Kierkegaard's Critique of Eudaimonism: A Reassessment

Journal of Religious Ethics 45 (3):437-462 (2017)
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Abstract

Interpreters are less univocal than one might think in assessing Søren Kierkegaard's attitude toward eudaimonism. Through an analysis of several key texts from across Kierkegaard's authorship, I argue that existing interpretations do not convincingly address the relationship between Kierkegaard's critique of eudaimonism and his mid-nineteenth-century context, which was dominated by post-Kantian idealists. While I am sympathetic to aspects of deontological and aretaic interpretations, a contextual reading shows that his critique centers on what he diagnoses as the enclosure of the modern self. This puts his critique of eudaimonism in the purview of his moral psychology and in continuity with his critique of romanticism.

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Citations of this work

Demonic despair under the guise of the good? Kierkegaard and Anscombe vs. Velleman.Roe Fremstedal - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (5):705-725.
Kierkegaard on the transformative power of art.Antony Aumann - 2021 - History of European Ideas 47 (3):429-442.

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References found in this work

Modern Moral Philosophy.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1958 - Philosophy 33 (124):1 - 19.
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Faith and Knowledge.G. W. F. Hegel, Walter Cerf & H. S. Harris - 1981 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (1):63-64.
Works of Love.S. Kierkegaard, David Swenson & Lillian Swenson - 1946 - Philosophy 23 (84):87-88.

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