Ethical analysis of consumption patterns and their impact on environmental culture

Abstract

This article analyzes, from an ethical and axiological perspective, the relationship between consumption habits and environmental culture in the community of San Luis, Valera municipality, Trujillo state. The study focuses on unraveling how consumption decisions, far from being neutral acts, are shaped by cultural meanings and bioethical principles that impact local sustainability. Using a qualitative approach with a hermeneutic method, the research employs participant observation and semi-structured interviews to identify the tensions between the logic of accumulation and emerging practices of conscious consumption. The theoretical framework integrates Enrique Leff's environmental rationality, Boaventura de Sousa Santos's epistemologies of the South, and Humberto Maturana's ethics of care. The preliminary findings highlight situated knowledge and practices of reciprocity that challenge the traditional consumption model, contributing ethical criteria for strengthening a critical and resilient environmental culture in the Venezuelan Andean context.