RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY: SARTRE AND THE ECOCENTRIC EROSION OF HUMAN AGENCY

Authors

• Khodadad Azizi, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities Universitas IndonesiaFollow
• Naupal Asnawi, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities Universitas IndonesiaFollow
• Abby Gina Boang Manalu, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities Universitas IndonesiaFollow

Abstract

Contemporary ecological crisis persists despite decades of environmental ethics discourse and rising public awareness, a discrepancy researchers have named the awareness-action gap. One influential corrective, running from Aldo Leopold’s land ethic through Arne Naess’s deep ecology, addresses anthropocentric domination by folding the human being back into the biotic community as one member among others. This article argues that such levelling, whatever its merits against domination, carries an underexamined cost: it erodes the very ground on which anyone can be held responsible for ecological destruction, since only a being capable of choice, not soil, water, or rock, can be asked to answer for what has happened to the world. Using conceptual philosophical analysis combined with close textual reading of Being and Nothingness, this article reconstructs Jean-Paul Sartre’s account of radical responsibility as a way through this impasse. Freedom-in-situation and the coefficient of adversity secure a subject who is neither an unconditioned master over nature nor dissolved into it, while responsibility as ontological structure, being the incontestable author of one’s acts, restores the human being’s answerability without restoring its arrogance. Sartre’s concept of bad faith further explains how this responsibility, though ontologically inescapable, is nonetheless evaded in practice, often through language that ecocentrism itself supplies, and indicates what closing the awareness-action gap would actually require.

Bahasa Abstract

Krisis ekologi kontemporer terus berlanjut meskipun telah berlangsung puluhan tahun diskursus etika lingkungan dan meningkatnya kesadaran publik, suatu ketidaksesuaian yang oleh para peneliti disebut sebagai awareness-action gap (kesenjangan antara kesadaran dan tindakan). Salah satu koreksi yang berpengaruh, yang berkembang dari land ethic Aldo Leopold hingga deep ecology Arne Naess, berupaya mengatasi dominasi antroposentris dengan menempatkan kembali manusia ke dalam komunitas biotik sebagai salah satu anggota di antara makhluk lainnya. Artikel ini berpendapat bahwa penyetaraan tersebut, terlepas dari kelebihannya dalam melawan dominasi, memiliki konsekuensi yang belum banyak dikaji, yaitu mengikis landasan yang memungkinkan seseorang dimintai pertanggungjawaban atas kerusakan ekologis, sebab hanya makhluk yang mampu memilih—bukan tanah, air, atau batu—yang dapat dimintai pertanggungjawaban atas apa yang telah terjadi terhadap dunia. Dengan menggunakan analisis filsafat konseptual yang dipadukan dengan pembacaan tekstual mendalam terhadap Being and Nothingness, artikel ini merekonstruksi konsep tanggung jawab radikal Jean-Paul Sartre sebagai jalan keluar dari kebuntuan tersebut. Konsep kebebasan-dalam-situasi (freedom-in-situation) dan koefisien adversitas (coefficient of adversity) menegaskan keberadaan subjek yang bukan merupakan penguasa alam yang tanpa batas, tetapi juga tidak larut sepenuhnya ke dalam alam, sementara tanggung jawab sebagai struktur ontologis—yakni sebagai pengarang yang tak terbantahkan atas tindakannya sendiri—memulihkan akuntabilitas manusia tanpa mengembalikan arogansinya. Lebih lanjut, konsep bad faith Sartre menjelaskan bagaimana tanggung jawab tersebut, meskipun secara ontologis tidak dapat dihindari, tetap dapat diingkari dalam praktik, sering kali melalui bahasa yang justru disediakan oleh ekosentrisme itu sendiri, sekaligus menunjukkan apa yang sesungguhnya diperlukan untuk menjembatani awareness-action gap.

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Recommended Citation

Azizi, Khodadad; Asnawi, Naupal; and Manalu, Abby Gina Boang (2026) "RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY: SARTRE AND THE ECOCENTRIC EROSION OF HUMAN AGENCY," International Review of Humanities Studies: Vol. 11: No. 2, Article 14.
DOI: 10.7454/irhs.v11i2.1488
Available at: https://scholarhub.ui.ac.id/irhs/vol11/iss2/14