Being Oneself as a Person according to Martin Heidegger's Concept of Conscience

One of the most prominent accounts of conscience in the twentieth century was developed in Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. Embedded in his analysis of human existence and part of his larger ontological project, it seems to be remote from and useless for a discussion of the actual relevance of conscience in moral, political and legal contexts. Heidegger himself takes care to distinguish his understanding of >> Gewissen << from the traditional moral concepts of conscience. This article argues that Heidegger's existential account of conscience provides a fundamental understanding of being oneself as a person which is an indispensable basis for human existence and political co-existence, giving even more importance to the moral and legal consequences and applications.