GA16 (BH:264-265) – choice of responsability

Is there an authentic way of standing before this impending death which is not defined by publicity, but rather a way in which Dasein stands before itself as in each instance individual, ownmost, and mine ? It is a matter of apprehending the actuality of this possibility and holding on to it. To stand before a possibility means to apprehend it as possibility. To endure the possibility of death means to have it there such that it stands before me just as it is—indefinite in its When, certain in its That. To allow this possibility to persist as a possibility and not make it into an actuality, say by suicide, calls for running toward it in anticipation. Here the world recedes and collapses into nothingness. The possibility of death means that one day I will depart from this world, that one day the world will have nothing more to say, that all that I am attached to, all that I occupy myself with, and all that is of concern to me will have nothing more to say to me, and will no longer be of help to me. The world out of which I can live then is no longer there. I have to come to terms with this possibility purely on my own. This shows that the possibility of choice is already given to Dasein. Dasein can at any moment comport itself such that it chooses between itself and the world. It can make each decision on the basis of what it meets in the world, or it can fall back on itself. Daseins possibility of choosing is the possibility of recovering itself from its lostness in the world, that is, from its publicity. In choosing itself, Dasein has at once chosen itself and choice itself. But having chosen choice means to be resolved. Running forward in anticipation thus means choosing, having chosen means to be resolved—resolved not to dying but to living. This choosing and this being-resolved is the choice of responsibility that Dasein assumes for itself, such that in my action I make myself responsible for each of my actions. Choosing responsibility for oneself means to choose one’s conscience as the possibility that the human being properly and authentically is. Phenomenology’s error (Scheler  ) lies in its misunderstanding of the properly anthropological structure of Kantian ethics. Kant   saw that the basic sense of Dasein is possibility, namely, to be itself possibility and to be able to seize it. But to choose conscience at once means to become guilty. As Goethe   once put it, “He who acts is always without conscience.” Every action is at once guilt. For the possibilities of action are limited over against the demands of conscience, so that every successful action results in conflicts. Choosing self-responsibility is therefore becoming guilty in an absolute sense. Insofar as I truly am, I become guilty whenever I act at all. [BH  :264-265]