Karl Jaspers:
That in fact all the people pay for all the acts of their government... is a mere empirical fact; that they know themselves liable is the first indication of their dawning political liberty. It is to the extent of the existence and recognition of this knowledge that freedom is real, not a mere outward claim put forth by unfree men.
The inner political unfreedom has the opposite feeling. It obeys on the one hand, and feels not guilty on the other. The feeling of guilt, which makes us accept liability, is the beginning of the inner upheaval which seeks to realize political liberty.
http://sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=24May06
[you'll find the "little Eichmanns" quote from Ward Churchill there too, and a discussion of Jaspers's varieties of guilt]
There's another Jaspers quote on the Nuremberg Principles page.
See also: absorption of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, moral responsibility
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.