This research is aimed to demonstrate that the source of the twentieth century distinction between “ethics of intention” and “ethics of responsibility” is already to be found in the discussion on the meaning of moral agency in the different perspectivies of Kant and Hegel. Then we find the resumption of this debate not surprisingly in contemporary communication ethics referring both to Kantian Idealism and Hegelian Dialectics within a systematic placement of a rational foundation of ethics, as in the case of K.-O. Apel’s thought. In order to verify this research path, the intersection of important readings on responsibility is needed, on the one hand referring to the debate on the idealistic concept of moral agency across several current philosophical schools in Italy, in Germany, and in the U.S.A., on the other hand referring to the understanding of the role of the subject towards the community. In light of the objectives achieved during the first twelve months of the research, the work carried out so far has highlighted merits, but also problematic aspects in the foundational context in contemporary “procedural” ethics; this requires the possibility of moving now to a “pars construens”, focusing on the relationship between moral action and concreteness of reality, overcoming, if possible, the limits of a type of relational ethics which is based solely on intention and on a transcendental ground.
