SOLIDARITY AND LIMIT:

CAMUS'S ETHICAL RESPONSE TO COLLECTIVE SUFFERING

Abstract

This article analyzes solidarity as an ethical response to collective suffering in the philosophy of Albert Camus. Starting from the experience of the absurd developed in The Myth of Sisyphus, it investigates how the absence of transcendent meaning does not lead to nihilism but rather to the formulation of an ethics grounded in lucidity, revolt, and shared responsibility. In The Rebel, revolt transcends the individual sphere and becomes the recognition of a common human dignity, enabling the transition from the “I” to the “we.” Within this movement, solidarity emerges as a concrete practice of resistance against injustice, violence, and death. The article also examines Camus’s notion of limit, understood as an ethical principle that prevents the justification of violence in the name of absolute ends. Finally, The Plague is analyzed as the literary expression of this ethics of solidarity, especially through the figure of Dr. Rieux, whose actions embody a human commitment to others in the face of collective suffering. The study concludes that solidarity, articulated with revolt and limit, constitutes in Camus’s thought a form of ethical resistance capable of affirming human dignity even in a world marked by the absurd.