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The Concept of Responsibility in the Thought of Martin Buber

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Manfred Vogel
Manfred Vogel
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60201
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Extract

Buber's thought in all its wealth and wide-ranging scope is formulated in terms of one fundamental insight which is then applied to the manifold domains of our culture, there to be refracted by the special categories and problems of each domain. One can understand and appreciate, therefore, Buber's thought in any one particular domain only in terms of this fundamental insight, for the specific concepts receive their essential meaning, and their treatment is guided and circumscribed, by the considerations and requirements which this fundamental insight imposes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 1970 , pp. 159 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1970

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References

1 For example in I and Thou, 3, 18, 27; Between Man and Man, What is Man, 203f.; The Philosophy of M. Buber; Living Philosophers, edited by P. Schilpp and M. Friedman, 706; also M. Friedman's introduction to M. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 20.

2 For example in I and Thou, 3, 11, 17, 40f.; Pointing the Way, With a Monist, 27; see also M. Friedman, Life of Dialogue, 49, 57–59, 68.

3 That this formulation is ultimately intended as ontological, i.e., referring to the sphere of being qua being universally, rather than exclusively to the sphere of man's being, i.e., philosophical anthropology, is seen in the fact that Buber does claim reality and validity for it also in the sphere between man and the animal kingdom and, indeed, in the sphere between man and inanimate nature, e.g., trees. (See, for example, I and Thou, 6–8, 96f.; also M. Friedman, Life of Dialogue, 169f.) It is true, however, that the clearest manifestation of this formulation is in the more limited sphere of man's being and that it is, therefore, in the more specific domain of philosophical anthropology that the overwhelming weight of Buber's thought centers, thus, in a sense, justifying the contention that Buber's thought is grounded in his philosophical anthropology. Still, ultimately its intention and claims go beyond the boundaries of philosophical anthropology, grounding it in the all-inclusive domain of ontology. See, for example, N. Rotenstreich's reference to the domain of ontology as the basis (The Right and its Limitations in Buber's Dialogical Thought, The Philosophy of M. Buber, 132), or Buber's own reference to the same effect (Reply to My Critics, ibid., 744). M. Friedman, however, seems to want to emphasize the domain of philosophical anthropology as the basis (The Bases of Buber's Ethics, ibid., 171).

4 Conversation with the Opponent, Between Man and Man, 35; The Philosophy of M. Buber, 689, 693.

5 Thus see, for example, M. L. Diamond, Dialogue and Theology, The Philosophy of M. Buber, 238.

6 Although the concepts of “good” and “evil” are dealt with at great length in Buber's thought, they are by no means the foundation-stones on which he builds his ethical thought. They are secondary concepts in the sense that they receive their meaning and significance from the primary concept, i.e., the concept of responsibility. Thus, Will Herberg is perfectly right in stating that “Buber's ethic is a situational ethic of responsibility” (The Writings of Martin Buber, 20).

7 Thus M. Friedman rightly states that “One can only be ‘responsible’ if one is responsible to someone” (Life of Dialogue, 206) and not, we take it, to something. N. Rotenstreich seems to maintain, however, that one can be responsible (“answerable”) to nonpersonal beings, e.g., principles, ideas, truth, namely, that an It can exact responsibility (The Right and its Limitations in Buber's Dialogical Thought, op. cit., 131). Buber, however, is quite clear in rejecting this (e.g., The Question to the Single One, op. cit., 45; or Reply to My Critics, op. cit., 698), and Rotenstreich is fully aware of it. It would seem to us that, contra Rotenstreich, Buber's position is right and that Rotenstreich seems to confuse the question of “responsibility to” with that of “responsibility for.” One can certainly be responsible for an It, e.g., principles, ideas, but we fail to see how one can be responsible to an It.

