City and environmental responsibility

Abstract

In this article we intend to present relevant points for a reflection, already urgent, on the paradigmatic crisis in which we find ourselves, and how much it has been felt nowadays in the cities. Anthropocentrism, cartesianism, humanism and legalism are strong features of the modern paradigm that have been considered as the basis of the organization of life in society and the justification of human life facing the planet and the nature. Modern paradigm presents an exhaustion that is expressed in contemporary cities through various crises, such as sanitary, economic, and environmental. We found in critical social and philosophical thinking some possible clues for developing a new thought, able to conceive the experimental utopia of city as an environment. Thinking and practicing a city-environment requires a new ethical engine: the environmental responsibility, characterized by reciprocity and retribution. Environmental responsibility will be the engine that will allow us new possibilities to be in the city, understood and shared as a present.