Ingarden’s Legacy: Responsibility as Legal and Beyond

Abstract

Following Ingarden’s thoughts on the meaning of responsibility, this paper presents an analysis in the domain of values, without limiting it to ethics. Ingarden’s concept of responsibility is deeply rooted in the legal tradition and therefore establishes a mostly juridical and penal understanding of responsibility. I also refer to Stein’s research, which coincides with Ingarden’s thought and eventually provides a basis for responsibility. In her polemics with Scheler, Stein postulated accessing values through feeling in terms of a “living body.” In other words, Stein agrees with Scheler about the correlate of feeling, however, she opposes the personality account in Scheler and underlines the key role of the disposition of the living body and even the “personal touch,” one which enriches the concept of intentionality. Responsibility is crucial for the individual, for his or her development and life, as I will try to outline in this paper.