8 We should note, however, that Buber himself does not formulate his ethical thought in the format of these questions and their answers. As far as we can ascertain, he never specifically and clearly raises the question of “responsibility for what” or of “responsibility to whom.” [He does raise specifically the question once, but it is with regard to responding and not to responsibility. He asks, “Responding to What?” (A Conversion, Between Man and Man, 16). It is also true that in a number of instances he formulates his thought in terms of “being responsible for” (e.g., “We practice responsibility for that realm of life …,” in Education, Between Man and Man, 92) and “being responsible to” (e.g., “There is no responsibility unless there is one to whom one is responsible …,” in The Faith of Judaism, Israel and the World, 19). Still, these formulations are not given in a systematic way or as direct answers to the questions we posed above.] Consequently Buber does not formulate his concept of responsibility in terms of direct systematic answers to these questions. It is we who are attempting to explicate the meaning and content of his concept of responsibility by way of systematically raising these questions and finding the possible answers to them. We believe, however, that the answers which we shall advance are consonant with and supported by Buber's thought, thus preserving authentically his meaning and intention.

9 Thus, for example, his formulation of the concept of evil with which he was concerned throughout his life (“I had been preoccupied with this problem since my youth,” Good and Evil, 63) did undergo changes (see M. Friedman, Life of Dialogue, 14). Also, as we shall argue below, it appears to us that Buber altered his formulation of the answer to the second question, i.e., “To whom is one responsible?”

10 “Genuine responsibility exists only where there is real responding” (Response, Between Man and Man, 16), or “We practice responsibility for that realm of life allotted and entrusted to us for which we are able to respond” (Education, Between Man and Man, 92). Buber indeed, plays on the common derivation of the two words “responsibility” and “responding”; they stem from the same root. Thus by its very meaning the word “responsibility” means being answerable, being under the obligation to respond.

11 Religion and Ethics, Eclipse of God, 95. One may suppose that the reason for referring to this formulation as the ethical in the “strict sense” is because it formulates its answer, in contradistinction to the other formulation, exclusively in terms of man alone with no resort to any other transcendental, nonhuman being.

12 Thus, in Buber's words, “We find the ethical in its purity only there where the human person confronts himself with his own potentiality…. The truest source of this (namely, of the criterion by which ethical distinction and decision is made) … is the individual's awareness of what he is ‘in truth,’ of what in his unique and non-repeatable created existence he is intended to be. From this awareness, when it is fully present, the comparison between what one actually is and what one is intended to be can emerge” (Religion and Ethics, ibid., 95f.) ; “he who has a vocation hears … the voice of conscience, which compares that which he is with that which he was called to become” (Religion and Modern Thinking, ibid., 87).

13 Thus, for example, in the passage quoted above in footnote 12 Buber makes clear that the “true self,” i.e., the individual's awareness of what he is “in truth,” is what the individual person is intended to be in his unique and non-repeatable created existence. And a few sentences further Buber specifically rejects equating this “true self” with the “so-called ideal image” (Religion and Ethics, ibid., 96).

14 The “true self” is “no so-called ideal image, nor anything imagined by man, but an image arising out of that mystery of being itself that we call the person” (Religion and Ethics, ibid., 96).

15 Quite clearly the “true self” must be a not-yet-realized entity. For if it were the already realized “true self,” it would be identical with myself as I am now, and all we would be saying then when we say “I am responsible to my ‘true self’” would be “I am responsible to myself as I am now.” But in this case, the notion of responsibility will in truth be embedded in a monologue, although it may give the impression of being embedded in a true relation, since the monologue here is a reflexive relation between the I and itself. A reflexive relation, however, cannot be a true relation in terms of Buber's ontology, since the relations which constitute the matrix of reality for Buber (i.e., both the I-It and the I-Thou relation) must be external relations between two distinct, separate poles. But if the “true self” as an already realized entity is not embedded in a true relation within Buber's ontology, it can also not function within Buber's ethics, which derives its meaning and justification from the ontology of relation. The presence of a true relation, i.e., a relation between two distinct entities over against each other, is a necessary presupposition for Buber's ethical thought, since without it the two basic and essential ethical concepts, that of responsibility and that of responding, would not be feasible. Indeed, neither the concept of responsibility nor that of responding is operative in the reflexive relation between the I and itself which is established when the “true self” is the already realized self. What meaning and justification in such circumstances can the concept of responsibility possibly have in terms of Buber's thought? Why should I be responsible to myself? And what am I to be responsible for? Buber's one and only answer that I am responsible for responding surely cannot apply here, for how can I authentically respond to myself? Evidently the “true self” as an already realized entity cannot play a part in Buber's ethical formulation, since it vitiates the possibility of a true relation (i.e., a relation between two entities over against each other) without which Buber cannot formulate his ethics. Buber must therefore, as indeed he does, speak of the “true self” as a not-yet-realized entity, as a task to be realized in the future. This means that for the present (and it is the situation in the present and not in the future which must concern us here, since after all it is in terms of the situation as it exists in the present that one's ethics must be formulated) the “true self” can exist not as the realized, concrete, self-existing being but only the image of such a being. Thus, in terms of formulating his ethics Buber can deal only with the image of the “true self.” This, of course, gets away from the reflexive relation and the problems it presents in as much as it separates the image of the “true self” from myself as I concretely exist now, thus allowing a true relation between two entities over against each other, i.e., myself and the image of my “true self,” to exist. Still, as we shall see below, this does not, in the last analysis, help matters very much, for my “true self” is over against me as an It and not as a Thou.

