On Response-Ability in a Time of Ecological Collapse

Recently, we asked how ecological psychologists should conceptualise the environment in a time of ecological collapse. Appreciating the interdependency of life forms, our response was to describe the environment as an ecosystem replete with affordances. Accompanying this was a morality calling for change to what is a dominantly anthropocentric lifestyle. Upon reflection, however, morality may not be enough if we are to curb such anthropocentrism; there is need for an ethicality that brings an invitation to respond in ecocentric ways. Thus, the aim of this commentary is to introduce an ethic of response-ability, aligning it with our earlier environmental description. This ethic brings a practical acknowledgement that organisms are already implicated in the lives of others, often in unforeseen ways. Not only does this practical acknowledgement foreground an ecological scale of analysis, but it should function to educate attention towards affordances that our actions hold open, or close, with reference to the lifeways of others.