Natural Good and Personal Flourishing

The environment provides an innate, pre-moral good, which is essential for personal flourishing. This concept is rooted in the encyclical letter 'Laudato sì', written by Pope Francis in 2015. Deliberately detaching oneself from the 'world of life' can lead to 'intimate dryness' and dehumanisation, resulting in spiritual pathologies such as mental pollution and a sense of being uprooted. Disrespecting the environment is therefore a spiritual failure that harms the human person, demonstrating that caring for the 'common home' is fundamentally linked to human flourishing and preserving moral consistency.

Exploring nature (Wix Pic)

By Primavera Fisogni

Pope Francis's 2015 Encyclical Letter, Laudato Sì: On the Care of the Common Home, calls for multidisciplinary discussions concerning the philosophical implications of the environment. Among these, the interrelation between the natural good and personal flourishing deserves particular attention, serving as a crucial bridge between environmental sciences and moral philosophy.

As a point of departure, Francis assumes that human beings are innately acquainted with the goodness of the environment. While the Pope never formally defines this goodness, he directly references a pre-moral good—something inherently positive merely for being given by the effusive source of Being (God the Creator). By founding the primacy of this positivity, the Pope highlights the risks inherent in any detachment from the "world of life."

Pope Francis's approach is not solely theological; it is primarily phenomenological, moving from the observation of the general human condition. This viewpoint establishes the Encyclical as a valuable contribution to philosophical anthropology and sheds light on the phenomenon he calls "intimate dryness." Briefly, Francis posits that a correct relationship with the environment allows all living entities to flourish. Conversely, when the world of life's original positivity is deliberately lost, dehumanization begins.

Clarification of "Positive"

A clarification of the term "positive" is necessary. Derived from the Latin verb ponere (to place or put) and its past participle positum (given), "positive" broadly describes anything we experience through the senses—be it a tree (living entity) or a craft (inanimate object). This essay focuses on this original positivity, which has been largely neglected by contemporary philosophy.

I will argue that nature is a privileged pathway to the experience of good and beauty. Through the lens of phenomenology, I will provide a philosophical argument to secure the anthropological intuition at the heart of Laudato Sì: that nature is the primary source of good, the basic component of morality to which ethical conduct is inclined.

Any detachment—voluntary or unwilled—from the world of life is dangerous for human beings because it reduces the possibility for flourishing. This analysis will demonstrate that the moral consistency of beauty depends upon its interrelation with good, an interrelation primarily experienced by humans in their "being in the world."

Consequences of Detachment from the World of Life

Pope Francis's concept of the environment as a source of positivity is revealed through his observation of intimate dryness. In his "ecology of life," any detachment from nature, community, or humanity leads to the experience of bad (the opposite of good) in anthropological, moral, and aesthetic senses.

The Holy Father begins with the premise that "our body itself establishes us in a direct relation with the environment" (§ 155), and outlines several "diseases" resulting from a failed relationship with the world of life. The most relevant are:

1. Uprootedness

2. A constant schizophrenia

3. Mental pollution

4. Melancholic dissatisfaction

5. A harmful sense of isolation

6. The numbing of consciousness (leading to neglect of reality)

In § 149, Francis explores the consequences of unstable neighbourhoods in megacities, focusing on the "sense of uprootedness which spawns antisocial behavior and violence." This is founded on the "interrelation between living space and human behavior" (§ 150), which should aim for a "peculiar kind of beauty"—that is, "people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance" (§ 150).

The attitude of those who "set themselves up in place of God" (§ 117) can easily lead to a "constant schizophrenia" (§ 118). The perceived divide between the finite self and the infinite Creator causes disquiet, as "one cannot prescind from humanity" (§ 118). This form of schizophrenia, linked to the "culture of relativism" (§ 123), drives individuals to exploit others.

The artificial world exacerbates human afflictions. The pervasive use of digital devices can cause "a sort of mental pollution," which Francis explains as a "mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion" (§ 47). When genuine interpersonal relations are replaced by "a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate at whim," it creates "a new type of contrived emotion" centered on devices rather than people and nature. This can, on an anthropological level, produce "deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations" and a "harmful sense of isolation."

Furthermore, the sharp divide between affluent urban centers of power and the poor, often leading to a lack of physical contact with their problems, can lead to a "numbing of conscience" (§ 150), resulting in "tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality."

Pathologies of the Soul

Pope Francis identifies two main categories of these environmental diseases:

• Loss of Reality: Uprootedness, mental pollution, and numbing of consciousness.

• Lack of the Taste of Life: Melancholic dissatisfaction and harmful sense of isolation.

