Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 50, 2008

Social and Political Philosophy

A Time as the Basis of the New Paradigm of Responsibility

The author argues that time is the main element of responsibility. The subject, the authority and the object of responsibility are defined by time. Time is the methodological basis for distinction of historically developed kinds of responsibility: legal and ethical one. In essence, legal responsibility is retrospective one (responsibility «for the past»). Legal responsibility has localized and discrete time-character. Expansion of legal civil-law responsibility is essentially connected with changes in point of time of responsibility. Ethical responsibility of the subject assumes nonlocalized and continuous time of responsibility. The central status of time creates a new paradigm of responsibility, which the author understands as existential. This paradigm is based on the recognition of the ability to impose responsibility «for the future» even in the present.