Ethics as Second Philosophy, or the Traces of the Pre-Ethical in Heidegger’s Being and Time

Abstract

I argue that Heidegger’s central phenomenological contribution to the ethical problematic consists in disclosing the ethical life of subjectivity as split between two extremes, and there is no resolution between them. I show that in Being and Time, one can discern two sharply contrasting tendencies, which I call the anti-ethical and the ante-ethical tendencies. Although Heidegger has provided at least two ways to dispel such an ethical incongruity, I maintain that neither of the proposed solutions is satisfactory; nor is a solution called for. It is rather promising to return to the phenomenological description of two conflicting ethical tendencies in Being and Time. Heidegger’s early description entails a profound insight, viz., the insight that the ethical life of subjectivity is incontestably and inescapably torn between ethical regulations and moral motivations.