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The problem of spontaneous goodness: from Kierkegaard to Løgstrup (via Zhuangzi and Eckhart)

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Abstract

Historically, Western philosophy has struggled to accommodate, or has simply denied, the moral value of spontaneous, non-reflective action. One important exception is in the work of K.E. Løgstrup, whose phenomenological ethics involves a claim that the ‘ethical demand’ of care for the other can only be realized through spontaneous assent to ‘sovereign expressions of life’ such as trust and mercy. Løgstrup attacks Kierkegaard for devaluing spontaneous moral action, but as I argue, Kierkegaard too offers an implicit view of spontaneous moral response (‘second immediacy’) as a regulative ideal. In attempting to articulate the model of character-formation that such an ethics requires, we can see both Løgstrup and Kierkegaard as engaging with an ancient problematic, running from Classical Daoism to medieval mysticism, of achieving spontaneity through purgation rather than edification—not building the subject up, but demolishing personality in order to become a conduit for a transcendent normativity.

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Notes

  1. Kant (2002, p. 15).

  2. Korsgaard (1996, pp. 247–248). See also Rudd (2012, p. 66): “The moral life is not simply, or even primarily, about instant responses to unexpected situations. People who are not good at such things may still display real virtue in their longer-term projects and relationships.”

  3. MacIntyre (2007, p. 159).

  4. MacIntyre (2007, pp. 158–159).

  5. Løgstrup’s Danish commentators have tended to render this title in English as “Controverting Kierkegaard,” which doesn’t necessarily carry across the various senses of opgørelse: it has both the sense of reconciling or inventorying an account as well as the sense of a violent clash—“Showdown With Kierkegaard” might not be wholly inappropriate!

  6. Løgstrup (2005, pp. 116–117).

  7. Løgstrup (1995, p. 145).

  8. Løgstrup (2005, p. 112, 2007, p. 61).

  9. Løgstrup (1995, p. 232).

  10. Ferreira (2001, p. 77).

  11. As Rabjerg (2007) describes, Løgstrup’s Kierkegaard is in many respects Kierkegaard as interpreted by Tidehverv’s Kristoffer Olesen Larsen.

  12. Løgstrup (1995, p. 18).

  13. Lykkes, a verb that is only used in the passive voice in Danish and which therefore creates problems for English translators.

  14. Løgstrup (1995, p. 146).

  15. Ytrtringer is cognate with the English ‘utterances’.

  16. Løgstrup (1972, 2007, p. 85).

  17. Løgstrup (2005, p. 122, 2007, p. 69).

  18. Løgstrup (2007, p. 90).

  19. Løgstrup (2007, p. 103).

  20. Løgstrup (2007, p. 103).

  21. Løgstrup (2005, p. 130, 2007, p. 76).

  22. Løgstrup (2007, p. 90).

  23. Williams (1981, p. 18).

  24. Løgstrup (2007, p. 90).

  25. Kierkegaard (1997a, p. 205, 2004b, p. 214).

  26. Løgstrup (2007, p. 130).

  27. Løgstrup (2007, p. 85).

  28. Kierkegaard (1978, p. 103, 2004a, p. 9). Assiter (2009, p. 66) also reads Kierkegaard as eschewing an ethics of principle for one based on the experiential reality of encounter with the other.

  29. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 2, p. 179, 2008b, p. 223; Notebook NB 28:12).

  30. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 2, p. 377, 2007b, p. 467; Notebook NB 25:47).

  31. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 4, p. 415, 2008b, p. 71; Notebook NB 26:68).

  32. Indeed, almost all instances of ‘spontaneity’ and its cognates found in the Hongs’ translations are renderings of umiddelbarhed rather than spotaneitet.

  33. Løgstrup (2005 p. 112, 2007, p. 61).

  34. Roberts (2003, pp. 191–192). Emphasis in original.

  35. This is the major theme of Stokes (2010).

  36. Kierkegaard (1992 vol. 1, p. 169, 2002, pp. 156–157).

  37. Kierkegaard (1980, p. 118, 1997a, b, p. 419).

  38. Løgstrup (1972, p. 26, 2007, p. 92).

  39. Not unlike Kant, another Lutheran for whom the ‘Holy Will’ occupies a similar position. On this topic in relation to Løgstrup, see Stern (forthcoming).

