Stellvertretung is difficult to translate because it carries theological weight English flattens — literally "standing-in-place-of," rendered variously as vicarious representation, deputyship, or representative action. At its core, the concept holds that responsible persons bear responsibility not only for their own actions but for the suffering their actions make possible in the lives of others. The responsibility is not limited to intention. It extends to effect. The builder who foresees — or should have foreseen, given available information — that a product will be misused bears responsibility for the misuse, because the action made it possible and the builder proceeded anyway. This standard is more demanding than any regulatory framework currently applied to AI. Regulation addresses compliance: did the procedures get followed? Stellvertretung addresses the moral posture prior to compliance: did the builder honestly reckon with consequences before building?
Bonhoeffer developed Stellvertretung in his Ethics (unfinished, published posthumously) against the principle-based moral reasoning dominating both Protestant and