Abstract

»Responsibility« is an issue which has been much discussed in the context of Nietzsche 's philosophy. However, whereas it seemed generally agreed that the understanding of this term had tobe negative, the author of this paper tries to prove that a positive understanding is allowed of, too. He outlines both ways of looking at it, and also tries to differentiale between the subject and the object of responsibility (i.e. the understanding of it). Positive responsibility - as opposed to negative responsibility, which turns to the past and is connected with a general character of guilt - is defined as being directed towards the future and connected with a general character of a task. Subsequently. the idea of positive responsibility will be related to such fundamental philosophical ideas of Nietzsche as the Death of God, the Eternal Return and the Will of Power, which, from a point of view based on the concept of positive responsibility, emerges as the Will of Responsibility.