How can I become a responsible subject? Towards practice-based ethics of responsiveness

ABSTRACT. Approaches to business ethics can be roughly divided into two streams: ‘codes of behavior ’ and ‘forms of subjectification’, with code-oriented approaches clearly dominating the field. Through an elaboration of poststructuralist approaches to moral philosophy, this paper questions the emphasis on codes of behaviour and, thus, the conceptions of the moral and responsible subject that are inherent in rule-based approaches. As a consequence of this critique, the concept of a practice-based ‘ethics of responsiveness ’ in which ethics is never final but rather always ‘to come’, is investigated. In such an approach the ethical self is understood as being continuously constituted within power/knowledge relations. Following this line, we ask how one can become a responsible subject while also acknowledging certain limits of full responsibility. W