Passion and Reason

Aristotelian Strategies in Kierkegaard’s Ethics

Bibliographic Data

ID14760498
AuthorsNorman Lillegard (corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume30
Issue2
Pages251-273
Publication date2002-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9795.00106
OpenAlexW2036622847
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited8

Both Aristotle and Kierkegaard show that virtues result, in part, from training which produces distinctive patterns of salience. The “frame problem” in AI shows that rationality requires salience. Salience is a function of cares and desires (passions) and thus governs choice in much the way Aristotle supposes when he describes choice as deliberative desire. Since rationality requires salience it follows that rationality requires passion. Thus Kierkegaard is no more an irrationalist in ethics than is Aristotle, though he continues to be charged with irrationalism. The compatibility of an Aristotelian reading of Kierkegaard with the “suspension of the ethical” and general problems with aretaic ethical theories are treated briefly. The author argues that it is possible to preserve a realist ethics in the face of the “tradition relativism” which threatens the version of virtue ethics here attributed to Kierkegaard

Epistemology · Passion · Passions · Practical reason · Rationality · Relativism · Salience (neuroscience · Virtue · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Theology and Philosophy of Evil

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