This paper will examine Kierkegaard's concept of teleological suspension of the ethical, and argue that his insistence that Abraham cannot be ethically justified is unsuccessful and resulted from his narrow conception of "the ethical". Next, I argue from the universal prescriptivist perspective in history of ethical theory, that the main purpose of his writing the book was to keep his contemporaries aware of what it means to praise Abraham. Lastly, I will suggest a more relevant alterative of the source of the book title

EGUCHI, Satoshi

English

Kyoto Women's University Academic Repository (AIR) / 京都女子大学学術情報リポジトリ（京女AIR）

京都女子大学現代社会研究　　47What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless? An universal prescriptivist reading of  Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling*EGUCHI Satoshi                                  Abstract  This paper will examine  Kierkegaard's concept of teleological suspension of the ethical, and argue that his insistence that Abraham cannot be ethically justified is unsuccessful and resulted from his narrow conception of "the ethical". Next, I argue from the universal prescriptivist perspective in history of ethical theory, that the main purpose of his writing the book was to keep his contemporaries aware of what it means to praise Abraham. Lastly, I will suggest a more relevant alterative of the source of the book title. Key Words: Kierkegaard, Teleological Suspension of the ethical, Fear and Trembling1 Teleological suspension of the ethical? Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (FT)1 is a con-troversial book. In order to "perceive the pro-digious paradox of faith", Johannes de silentio, the pseudonymous writer of FT, presents three pro-blems: (1) "Is there a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical", (2) "Is there an Absolute Duty to God?", and (3) "Was It Ethically Defensible for Abraham to Conceal his Undertaking from Sarah, from Eliez-er, and from Isaac?" He answered yes to the first two problems, and no to the last. In a popular reading of Kierkegaard, this book is said to suggest that faith is higher than morality, and Abraham cannot be justified by any rational ethics2.  First, we have to identify what Johannes calls "the ethical", but it is not an easy task. Through-out FT, We have only one example directly referred as "ethical duty", that is, "one must protect one's children". We have to interpret what he calls "the ethical" in his assertion that Abraham do not belong to the sphere of the ethical.  Johannes' simple and direct definition of the ethi-cal is posed in the first paragraph of each "pro-blemata". In the beginning of "Problema I", he says:The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which from another angle means that it applies at all time. It rests immanent in itself, has nothing outside itself that is its telos but it is itself the telos for every-thing outside itself, and when the ethical*This paper was read at Kierkegaard Research Centre , Copenhagen, on May 29, 2001.  'Fear and Trembling , tr. by Howard H. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton University Press, 1983.  Referees to Kier-kegaard's works are by the sigla FT.  2A famous example is Brand Blanshard's "Kierkegaard on Faith" , The Personalist, 49, 1968, p. 5-22.48  What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless?has absorbed this into itself, it goes not further. The single individual, sensately and psychically qualified in immediacy, is the individual who has his telos in the universal, and it is his ethical task con-tinually to express himself in this, to an-nul his singularity in order to become the universal. (FT 54) Let's begin with interpreting this vague and difficult passage.  Johannes contrasts Abraham with Agamemnon, Jephthah, and Brutus, who also sacrificed their chil-dren but, in contrast to Abraham, remained in the ethical sphere. Take Agamemnon's case. He sacrificed his daughter for the benefit of his com-munity.  Abraham's rightness seems too obvious to Jo-hannes, but we may hesitate to approve Agamem-non's decision unconditionally. For example, D. D. Raphael, an English moral philosopher, pointed out that it was not because his act was right but be-cause it was wrong and cruel that his story had a strong impression to his contemporaries3. Why is Johannes so convinced of Agamemnon's rightness?  This definition of the ethical is Hegelian. Rough-ly speaking, in Hegelian system, an action is seen to be ethical if it promotes the welfare and value of the community. Agamemnon was a leader of the community and let public interest take precedence over private interest, or let his duty as a leader override his duty as a father. Johannes's says that he sacrificed his daughter and himself in order to protect what is higher than the individual, that is, community, nation, or state.  In contrast to Agamemnon, Abraham is said to be willing to sacrifice Isaac for his faith (and for God), not for community and nation. Therefore, Johannes insists, he cannot be ethically justified.  