Abstract

Thiss article deals with how moral freedom relates to historicity and contingency by comparing Kierkegaard's theory of the anthropological synthesis to Kant'sconcept of moral character. The comparison indicates that there are more Kantian elements in Kierkegaard's anthropology than shown by earlier scholarship.More specifically, both Kant and Kierkegaard see a true change in the wayone lives as involving not only a revolution in the way one thinks, but alsothat one takes over—and tries to reform—both oneself and human society.Also, Kierkegaard relies on the ideality of ethics and the doctrines of moral rigorism and radical evil. However, Kierkegaard can be seen as trying to find amore systematic role for historicity and contingency than Kant by developingthe concept of facticity and by analyzing the so-called “despair of possibility.”