One important mission for the Swedish school system is to create an environment which is permeated by the democratic values stated in the curriculum. Actively responsible people are according to the document needed to establish a democratic environment which functions as a preparation for formal democratic constellations. Evidently there is an awareness or assumption in school documents that democracy begins with a moral encounter with other individuals – present in the response one gives to the other. As a consequence responsibility creates the actual bond that ties people together in a democratic society (see Hedin & Lahdenperä: 2003, p. 36-37). Considering the emphasis placed upon the term responsibility as a democratic join there is a point of investigating its meaning closer. The intention with this paper is to compare three different theoretical approaches which are chosen with respect to the themes found in interviews with sixteen young people. How do these three theories describe the relationship between intimacy/distance or to put it differently how can being for be understood and what social action in regard to the concrete other do they recommend?