Then, why is the duty "one should always obey God" not an universal duty? If "always obey God" is  tnken  ns  nn  ethien1  drity the  story  of  Ahrn  hnm willnot contain "suspension of the ethical".  An universal duty, like "one ought not to steal", applies to anyone. Such duties will sometimes be authorized as God's commands. In this sense, "God's precepts" are used abstractly as authority of morality. If this is God's precept, it is a precept to all human beings. In Abraham's case, however, the precept "sacrifice Isaac" is given only to Abraham, not as a patriarch or a head of a family, but as a particular individual. It was given because Abrah-am was Abraham, and only once at one time.  Ordinary morality does not include a guidance to such particular, special case, since God's commands are highly unlikely to be given directly. If we take the scriptural phrase "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and chil-dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26), God's commands cannot be reduced to duties that will promote public welfare, or rather, it may or must conflict ordinary morality and duty. There-fore, Johannes insists, if Abraham is right, there are absolute duties to God.  But cannot we imagine that, if the command to Abraham was really from God, people living with Abraham can understand his undertaking? Just as Iphigeneia understood his father's plight and ac-cepted his undertaking, might Isaac accept his father? The command to Abraham, "sacrifice your son", was indeed given to Abraham as a particular individual. But can the precept "if God really com-mands you to do something directly, obey his words" not be one of the cardinal duties of a knight of faith? At least, those who have faith like Abra-ham's may admit and want to justify his action.  For Johannes, however, such a justification is im-possible, because Abraham cannot communicate his intention to other people. In this way, the problem about an absolute duty to God is related to Proble-ma III, that is, whether one is to be ethically blamed when one doesn't tell his intention to others.  It is certain that the Abraham's silence was the 3  D . D. Raphael, Moral Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 51京都女子大学現代社会研究　　49main theme of FT. Johannes contends that "Abraham could not speak." But I think it is a bit hard for us to take this insistence at face value. Abraham was in fact required to kill his son, and as a knight of faith, he was willing to do it. He over-rode a general duty to protect his child with God's particular command. In this, in one sense, I find no logical problems, as Johannes alludes. Indeed, even if Abraham had told his intention to his peo-ple, he would not have been understood. People would have seen him as somewhat tempted or cor-rupted by a demon, or of a evil character. But it is because God's direct revelation rarely occurs and that God requires people to sacrifice one's son is really hard to belive. But this is a practical difficul-ty and not a logical one. If, as Johannes suggests, Abraham cannot communicate to other people be-cause his situation is "particular", not universal, we cannot understand the whole story or Johannes's speculation itself. Then, if Abraham cannot speak, it is because he cannot explain his situation practi-cally, not theoretically or logically. At least, another knight of faith can understand Abraham's situation and would want to admit he was right.  If one believes his action or decision is ethically justified, he must somehow be able to explain rea-sons to do it. This is the logic of justification, which most of us will accept. However, it is hard to see even in a very special situation like Abraham's, one cannot be justified only because one cannot in practice tell his reason to others. Suppose Aga-memnon had not told of his will to sacrifice his daughter because of some practical difficulty, for ex-ample, because of lack of time. It would not make his decision wrong or unjustified. He would have said, "I might be misunderstood, and, in practice, some surely will blame me, but after deliberation, I believe I ought to do it, and I will be justified in the most important sense." If so, from my point of view, we have to say that the analysis Johannes gives us misses the point of ethical justification.2 Johannes's Sleeplessness If we take these lines of reading, we are faced with the problems of what is it that Johannes cannot un-derstand. What render him sleepless?  Then, we might wonder whether Johannes's main point in this book is really to evaluate or to justify Abraham. In the end of each "Probrema", Jo-hannes repeats the "either-or". Either Hegelian theory of ethics is implausible, or else Abraham is lost. We can guess from these passages that Jo-hannes's definition of "the ethical" was his contem-porary Hegelian, not his own. Then, the main ar-guments of FT are modus tollens, that is P Q and  — Q, therefore  — P. To demonstrate this, Jo-hannes needs to show somehow that Abraham was right, or can be ethically justified in his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, but he didn't. Then, we cannot see his demonstration successful. He can at most say that the an extreme type of faith can conflict with Hegelian morality.  