Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics: A Study of Mitsein

HEIDEGGER AND

E

GROUND OF ETHICS A STUDY OF MITSEIN

FRE D ERICK A. O LAF S O N

D CAMBRIDGE V UNIVERSITY PRESS

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[AG]

A catalog record for this booh is available ftvm the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Olafson, Frederick A. Heidegger and the ground of ethics : a study of Mitsein A. Olafson. p.

I

Frederick

em.- (Modern European philosophy)

ISBN o-521-63094-o ISBN o-521-63879-8 (pbk) 1. Heidegger� Martin, 1889-1976- Ethics. 2. Ethics, Modern- 2oth century. I. Title. II. Series. B3279·H490368 1998 98-16539 CIP

ISBN

ISBN

o 521 63094 o hardback o 521 63879 8 paperback

FOR SAM AND ANNE KING IN FRIENDSHIP

CONTENTS

page 1

Introduction 1 Truth As Partnership

15

2 Truth, Responsibility, and Trust

40

3 Evil and Good

6g

Conclusion

95 105

Index

IX

INTRODUCTION Das unter dem Anspruch der Anwesenheit Stehen is der grosste Anspruch des Menschen, ist "die Ethik. "1 Martin Heidegger

I When existential philosophy first became widely knmvn in the years after the Second World War, it was understood to be a radically individualistic phi­ losophy. It is not hard to see why this was so. For these philosophers, every aspect of human life was to be understood in terms of the concept of choice; and choice was held to be in every case the choice of an individual human being, however we might try to conceal this fact from ourselves. Such choices were declared to be ultimately arbitrary and ur�ustifiable by the pro­ cedures of reason . If there was any virtue that survived the wreck of all tra­ ditional conceptions of moral truth and validity, it was the ability to accept this grim fact and live "authentically" with it. This meant living in a way that did not invoke any authority for one's own actions that was inconsistent with these underlying assumptions. 2 1 "To be subject to the clairn that presence makes is the greatest cl1�111.ati� , a s does t h e very notion o f a world _ that is prior to the process of " encoding" "\Vith which language is identified. There is, of course, no way this occlusion of presence can maintain itself consistently without a tacit acknowledgment of the very fact it seeks to sup­ press. To the degree to which this is the case, the distorted form of com­ munication to which this strategy gives rise may be said to bear witness to its own secondary and derivative character - that is, to the inauthenti