Aristotle and Kierkegaard's Existential Ethics

Aristotle and Kierkegaard's Existential Ethics GEORGE J. STACK Is HIS PHENOMENOLOGYof what he describes as the sphere of the ethical (ethisk) Kierkegaard has often been charged with defending an irrationalist conception of choice and has often been understood as arguing for a concept of absolute freedom . Both of these claims are, I believe, erroneous. In order to defend Kierkegaard against such interpretations of his thought I will attempt to indicate the various ways in which Aristotle apparently influenced his conception of a practical, existential ethics. While there is no explicit evidence that various aspects of Aristotle's ethics were, mutatis mutandis, incorporated into Kierkegaard's description of ethical existence, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that this is actually the case. Many of what have come to be called Existenzkategorien are clearly derived from Aristotle's philosophical language. The terminology which Kierkegaard relies upon in constructing his philosophical anthropology or his description of the dialectic of existence is clearly that of Aristotle. To be sure, Kierkegaard does not employ this terminology in order to describe natural processes or the dynamic, universal nisus which Aristotle conceives of as pervading the cosmos. Rather, Kierkegaard applies Aristotelian concepts exclusively to the being of man. In this essay I will primarily be concerned with explicating the relationship between Aristotle's thought and the central features of Kierkegaard's phenomenology of ethical existence. For Kierkegaard, the question of one's ethical or spiritual possibilities is one which is not resolved by objective knowledge (Videnskab). Rather, ethical selftransformation requires subjective knowledge or self-knowledge. In the "movement" of the self towards an ethical possibility the irresoluteness characteristic of the "nihilistic standpoint" (The Concept of Irony) and the aesthetic sphere of being (Either~Or) is overcome by virtue of resoIute choice. There is a dialectical tension between one's recognition of the possibility of ethical self-consciousness and one's potentiality for authentic choice. For, the ethical Kehre requires a choice to live in terms of ethical categories and in itself has ethical significance. To be sure, one can deliberate about what it is possible for one to do or to become; but deliberation in itself cannot resolve this subjective tension since it is an activity which is without limits. One can deliberate about one's possibilities ad infinitum. Excessive deliberation , as Kierkegaard indicates in Either/Or, may be a means of postponing indefinitely absolute choice or a commitment to any ethical telos. Once a possibility concerning an individual's self-existence is apprehended, the individual is confronted by an either/or which is not subject to a facile, Hegelian mediation (Vermittlung). In regard to the possibility of choosing to live in accordance with ethical requirements or avoiding such a commitment as far as possible, the individual encounters [1] 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY what William Janles called a "live option" which involves a "forced choice" concerning something that is momentous. Once one raises the possibility that one can endeavor to lead an ethical existence (which, for Kierkegaard, is an "authentic existence"), there is no longer a question of doubting such a possibility-----one must choose it or refuse to choose it. Genuine self-doubting (Selv[ordobleIse) is impossible in this regard since the individual continues to be throughout the process of doubting, is carried forward, as Kierkegaard puts it, by the momentum of life. In discovering one's potentiality-for (kunnen) ethical existence one has also had one's subjective concern or interest (inter-esse--"to be concerned") revealed to him. The individual must encounter this ineliminable subjective concern in order to begin to make what Kierkegaard calls the "movement" of choice. Replacing Heidegger's expression (concerning Dasein's being) in the existential context from which it was taken, one may say that, for Kierkegaard, man is that kind of being who, in his being, has his being at issue insofar as his existence is a matter of passionate concern. In order for the "pathetic transition" (i.e., the pathos-filled transition) to an ethical existence to occur, an individual must be involved in a eoncernful deliberation about what he has been, is, and is becoming. The ethical Kehre is not merely a matter...