Das Fleisch der Verantwortung

Abstract

In order to approach the phenomena of responsibility, which is primarily liability and accountability, the author suggests a phenomenological clarification of the question: What is the precondition that makes a responsible life possible? This question should enable to give an answer to another one which is from high anthropological and even political relevance, namely: Is there a spot beyond or "outside" of any responsibility, i.e. can a human being live as "irresponsible" in the radical meaning of the word? The main thesis of the author is that there is a situation in which a human being has no means to act by making any "own" choices and thus everything in his life is imposed to him from the outside. This situation is the nativity and, more concretely, the time-space of the pre-natal human life. The aim of this paper is to analyze this situation by means of Husserl's phenomenological reduction as well as of the "counter reduction" of Michel Henry, and consequently to propose a new understanding of the responsibility problematics.

Keywords

• Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, responsibility, neonatology