Careful readers who read the book in Danish should have noticed that in FT such words as  "Nod", "Qval", "Angst" are frequently used, but the very keywords "Frygt" and  "Bven" seldom occur4. Do we go too far if we say that in this lies Johaness de silentio's silence?  Then, who is it that feels fear and trembling? Is it Abraham? Perhaps so. And Johannes himself, of course. He says, "There were countless genera-tions who knew the story of Abraham by heart, word for word, but how many did it render sleep-less?" (FT 28) But why? Could Johannes not sleep for fear that he should be put in Abraham's itua-tion? Did he identify himself with the father of faith? Did he expect one day God himself would start to talk to him? Some may want to say to him, "Well, Johannes, don't take too seriously what will never happen to you. That was Abraham's tory and none of your business. In this civilized age, even terrible gods won't require such a cruel thing. If God should really require you to do it, you can 4  Frygt is used only two times and  B .Tven is never, except the title.50  What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless? think about it afterwards. Why not take sleeping pills?" 3 An universal prescriptivist interpretation Here I suggest that we reread FT against back-ground of the theory of meta-ethics of the 20th cen-tury, especially universal prescriptivism.  In the "Preliminary Expectoration", Johannes speaks about a story of a preacher and a man who is suffering from sleeplessness (FT 28). A preacher who doesn't really understand Abraham's story can give a lecture on it. Abraham was great in that he was willing to sacrifice his son, and therefore he is to be praised. But if a sleepless man listens to the story, he might go home and want to do just as Abraham did. If the preacher knows it, he surely will stop the man. What if the man answers, "that was what you yourself preached about on Sunday?" Johannes continues:    How is a contradiction such as that of the    speaker to be explained? It is because    Abraham has gained a prescriptive right    to be a great man, so that what he does is    great and when another man does the    same thing it is a sin, an atrocious sin?    In that case, I do not wish to participate    in such empty praise. (FT 30) If Abraham is great, it cannot be because Abrah-am is Abraham. If we judge he is great, we must judge in the same way whoever is willing to do the same thing in the same situation. If we don't admit this, we are in linguistic contradiction. Moral judg-ment must be universalizable if it has full meaning. This is one of the main points that universal pre-scriptivism points out. The other point that univer-sal prescriptivism take to be characteristic of moral judgment is prescriptivity. If I tell you that I ought not to smoke in this room, and nevertheless Ismoke in this room, you will doubt I am not talkingto you sincerely, or suspect I do not know the meaning of the words.  Let us return to the story. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. In contrast, that sleepless man was given no command of God. So the story sounds comical. We ordinary people are never likely to be given His command. In addition, some insist that it is logically impossible that we be put in exactly the same situation as Abraham. But, if we say that Abraham ought to do what he did, we must, at least, now be ready to do exactly what he did if we should be in his position. Whether I have a child or not, this may be dreadful. What we say about Abraham may require us now to have readi-ness to commit homicide now. Moreover, because of universalizability of moral judgment, we are re-quired to be ready now to be sacrificed if we are put in Isaac's position. It is really hard for us to put ourselves in Abraham's ituation, who, without any sympathetic assistance from others and without any guidelines, as required to sacrifice his son, or in Isaac's situation, who, without being informed, as to be sacrificed, and to take it seriously, and neverthe-less judge that Abraham did what he ought to do, and to admit, if we were in his position, to do what he did.  These are the very essentials that universal prescriptivists like  R. M. Hare emphasis about logic of moral  judgments.  If we give more attention to this point of Jo-hannes, we can see now that his repeated claims that "I can't understand Abraham" or "faith is para-dox" are not concerned with logical or epistemologi-cal difficulties. It is not even a problem in ethical theory, either. By such phrases, he confesses that, if he were in Abraham's ituation, he could not do what Abraham did. Johannes, who is not a knight of faith, is not ready to sacrifice his son. It is pscy-chological or motivational difficulty.  Those who lightly say that Abraham was great only approve of Abraham because they are blindly following some authority. Their ethical judgments 5R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals, Oxford, 1952. Moral Thinking, Oxford, 1981.have lost their proper force.  