Both categories concern the interrelation of the human person with the world of life and lie upon the notion of environment as a source of sense and value.

The Encyclical's key insight is the direct link between pathologies of the soul and the deliberate loss of the good of life. These spiritual diseases do not merely belong to the social condition; they are veritable pathologies of the soul that reflect on both spiritual and organic life.

"Disregard for the duty to cultivate and maintain a proper relationship with my neighbor, for whose care and custody I’m responsible, ruins my relationship with my own self, with others, with God and with the earth... When all these relationships are neglected, when justice no longer dwells in the land, the Bible tells us that life itself is endangered" (§70; Italics added).

When an individual fails to assign sense and value to the environment, they deprive themselves of life's spiritual energy. The leading consequence of this voluntary disconnection is the earthquake of the subject, who becomes unable to maintain proper relations with the outer world, the self, and God. This implies inner infirmity. A human person who assumes a dominant, omnipotent role in the universe—the root of the original sin (§ 70)—damages the essential link connecting every living creature to the Creator.

The crucial trait of relation is intentionality (pros ti in Aristotelian terms)—the "toward something" that connects the subject who knows and the object known.

 Loss of Reality as a Loss of Good and Life

To better understand the environment's original positivity/goodness in human flourishing, we must examine the loss of reality. From the phenomenological perspective implicitly assumed by Pope Francis, this deprivation means a detachment from the world of life. Given that individual identity is fundamentally made possible by the relation with other things and individuals, any difficulty in relating to the outer space creates the condition for the Self's emotional, cognitive, and relational earthquake.

The investigations of Swiss psychiatrist and phenomenologist Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) can valuably integrate Pope Francis’s intuition. Binswanger assumed that in psychosis, the constitutive links of natural experience malfunction. The loss of the world occurs when empirical experience fails to correctly nourish the "pure Ego" or "transcendental Ego" (Fisogni, 2009). The subject becomes unable to perceive the self as an "I" due to difficulty in grasping the sense and value of the outer space.

Binswanger’s research on Formen missglückten Daseins (forms of failed existence) highlights that detachment from the world of life represents the transcendental condition of many pathologies of the Self. This concept has wide consensus in psychiatric literature, supporting the idea that the environment plays a key role in the rise of mental illness (e.g., studies on the higher prevalence of schizophrenia in impoverished urban settings).

Sensing: The Act of Grasping Reality

To illuminate the voluntary loss of the world, we must consider the structuring of the human person's moral sense. If we assume that a direct relation with the world provides basic tools for morality (II, §7, 8), we can understand why detachment is a source of spiritual disease. If the human person experiences the good-as-positive in inclining toward the outer space, then detachment interferes with the moral sense, not just cognitive and relational capabilities.

This argument holds value for anthropology and theology:

1. The loss of the world of life reflects on morality.

2. Because the environment is the created world by God, the source of being, any disrespectful behavior toward it is an act against God (sin).

   
   

The Role of Sensing

To prove this, we must explore the role of sensing. We define sensing as an active act, both sensitive and intellectual, that allows one to grasp something essential of the thing (Fisogni, 2009; 2013). It is not reducible to mere perception or sensation. Through sensations and perceptions, we are receptive to something external that becomes part of our "living experience" or Lebenswelt (world of life).

According to phenomenology, sensing is active: outer-world objects give rise to consciousness; they are not just "contents," but become "present at" our awareness (Husserl). This inward movement of the outward environment to the conscious Self is the "knowledge of the concrete" (Gendlin). Sensing provides a cognitive experience that transcends the person’s other activities and is strictly related to the active center of personal life (cognition, emotion, will/deliberation).

It is the experience that something valuable exists beside me (an apple, a tree, another human being). Sensing is comparable to the faculty of catching the very essence of being through intuition.

In the Thomistic perspective, all creatures incline themselves to reality because God is the effusive source of good, being, and truth. Animated beings and things communicate their good to others (Summa Theologiae, I, 19-2). This realistic achievement is also reached by Husserl’s theory of intentionality—the object-human person inclination at the origin of consciousness.

The fundamental aspect of the good-as-positive grasped by sensing is the appetite or desire it moves—a tendency to reach an end.

Good, Beauty, and Appetite

According to the Medieval theory of the transcendental properties of being (trascendentales), the terms bonum (good) and pulchrum (beauty) share a common nature at a cognitive level, rooted in the formal dimension (forma) of the thing.

• Beauty (pulchrum est quod visum placet) involves a mainly attentive act ("beauty is something that seen, pleases").

