class synopsis March 30, 2011

We began March 30^th’s class by talking about Kierkegaard’s second stage of life which is the ETHICAL. Going from the aesthetic to the ethical requires a big leap. This leap is characterized by two basic things: accepting moral standards and recognizing duty over pleasure. For Kierkegaard the ethical stage is an either or stage. By this, he means that you cannot behave aesthetically while also being ethical. We gave the example of the homeless man. For the aesthetic person a homeless man is whatever, they are not worried about him they just keep going with the flow as if nothing happened. We can take the same homeless man and have someone spit on him. If a person is truly aesthetic they will not care and keep on with their lives but as soon as that person recognizes that it is wrong to spit on a homeless man then he or she is making a judgment and therefore making the leap between the aesthetic and the ethical person. Being ethical is mainly about making judgments. Once you make a judgment you run the risk of indentifying with a belief. Then we identified heroes to be ethical human beings. Yes, they might always be heroes but they are missing out. They are so committed to duty that they sacrifice their very own pleasure or rewards. They recognize that the duty they perform is greater than their own happiness. Just like with the aesthetic stage the ethical stage has its difficulties. These difficulties are inability to obey the rules or laws (inability to be consistently oneself), one recognizes imperfection, and conflicts within LAW.

We then proceeded to talk about the last stage which is the RELIGIOUS stage. The religious stage makes the distinction of society (the universal) or God. This is when we talked about the dark knight. His actions are not universal; in fact, most people view him as a tyrant. But he is so committed to his duty that he puts it over everything. We also determined that decisions come from a purity of heart not because the ends will be rewarding. We do not make decisions based on ethical or based on following the law but we make decisions because our heart is pure and it will the one thing. A religious person is a fanatic of sorts. He or she will do things that are not necessarily universal and things that society does not agree with. Then we started talking about the leap of faith. We talked about this talking about examples like 2 people in love. When a couple is in love there is no reasonable reason to their love. They simply love each other. If it is love then it is absurd, it is something unjustifiable and a must. Another example is the person who believes in God. The belief in God is something that cannot be justified, mediated or quantified this makes it impossible for it to be universal. The leap of faith however has to compromise your identity it cannot just be that you believe that a desk is or is not there.

We ended the class by talking about the lovers’ example. When a boy loves a girl and the cant be together people in the different stages will react differently. The aesthetic person will keep going with their life it will not be a big deal for them that he cannot be with the one he loves. There will always be others. The ethical person would not give up on love but would be resigned to the fact that they cannot be together in this world or in this life. Finally, the religious person is the same as ethical but he would insist regardless of the absurdity that they would not be together in this life, in this world. The religious person would push and push for the relationship to happen.