ABSTRACT
Struggling for sustainability implies to be personally committed to the natural foundations of human life as well as to the social foundations of human interaction and free development of personality. In this chapter, it is argued that sustainable cultures will have to ground in a pluralistic culture based on a constitution of liberty. Nevertheless, sustainable development, being open to individual diversity, needs a higher binding character than we have in nowadays-modern cultures. This binding character should not consist of collective obligations or moral postulates, but rather of certain individual attitudes, values and orientations that may be attributed to homo sustinens. As distinguishing the latter from homo oeconomicus the virtues of insight, of the will and of receptivity are identified and pronounced. Particularly the virtue of receptivity, together with aesthetical education and spiritual practice that help to foster it, are considered an essential force to change our way of life towards sustainable development. Definitely accessible for us and already present in our culture, the virtues can – strengthened through education and public discourse – lead us to sustainable cultures.