• Good (bonum est quod omnia appetunt) is what everyone aims and desires ("good is what everything tends with appetite").

Good, therefore, "has the reason of the end" (et ideo habet rationem finis). The appetite is a "sort of movement to the thing" (appetitus est quasi quidam motus ad rem). A house, a job, or a friend are goods because they are conditions for flourishing. They are given and valuable at the same time.

This confirms that a degree of goodness pertains to the various components of the world of life. Before being willed, the good is experienced through the senses. This idea grounds Pope Francis's call to respect the environment: every single part communicates something that transcends the object itself.

The Good and the Beauty in the Encyclical Letter

The detachment from the environment has aesthetic consequences because good and beauty are strictly intertwined. The term "beauty" is cited 28 times in the Encyclical, affirming that it is not a mere idea but the concrete experience of being in the world in a fully human condition, as creatures. The environment constantly refers to its Creator (§ 243).

"At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God... and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe." (§ 243)

The splendour of the world of life allows a cognitive grasp of the idea of God (§ 12), as "Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures he comes to know by analogy their maker" (Wis 13:3).

Faith further opens a wider understanding of reality's fascination (§ 79): "Faith allows us to interpret the meaning and the mysterious beauty of what is unfolding."

Beauty as a Relation

This deep interrelation clarifies why humans are called to build a community based on encounter, peace, and cooperation—conditions that give rise to social beauty. Bergoglio's ecology of life cannot prescind from beauty, which he sees as the veritable measure of humanism (§ 11).

"If we approach nature and the environment without openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs."

Beauty "has a language," meaning it is a living entity and a relation (linked to fraternity). The verbs "to awe and wonder" are key, as they are typical of an interpersonal relation that requires gratitude and openness to mystery. We can only be grateful to someone, and wonder refers to a cognitive tension—a question waiting for an answer from someone.

For this reason, beauty cannot be properly found in human crafts (§ 34): "We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves."

Two Kinds of Beauty

Pope Francis also contrasts mere design with "another kind of beauty" (§ 150):

"It is not enough to seek the beauty of design. More precious still is the service we offer to another kind of beauty: people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance."

This draws a sharp line between aesthetic beauty (the "particular beauty" of manicured spaces, § 45) and the social beauty of human flourishing. Even the beauty of technology (e.g., "an aircraft or a skyscraper," § 103) entails a "quantum leap" resulting in a "fulfilment which is uniquely human."

Ultimately, humans are "called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness" (§ 53). Here, beauty comes after peace and precedes fullness, serving as the transcendental condition for human flourishing. The final Prayer for our earth repeats the word "beauty" to emphasize its main role in relation to the environment and openness to God (§ 246).

 From Good to Beauty

The preceding arguments established that reality provides the primary source of positivity through the faculty of sensing, and detachment from the environment causes anthropological impoverishment regarding both good and beauty.

The final consideration must discuss the link between these two transcendental aspects of being. Beauty belongs to vision in Aquinas’s philosophy. It is achieved by an attentive, contemplative act that gives rise to the true recognition of something that transcends the object.

The phrase pulchrum est quod visum placet (beauty is something that seen, pleases) is not a subjective approach; the pleasure belongs to the experience of good through a visual approach. Beauty, therefore, is a transcendental experience because it allows an intellectual experience of the original goodness that pertains to reality.

This is primarily provided by the environment, as Francis argues, and by the fine arts, as Jacques Maritain argues. Maritain asserts that art, as a habit of the practical intellect, "operates for the good of the work done" (Art and Scholasticism, p. 2). Art is free only by respecting its native link with value, which is made possible by the continuous exchange between good and beauty in human experience.

If we exclude a respectful approach to the environment, we cannot recognize beauty as a transcendental trait of being, as its foundation lies in the living experience of positivity.

References

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The author

Primavera Fisogni (1963), founder and editor-in-chief of Rekh Magazine, is an Italian philosopher and journalist. Educated at the Catholic University, she graduated in Classics (1986), then took a Master in Communication (1989), graduated in Theoretical Philosophy (1999), and a Ph.D. in Metaphysics in Rome at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross with a dissertation concerning the intimate dryness of jihadists. Author of dozens of peer-reviewed papers, she orients her investigations toward global terrorism, the phenomena of evil, phenomenological psychiatry, Ancient Egyptian Thought, and more, always through the lenses of Systemic Thinking. As a journalist, she is the founder and the curator of Tess fashion magazine (published by La Provincia di Como).  https://www.linkedin.com/in/primavera-fisogni-9737341a9/?originalSubdomain=it