Revising Resoluteness: Confronting the Moral Problem of Others in Being and Time

Abstract

ABSTRACT Heidegger’s Being and Time has been criticized for its lack of moral concern toward others. I address this problem by reviewing and developing several revisionist interpretations. I call these the historicist, sympathy-oriented, and ontological approaches to the moral problem of others. First, I develop the ontological approach and propose to reinterpret being authentic as proper to our essence. Second, I use Heidegger’s idea in Being and Time that our essence lies in disclosure to suggest that we comprehend resoluteness as being proper to both world- and self-disclosure. Then I revise Heidegger’s definition of resoluteness to argue that our world-disclosure requires us to help others recover their authentic selves, and that this is what Heidegger is gesturing toward when he writes about “leaping ahead”. Third, I briefly assess the ethical implications of “leaping ahead” and conclude that it does not allow us to treat others as mere objects.