Žižek's "ethically cornered agent"

Let me put it this way. Bernard Williams, the English moral philosopher, develops, in a wonderful way, the difference between `must' and `have to.' He opposes the logic of positive injunction - in the sense of "you should do this" - with another logic of injunction, a more fundamental sense, of "I just cannot do it otherwise." The first logic is simply that of the ideal. You should do it, but never can do it. You never can live up to your ideal. But the more shattering, radical, ethical experience is that of "I cannot do it otherwise."

For example - this is one of the old partisan myths in Yugoslavia - Yugoslavian rebels killed some Germans, so the Germans did the usual thing. They encircled the village and decided to shoot all the civilians. But, one ordinary German soldier stood up and said, "Sorry, I just cannot do it." The officer in charge said, "No problem, you can join them," and the German soldier did. This is what I mean by sacrifice. There's nothing pathetic about it. This honest German soldier, his point was not, "Oooooh, what a nice, ideal role for me." He was just ethically cornered. You cannot do it otherwise. Politically, it's the same. It's not a sacrificial situation where you're secretly in love with your role of being sacrificed and you're seeking to be admired. It's a terrible, ethical, existential deadlock; you find yourself in a position in which you say, "I cannot do it otherwise."

Žižek, in the Rasmussen Interview.