Collective Responsibility and Solidarity: Toward a Body-Centered Ethics

Abstract

Practices such as cogenerative dialoguing and coteaching are grounded in the notions of collective responsibility and, the former more so than the latter, in solidarity. However, both notions are not generally grounded in a more encompassing philosophical framework that would allow us understand how concrete human praxis is tied to ethics generally and collective responsibility and solidarity more specifically. In this brief introduction to the topic, I articulate how ethics can be grounded in our material existence, itself inherently social. I provide a concrete situation, and excerpt of a heated discussion about access to a basic necessity (water), in the context of which the collective nature of responsibility is exemplified. The framework outlined is indeterminist, leading us to the requirement of resolving its inherent contradiction in continued concrete praxis. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0602374