debts

Schuld  

In Dasein   there is undeniably a constant ‘lack of totality’ which finds an end with death. This “not  -yet” ‘belongs’ to Dasein as long as it is; this is how things stand   phenomenally. Is this to be Interpreted as still outstanding? With relation to what entities do we talk about that which is still outstanding? When we use this expression we have in view that which indeed ‘belongs’ to an entity, but is still missing. Outstanding, as a way of being missing, is grounded upon a belonging-to. For instance, the remainder yet to be received when a DEBT is to be balanced off, is still outstanding. That which is still outstanding is not yet at one’s disposal. When the ‘DEBT’ gets paid off, that which is still outstanding gets liquidated; this signifies that the money ‘comes in’, or, in other words, that the remainder comes successively along. By this procedure the “not-yet” gets filled up, as it were, until the sum that is owed is “all together”. Therefore, to be still outstanding means that what belongs together is not yet all together. Ontologically, this implies the un-readiness-to-hand   of those portions which have yet to be contributed. These portions have the same kind of Being as those which are ready-to-hand already; and the latter, for their part, do not have their kind of Being modified by having the remainder come in. Whatever “lack-of-togetherness” remains [Das bestehende Unzusammen] gets “paid off’ by a cumulative piecing-together. Entities for which anything is still outstanding have the kind of Being of something ready-to-hand. The togetherness [Das Zusammen  ] is characterized as a “sum”, and so is that lack-of-togetherness which is founded upon it. BTMR   §48

These ordinary significations of “Being-guilty” as ‘having DEBTS to someone’ and ‘having responsibility for something’ can go together and define a kind of behaviour which we call ‘making oneself responsible’; that is, by having the responsibility for having a DEBT, one may break a law and make oneself punishable. Yet the requirement which one fails to satisfy need not ‘necessarily be related to anyone’s possessions; it can regulate the very manner in which we are with one other publicly. ‘Making oneself responsible’ by breaking a law, as we have thus defined it, can indeed also have the character of ‘coming to owe something to Others’. This does not happen merely through law-breaking as such, but rather through my having the responsibility for the Other’s becoming endangered in his existence, led astray, or even ruined. This way of coming to owe something to Others is possible without breaking the ‘public’ law. Thus the formal   conception of “Being-guilty” in the sense of having come to owe something to an Other, may be defined as follows: “Being-the-basis for a lack of something in the Dasein of an Other, and in such a manner that this very Being-the-basis determines itself as ‘lacking in some way’ in terms of that for which it is the basis.” This kind of lacking is a failure to satisfy some requirement which applies to one’s existent Being with Others. BTMR §58

Everyday common sense first takes ‘Being-guilty’ in the sense of ‘owing’, of ‘having something due on account’. One is to give back to the Other something to which the latter has a claim. This ‘Being-guilty’ as ‘having DEBTS’ [“Schulden haben  ”] is a way of Being with Others in the field of concern, as in providing something or bringing it along. Other modes of such concern are: depriving, borrowing, withholding, taking, stealing – failing to satisfy, in some way or other, the claims which Others have made as to their possessions. This kind of Being-guilty is related to that with which one can concern oneself. [SZ:282] BTMR §58

”Being-guilty” also has the signification of ‘being responsible for’ [“schuld sein   an”] – that is, being the cause or author of something, or even ‘being the occasion’ for something. In this sense of ‘having responsibility’ for something, one can ‘be guilty’ of something without ‘owing’ anything to someone else or coming to ‘owe’ him. On the other hand, one can owe something to another without being responsible for it oneself. Another person   can ‘incur DEBTS’ with Others ‘for me’. BTMR §58

We need not consider how such requirements arise and in what way their character as requirements and laws must be conceived by reason of their having such a source. In any case, “Being-guilty” in the sense last   mentioned, the breach of a ‘moral   requirement’, is a kind of Being which belongs to Dasein. Of course this holds good also for “Being-guilty” as ‘making oneself punishable’ and as ‘having DEBTS’, and for any ‘having responsibility for …’. These too are ways in which Dasein behaves. If one takes ‘laden with moral guilt’ as a ‘quality’ of Dasein, one has said very little. On the contrary, this only makes it manifest that such a characterization does not suffice for distinguishing ontologically between this kind of ‘attribute of Being’ for Dasein and those other ways of behaving which we have just listed. After all, the concept of moral guilt has been so little clarified ontologically that when the idea   of deserving punishment, or even of having DEBTS to someone, has also been included in this concept, or when these ideas have been employed in the very defining of it, such interpretations of this phenomenon could become prevalent and have remained so. But therewith the ‘Guilty!’ gets thrust aside into the domain of concern in the sense of reckoning up claims and balancing them off. [SZ:283] BTMR §58

The phenomenon of guilt, which is not necessarily related to ‘having DEBTS’ and law-breaking, can be clarified only if we first inquire in principle into Dasein’s Being-guilty – in other words, if we conceive the idea of ‘Guilty!’ in terms of Dasein’s kind of Being. BTMR §58