ABSTRACT
Jeremy D. B. Walker sought to address certain philosophical themes in Soren Kierkegaard's edifying discourse "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing" from Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, while at the same time fully acknowledging the text as a Christian work meant for public confession. Walker identifies the central philosophical theme of "Purity of Heart" as the idea of commitment. He correctly associates the idea of commitment with a Kantian ethical outlook. Walker further argues that Kierkegaard's pervasive use of the term Good for God, as the absolute object of commitment, also implies an essentially Platonic ethical outlook. Walker points out that for Kierkegaard another example of double-mindedness is when an individual wills the Good out of fear of punishment. Walker does this by showing that Kierkegaard reconciles the contradiction between autonomy-morality and heteronomy-morality through an objectivist autonomyethics.
