Debt and Duty. Carl Schmitt and the Individual

Abstract

This article analyzes the concept of individual used by Carl Schmitt in two of his works written in the 1920s, The Concept of the Political and “Ethic of State and Pluralistic State”. It argues that this concept contributes to the investigation on the basis of political groups from a structure of communitarian comprehension, not a theological one. Pursuing that objective, it starts from the criticism of the pluralistic theories in both works, in order to show what is in common between them as much as showing the particularities of each intervention. However, the results are both identical: while Ethic of State and Pluralistic State shows the intimate relationship between politics and moral values, The Concept of the Political does it obscurely.