The debt of being in Sergio Cotta’s legal ontophenomenology

Abstract

According to Sergio Cotta the person cannot realize himself without the right, which binds him to the observance of duties, indeed to the very idea of duty. From this initial consideration it seems that in the essence of law there is an inherent duty that establishes the interpersonal relationship. This task is a form of “repayment” against the debt of being. To be “in debt” would be an ontological condition that founded legal ontophenomenology ab origine. This “duty of restitution” would therefore be a foundation of the universal principle of interpersonal responsibility, a true reference to human rights.