  40. Løgstrup (2005, p. 108, 2007, p. 57).

  41. Kierkegaard (2007a, p. 121, 2000, p. 127; Journal BB37).

  42. Kierkegaard (2007a, p. 121–122, 2000, p. 128; Journal BB37).

  43. Kierkegaard (1991, p. 192, 2008a, p. 191).

  44. The account of consciousness given in the unfinished Johannes Climacus makes it clear that consciousness has already gone beyond immediacy by cancelling it (Kierkegaard 1985, p. 167, 2012, pp. 54–55); likewise, purely immediate aesthetes, who contain absolutely no self-reflexivity and reflection, are only found in fictive representations such as Mozart’s Don Juan.

  45. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 2, p. 11, 2000, p. 363; Notebook NB4:159).

  46. Grøn (2003, p. 87).

  47. I here use this term in contradistinction to ‘popular’ or ‘religious’ Daoism, to refer to the pre-Qin era writings of figures like Laozi and Zhuangzi.

  48. Zhuangzi (2007, p. 92).

  49. Slingerland (2003, p. 177).

  50. Lao-Tzu (1989, p. 7).

  51. Lao-Tzu (1989, p. 24).

  52. Zhuangzi (2007, p. 99).

  53. MacIntyre (2007, p. 158).

  54. Velleman (2008, p. 188).

  55. Slingerland (2003, p. 212).

  56. Slingerland (2003, p. 198).

  57. Rudd (2012, p. 219). Rudd goes on to briefly connect the sort of spontaneity at issue in wu-wei with Kierkegaard’s notions of higher immediacy, but also registers a MacIntyrean note of caution that such spontaneity can only be of value as the outcome of a form of training “needed to give one a disciplined perception, a trained eye,” and then denies that this amounts to “a return to a merely natural, prelapsarian state” (p. 220). As discussed above, I think it’s true that this state can’t be regarded as a merely natural state, but nonetheless it does involve a return to a prelapsarian source, even if transfigured precisely by being a return.

  58. Slingerland (2003, p. 214).

  59. Løgstrup (2007, p. 136).

  60. Løgstrup (2007, p. 138).

  61. Løgstrup (2007, p. 151).

  62. Kierkegaard (1997b, pp. 10–11, 2006, pp. 16–17).

  63. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 4, p. 415, 2008b, p. 71; Notebook NB 26:68).

  64. Buben (2011, p. 68).

  65. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 4, p. 272, 2009, p. 301; Notebook NB33:54).

  66. Šajda (2008a, p. 247). See also Šajda (2009).

  67. Šajda (2008b, p. 282). On this subtractive nature of purgation, see Becker (2012).

  68. Cf. Kierkegaard (1967–1978 vol. 4, p. 272, 2009, p. 301; Notebook NB33:54): “No religious person, even the purest, has sheer, purified subjectivity or pure transparency in willing solely what God wills, so that there is no residue of his original subjectivity, a residue still not wholly penetrated, a remote portion of residue still uncaptured, perhaps as yet not even really discovered in the depths of his soul.”

  69. Andic (2003, p. 317), quoting Kierkegaard (1990, pp. 399–400, 1998, p. 380).

  70. For a discussion of the process of taking-away from the subject leading up to this metaphor, see Becker (2012, pp. 10–11).

  71. Kierkegaard (1990, pp. 399, 1998, p. 380).

  72. Podmore (2011, p. 179).

  73. Ferreira (1998).

  74. Andic (2003). Interestingly, Andic compares Kierkegaard’s approach of moral striving in the full awareness of human impotence and dependence upon grace with Zen Buddhism: “Thus it is said that Zen means doing everything ‘perfectly,’ unselfconsciously yet mindfully and freely: with the perfect love of God for everything and everyone” (p. 302). As indicated here, I’d suggest Daoism rather than Zen is the more appropriate point of comparison.

  75. Slingerland (2003, p. 192).

  76. Stokes (2010, pp. 111–114 passim).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to John Lippitt, audiences at Australian Catholic University and the 7th International Kierkegaard Conference at St Olaf College, Minnesota (particularly respondent Rob Compaijen), and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Stokes, P. The problem of spontaneous goodness: from Kierkegaard to Løgstrup (via Zhuangzi and Eckhart). Cont Philos Rev 49, 139–159 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-016-9377-1

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