2017-01-17Tu

Lecture 6 Kierkegaard (Fear & Trembling)

Problem II is there an absolute duty to God?

Is there some insufficiency in the ethical law? another

question in the line of is there an absolute duty to God?
The ethical is the divine (the first section of Problem II)
Duty to God to love neighbour, but by doing this, you dont come
into relation to God, you are just loving your neighbour
God becomes a vanishing point by the nature of that circle and
there is no such thing as faith

Kant: categorical imperative you should act in a way that could

be universalized as law (if its not in this way then it is unethical)
To recognize goodness is to recognize the insufficiency of what
there already is good has to be brought about and
accomplished and it is the job of people to accomplish the good
o For the good to be made actual, it requires the agency of
particular individuals there is good in the world insofar
as we accomplish it
Argument against Kant in that particularity is sometimes needed
in order to accomplish good (and Kants POV would essentially
strip people of their particularity)
Story of Socrates & Prosecutor
o Conflict of duties (honouring parents & acting against
murderers) because of the particularity of the situation
We are all vulnerable to the possibility of conflicting duties
Disparity: universal requirement/law v. particularity of
prosecutors situation
o Disparity isnt law v. desire

What is the incommensurability that dS was talking about?

How does Abraham think about what he does?
Our duty to God isnt conditional to ethics; our pursuit of what is
ethically demanded of us is conditional to our duty to God
Recognition of what is higher than ethical demands and
recognition of our relation to this higher as an individual
Incommensurability
Distinction b/w inner (private feelings and reflections) and outer
(recognizable by others)
o Ethics being internalized or only in the exterior
 Paradox of faith being the inner which is incommensurable that is
not private or just for you (not something that is outwardly
expressed and so no recognizable to others and yet still not
private)
You have to able, as an individual, be able to recognize yourself
as a thing able to do Gods will, in principle to God
We cant take refuge in what is universally required; it wont
settle how you should engage the world or a sufficient way to
settle the demand you are faced with; but you also cannot
discard it altogether
Inner v. outer; disparity b/w you as individual and your ability to
do what is universally required of you
You can never be rationally certain the worthiness of your actions
in relation to God = the anxiety of faith
Absolute duty to God isnt optional, but it is something that
everyone needs to acknowledge | each of us in our particularity
have a relation to God