Morality,the Other and Third Persons

Abstract

This paper seeks to defend the thesis that a justification of morality has to underline the role of the second person in addition to a perpetual and on-going change of perspective that likewise includes the third and first person. To support this argument, the paper conceptualises responsibility as a moral relationship whose core constitutes the encounter with the other whom we recognise as a second-person authority. It then sketches how this pre-cognitive dimension must be supplemented by a cognitive insight which implies a dissociation from the second person and a consideration of third persons. on this basis, it finally provides an outline of how a possible tension between these different but all-together necessary perspectives could best be resolved.