Abstract

In this paper I discuss the foundational relation between personal responsibility and historicity according to Ludwig Landgrebe. On the one side responsibility is rooted deeply within the structures of the historically shaped world-horizon: responsibility then answers to the call of the situation reflecting its historical genesis and failed moral aspirations. Furthermore, responsibility is realized as the search for the adequate means and their rational justification. On the other side Landgrebe demonstrates how history results from responsible position-taking: As historic events flow from the uniqueness of individual moral freedom they are not derivable from any kind of historical determinism. The realization of a humane future by means of moral freedom consequently is understood as the vanishing point of responsibility born from the commitment to the situational call.