ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5, we transition to Kierkegaard, who engages explicitly with the question of conversion as he sees it developed in Hegel’s philosophy. Drawing from Either/Or (1843), most commentators argue that Kierkegaard, drawing on Hegel, defends a Rational Affirmation model of ethical conversion. According to this line of thought, Either/Or’s ethical pseudonym (“Judge William”) provides a defense of ethics that even a non-ethical person (in this case, Kierkegaard’s aesthetic pseudonym “A”) can appreciate. Against this standard interpretation, we argue that Judge William’s Hegelian arguments fail to address A’s more sophisticated practical presuppositions. This failure is a product not just of A’s reflective cunning, but the rules internal to “modern ethics” itself. Because ethics is conditioned by a demand for normative transparency, any potential justification of the ethical life requires that an agent can (at least in principle) recognize its authority for herself. This is a justificatory burden that William implicitly recognizes and, ultimately, cannot meet. William’s failure, Kierkegaard suggests, is also Hegel’s: some normative points of view do not have a place in the System.