If we take this interpretation, I think we can see more clearly the main point of Johannes, that is, to analyze "speech" in ethical context and make people aware of its proper requirement.  This affinity of Johannes's thought and universal prescriptivism is not a coincidence. I think there might be textual justification for my allegation.We are afraid to let people loose; we are afraid that the worst will happen as soon as the single individual feels like behaving as the single  individual.  ....  I can share neither that fear (Frygt) nor that opinion, and for the same reason. Anyone who has learned that to exist as the single in-dividual is the most terrible (det  For-flidige) of all will not be afraid to say that it is the greatest of all .... It may well be that there are those who need coercion, who, if they were given free rein, would abandon themselves like un-manageable animals to selfish appetites. But a person will demonstrate that he does not belong to them precisely by showing that he knows how to speak in fear and trembling (Angst og  Bvelse), and speak he must out of fear (Frygt) of harm, which certainly will not come if he speaks out of a knowledge of greatness, a knowledge of its terrors, and if one does not know the terrors, one does not know the greatness, either. (FT pp. 74-5.) Surprisingly, this passage is the only one that contains the word "Frygt" in the book. Johannes stresses here that we should speak in "Angst og  Bvelse", and this will help us to prevent ourselves from ethical confusion. We know we need sincerity, seriousness, fear and trembling whenever we pass any proper ethical judgment, but we always forget it in our daily life. In "Preface", Johannes talks6  R . M. Hare, The Language of Morals, p. 1京都女子大学現代社会研究　　51about Descartes, "he did what he said and said what he did. Alas! Alas! Alas! That is a great rarity in our day." (FT 5) In the "Epilogue", he talks about the episode that the merchants of Holland had a few cargoes sunk in the sea in order to jack up the price. One of Johannes' hidden intention is clearly to make us recall the importance of sincerity of ut-terance in ethical theory. He wants to make us recall the extremely high cost of faith. Then, his target is not only Hegelian thinkers but also those who constantly make the price fall by lip worship, that is, us ourselves.  This course of interpretation lets us understand why Kierkegaard had to express his idea indirectly in the name of Johannes de silentio. Knowledge about the fact is directly communicable. But one's moral principles or moral judgments cannot be com-municated fully by simply mentioning them. As R. M. Hare pointed out, the best way to know one's moral principle is not to hear what he says but to see what he does6.4 The alternative source of Fear and Trem-  bling I have pointed out that fear in Fear and Trem-bling is not only fear for God, but also fear which one must feel whenever one is to pass any ethical judgment. But this interpretation may seem not to correspond to the title of the book, since Fear and Trembling is said to have come from Paul's words, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ." (Phil. 2:12)  I admit it is somehow hard to find a link between this sentence and my interpretation. But in reality, as I have mentioned above, there's no phrases "fear (Frygt) for God" in FT. I want to suggest an alter-native source, that is, also Paul's words, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey52  What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless?Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart." ("Tjenerre! lyder Cders Herrer efter  Kiodet, med Frygt og  Bxven, i Cders Hiertes Eenfordighed, somC hristo.") (Eph. 6:5-6. Emphasis added.) This pas-sage surely requires us our sincerity and consisten-cy in our speech, deed, and heart. It is indeed needless to say that, since Kierkegaard was very familiar with the Bible and its inner relations, we don't have to single out the source of "fear and trembling" from the candidates. But I think thispassage is more relevant and close to Johannes's point.  If we could interpret FT in this way, Johannes's concern in this book was not whether Abraham can be ethically justified, or how we can justify him. Rather, his main concern was to point out the re-quired relation between our ethical discourse and our action and readiness. In this respect, his posi-tion was much closer to modern philosophers who are engaging in meta-ethics, and should be given more attention in the history of ethics.

What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless? : An universal prescriptivist reading of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling

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What makes Johannes de Silentio sleepless? : An universal prescriptivist reading of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling

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