The question ‘How does a person make an ethical decision?’ becomes all the more compelling and problematic when trying to behave ethically during, as A ́ gnes Heller puts it, ‘the total breakdown of ‘‘normal’’ ethical worlds’. In her philosophical work Heller pieces together a moral compass internal to individual subjectivity to employ during such times. Kierkegaard’s model of existential choice has played a formative role in Heller’s solution to the problem. In my article I describe Heller’s Kierkegaardian framework of (...) choosing oneself as an ethical being and consider a recent critique of Heller’s Kierke- gaardian ethics of personality by Richard J. Bernstein, continuing the substantively pro- ductive tension between the irrational and rational forces that determine our ethical actions. In the process, I show common ground between Bernstein and Heller through an appropriation of Arendtian judgment. I turn to Heller’s most recent work in The Concept of the Beautiful in order to make this common ground tangible. (shrink)

The author describes Heller’s concept of ethics as a “quasi-sphere” intersecting with various fields relating to human relationships. Special attention is paid to the axiological aspects of her concept of ethics and the relationship between virtues and responsibility. The author also seeks to show how Heller integrated a traditional philosophical question—the relationship between “is” and “ought to be”—into her concept of “radical philosophy” at an earlier stage in the development of her philosophy. She initially considered the relationship between “is” and (...) “ought to be” to be contrasting. Later, when she had come to accept the political model of liberal capitalist society, the ideal of all-compassing equality became the ideal of “equality of opportunities”. The author interprets this shift as one in which the relationship becomes continual. He is also critical of Heller’s underestimation of the effect the “social a priori” has on the possibilities of human life. (shrink)