This argument is applied to moral questions in Kierkegaard’s...

This argument is applied to moral questions in Kierkegaard’s early work Either/Or. Here Kierkegaard contrasts two ways of life which he calls “the ethical” and “the aesthetic.” The aesthetic life is that of the man whose only goal is his own satisfaction. What he must avoid are pain and boredom. Romantic love, which exists only to satisfy the passion of the moment and is ever flying to new satisfactions, is his characteristic sexual relationship.

Marriage, with its lifelong and inescapable duties, is characteristic of the ethical, which is the sphere of obligations, of rules which admit of no exception.

The arguments in favor of the ethical mode of life are put into the mouth of Judge Wilhelm; those in favor of the aesthetic are taken ostensibly from the papers of a younger, anonymous figure, “A.” The two arguments cannot meet, for Judge Wilhelm uses ethical criteria to judge between the ethical and the aesthetic, while “A” uses aesthetic criteria. The argument of each depends upon a prior choice, and the prior choice settles what the conclusion of each’s argument will be.

And the reader, too, must choose. But the careful reader may well begin to have doubts here of at least two kinds. The first is drawn from the nature of Kierkegaard’s own presentation. For while Kierkegaard claims to be neutral between the two positions, one can have no doubt which he favors. He describes the aesthetic state of mind as one of permanent and ever renewed dissatisfaction, of traveling hopefully so as not to arrive.

The ethical by contrast appears as a realm of quiet satisfaction in the obligation fulfilled, the limited task well done. The very disclaimer of partisanship by Kierkegaard itself has a partisan effect-in favor of the ethical. But is this just perhaps a flaw in the literary achievement? Could not Kierkegaard have presented a genuinely neutral account of the two standpoints?

Only if we suppose it possible to address an individual who is devoid of desires, goals, and needs prior to the presentation of the two cases. As such, the individual would be almost a man without characteristics. He acquires them only through his choices. But who is this “I” who chooses? And for such a being what can hang in any case upon choosing in one way rather than in another?