different areas. Our understanding of space as a lifeworld and system leads us, therefore, to propose a spatialized discussion of the intersubjectivity of justice in terms of discursive ethics. Finally, it is expected to contribute to the advancement of the discussion in terms of the inclusion of deliberative democracy to face the concept of environmental sustainability considering the unequal development levels of the countries.