Role Of Judge Wilhelm In Part B Of Søren Kierkegaard

Judge Wilhelm, who deems himself to be the voice of the ethical in Part B of Søren Kierkegaard’s “Either/Or,” recognizes his task as a response to the aesthetic existence of the writer denoted as “A,” in an attempt at what he believes to be edification. The root issue in this work that both perspectives A and B deliberate on is the substance of individual existence among a plethora of possibilities, and how the individual is to posit him/herself among them so as to develop a valuable relationship with them. The ethical, as defined by the Judge, consists in maturing to the reality of choice and temporality among these possibilities, and consequently coming into one’s own self through what he calls determination of the will (393). Conversely, …show more content…
It is the ever-present split between the reality of each individual’s life and what it could be, ethically, where choice is the mechanism by which we come to choose from possibilities and ideals. Choice is championed by the Judge to be the way that we come to realize ourselves, and of choice he states that the moment of choosing is very serious for him primarily because there is “danger afoot that at the next moment it may not be in my power to make the same choice.” (483) He classifies the act of choosing as “a literal and strict expression of the ethical.” (483) To the credit of the Judge, choice is an integral part of becoming a self, and the moment of choice ought to be given the proper attention. But as he delves further and further into the argument, some overtones of contradiction are revealed in his reasoning. If the moment of choice is to be viewed correctly as strictly ethical and in accordance with a set of universal values of good and evil, where is the room for the aesthetic dreaming and human imagination that the Judge has promised to restore in the ethical life? As the judge would have it, the ethical self consistently becomes more defined and strives to stay committed to the choices it has made so far in life, which closes out other possibilities. So, an individual must make choices in every instant that do not in any way conflict with choices made in the past. That is to say, in the ethical life of the judge, a person must constantly acknowledge the absolute nature of every choice and the fact that going back would be opposed to the development of the self. This hardly seems necessary, and viewing choices this concretely poses a danger to the human