C.

Human Being's Ethical Responsibility toward Environment

The relationship between the self and the other depends on how human interprets the other.

(Ang relationship daw between the self and the other ga dependi kung unhon pag sabot nan isa
ka tao sa lain, bali depende kung unoy imo pag sabot sa iya og unoy iya pag sabot sa imo,
Example si althea an ako pag sabot sa iya is buotan siya tas an iya sab pag sabot sa ako lain.)

If the other interprets the other as an it, the relationship between the self and other will be an I-It
relationship

(Ang subject na – you – is the I, and the object is the it. This relationship is not a true dialogue
but a monologue. It's a relationship that is based on sensation and utility and experience.)

(For example, you don't need to treat your phone as something animate.)

And if the self-interprets the other as a Thou, the relationship between the self and the other will
be an I-Thou relationship.

(The I–Thou relationship is characterized by mutuality, directness, presentness, intensity and

ineffability. Buber described the between as a bold leap into the experience of the other while
simultaneously being transparent, present and accessible.)

(For example, it takes place when the eyes of two strangers meet on the bus before one gets off at
his stop.)
Human being can be in relation with any entity he/she comes to encounter with, including plants
and nonliving, and natural entities in the environment (rivers, trees, mountains and the like).

For Mercado, the mutuality between human being and these entities is possible.

Nonetheless, the dialogue between human being and the environment is unique; and it is
different from that of the dialogue among human beings.

In the dialogue between human being and environment, the former should recognize that the
entities like trees or river cannot respond and react to his/ her actions the way a fellow human
being responds and reacts.

These entities cannot even reply with human language or words.

However, this does not mean that a human being cannot establish mutuality and reciprocity in
the realm of plants and non-living natural entities.

Human being needs to be open to a vast horizon of relationship with the environment, and not to
be limited to the relationships among rational beings.

This is giving justice to these entities that have beings of their own and millions of possibilities
that the human being can ever imagine or think of.

According to Buber, the main focus of this 1-Thou relation, between human being and the
environment, is not the deed of posture of an individual being but the reciprocity of being itself a
reciprocity that has nothing except being.

The living wholeness and unity of a tree that denies itself to the eye, no matter how keen, such as
to one who merely investigates, while it is manifested to those who say You, is present when
they are present.

They grant the tree the opportunity to manifest it, and indeed, the tree manifests it.
For Buber, this is possible by virtue of its being. The tree possesses possibilities beyond those
which the human self can impose on it.
According to Buber, the main focus of this 1-Thou relation, between human being and the
environment, is not the deed of posture of an individual being but the reciprocity of being itself a
reciprocity that has nothing except being.

The living wholeness and unity of a tree that denies itself to the eye, no matter how keen, such as
to one who merely investigates, while it is manifested to those who say You, is present when
they are present.

They grant the tree the opportunity to manifest it, and indeed, the tree manifests it. For Buber,
this is possible by virtue of its being.

The tree possesses possibilities beyond those which the human self can impose on it.