#BesondereHelden

The relationship between duty and self-realization is tense and distanced. This article explores that tension, exploring the thesis that the relationship between duty and self-realization is one in which distance and proximity are interwoven. The argument proceeds in three steps: (1) it appears that duty and self-realization are downright hostile to each other. It sometimes seems as if one has to oppose duty if one is for self-realization, and vice versa. In discourses from the 1970s and 1980s this antagonism between duty and self-realization is particularly pronounced. (2) This antagonism is, however, not without alternatives. The connection between duty and self-realization is “actually” a potentially very close connection. This is certainly the case if one understands duty in the way Immanuel Kant does. (3) However, a more intensive relationship between duty or morals and self-realization, understood as a relation between two independent subjects, must not drift into a symbiotic fusion. The fact that exactly this fusion occurs is one of the core problems of contemporary public moral discourse.