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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Short History of Ethics: a History of Moral Philosophy From the Homeric Age To the Twentieth Century CHAPTER 16: KIERKEGAARD TO NIETZSCHE THE KANTIAN individual finds the test for his maxims in the objective test of the categorical imperative; the Hegelian individual finds his criteria in the norms of the free and rational society.

The fundamental doctrine of Sören Kierkegaard is that not only are there no genuine objective tests in morality; but that doctrines which assert that there are function as devices to disguise the fact that our moral standards are, and can only be, chosen. The individual utters his moral precepts to himself in a far stronger sense than the Kantian individual did; for their only sanction and authority is that he has chosen to utter them. Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen in 1813.

The radical form of Protestant Christianity which he embraced and his rejection of Hegel’s doctrines both spring from the same source; the fundamental role which he allots to the act of choice. It is not just in morals, but in every sphere which touches on human existence that the relevant criteria lack objective justification.

Such justification may be in place in mathematics and in the natural sciences; but elsewhere rational argument can do no more than to present us with alternatives between which we must make our own choices. Some of Kierkegaard’s own writings take the form of such a presentation, various literary devices such as the use of pseudonyms being employed to conceal the fact that it is one and the same man who is advancing the rival claims of contrasting and conflicting positions.

But this is not mere irrationalism, an arbitrary exaltation of arbitrary choice. For Kierkegaard believes that rational argument itself shows us that in the end the choice of the individual must be sovereign. Suppose that one believes that one’s moral position can be rationally justified, that it is a conclusion which can be validly derived from certain premises.

Then these premises in turn must be vindicated, and if their vindication consists in deriving them from conclusions based on more fundamental premises, the same problem will arise. But the chain of reasons must have an ending, and we must reach a point where we simply choose to stand by certain premises. At this point decision has replaced argument; and in all arguments on human existence there will be some such point.