16 The image may reflect my “true self” as it is to be realized in the future, i.e., its content is the “true self,” but in the present it is possessed by myself as I am now.

17 See, for example, Reply to C. G. Jung, in Eclipse of God, 135; Moses, 188; I and Thou, 110. Also see N. Rotenstreich's succinct statement of the issue in The Right and its Limitations in Buber's Dialogical Thought, op. cit., 129f.

18 This indeed, as we shall see below, is essentially the situation which Buber depicts in his second formulation.

19 “The man who seeks distinction and decision in his own soul cannot draw from it, from his soul, absoluteness for his scale of values” (Religion and Ethics, Eclipse of God, 98).

20 See M. Friedman, Life of Dialogue, 206. “One is ultimately responsible to the Eternal Thou. … But it is just in the concrete that we meet the Eternal Thou.” And Buber states, “In the signs of life which happen to us we are addressed. Who speaks? … If we name the speaker of this speech God, then it is always the God of a moment, a moment God … out of the moment Gods there arises for us with a single identity the Lord of the voice, the One” (Dialogue, Between Man and Man, 14f.). This responsibility “presupposes one who addresses me primarily, from a realm independent of myself, and to whom I am answerable” (The Question to the Single One, ibid., 45). Futher, “Our answering-for-ourselves is essentially our answering to a divine address” (The Dialogue between Heaven and Earth, At the Turning, 56). And lastly, “Only out of a personal relationship with the Absolute can the absoluteness of the ethical co-ordinates arise” (Religion and Ethics, Eclipse of God, 98).

21 The first requirement that the ethical claim (in our case the claim of responsibility) must be universal and ever-present is due to the fact that, as we have seen above, any formulation which is grounded in the domain of ontology cannot make a claim that is partial in its applicability or contingent in its availability. The second requirement that it (i.e., responsibility) must be formulated in an authentic I-Thou relation is due to the fact that, again as we have seen above, Buber chooses to ground his ethics not just in the domain of ontology as such but specifically in the dialogic (I-Thou) dimension of the ontological domain. That Buber chooses to ground his ethics in the I-Thou and not in the I-It dimension of his ontology is, of course, due to the fact that already in the formulation of his ontology there is implied a value judgment (as N. Rotenstreich points out in The Right and its Limitations in Buber's Dialogical Thought, The Philosophy of M. Buber, 132, and as Buber himself in his reply, ibid., 704, seems to agree), namely, that authentic being which is being-in-relation is a being which is specifically in relation to a Thou and not to an It. Thus, the authentic fulfillment and realization of being-in-relation is given specifically in the I-Thou relation. Since Buber would obviously want his ethics to be grounded in the authentic fulfillment and realization of being, he must ground it specifically in the I-Thou relation.

22 Universality is thus an essential attribute of the It in contradistinction to the Thou whose own distinctive mark is the attribute of the concrete. Even when we characterize the It as an object or as a means to an end, to be manipulated and exploited (giving this as the essential attribute of the It), it is the attribute of universality which underlies this characterization. For, what constitutes the object, the means, is always an aspect of the being (for example, its power or its beauty) and not the concrete, whole being itself, and these aspects are universal abstractions. Thus, here also it is the attribute of universality which lies at the very core of the It.

23 As such the difficulty of having recourse to the mysterious is perhaps some-what mitigated here, for the dimensions of the mysterious may be more understandable and acceptable in the religious domain than in the strictly ethical domain.