Abstract
We like to talk about "protecting nature", "preserving biodiversity", "ecosystem services". But behind these formulas lurks a very particular vision of the world: that of a human being separated from the living, who has sovereignty over what to save, and what to sacrifice. Nature is reduced to a reserve of resources, a setting to be maintained, a humanized heritage. Even the notion of "ecosystem service", though born of a laudable intention, betrays this logic: the forest is valuable because it filters water, the coral reef because it protects coasts, the bee because it pollinates our crops. And what if it "serves" to nothing?
Yet biology tells a very different story. Work on mycorrhizal symbioses (association between fungi and plant roots) shows that cooperation between species is more fundamental than competition. Contemporary philosophy, for its part, invites us to rethink our relationship with other living beings no longer as management, but as cohabitation, a "diplomacy", to quote researcher Baptiste Morizot.
The question posed by this round table is as simple as it is dizzying: does nature have value in itself, independently of what it brings us? And if so, what does this mean in concrete terms for the law, the economy and our way of living in the world?
This round-table discussion, led by students from Sorbonne University, will bring together biologists and philosophers to rethink our relationship with the living world, not as a slogan, but as a change of outlook with far-reaching consequences.
