Book contents
- Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion
- Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self, Despair, and Wholeheartedness
- Chapter 1 Selfhood and Anthropology
- Chapter 2 Why Be Moral? The Critique of Amoralism
- Chapter 3 Moral Inescapability: Moral Agency and Metaethics
- Part II Morality, Prudence, and Religion
- Part III “Subjectivity, Inwardness, Is Truth”
- Part IV Faith and Reason
- References
- Index
Chapter 3 - Moral Inescapability: Moral Agency and Metaethics
from Part I - Self, Despair, and Wholeheartedness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2022
- Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion
- Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self, Despair, and Wholeheartedness
- Chapter 1 Selfhood and Anthropology
- Chapter 2 Why Be Moral? The Critique of Amoralism
- Chapter 3 Moral Inescapability: Moral Agency and Metaethics
- Part II Morality, Prudence, and Religion
- Part III “Subjectivity, Inwardness, Is Truth”
- Part IV Faith and Reason
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter 3 connects Kierkegaardian critiques of amoralism to discussions of wantonness and Humeanism in action theory. By discussing the cultivation of love (and higher-order motives), it is argued that practical rational agency requires moral normativity. The chapter then presents and discusses Kierkegaard’s strong views about the inescapability of morality, interpreting it as a form of constitutivism concerning moral normativity, which tries to derive practical normativity from practical agency itself. However, Kierkegaard seems to combine such constitutivism with the theological view that moral obligations depend on us belonging to God as his creation. Still, he is not a divine command theorist who sees divine commands as necessary and sufficient for moral obligations. Rather, he sketches a form of moral realism and criticizes subjectivism in ethics.
- Type
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- Information
- Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and ReligionPurity or Despair, pp. 54 - 72Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022