Summary: Either/Or (page 8)

The aesthete is characterised by the great richness of his inner life, by the many talents—artistic or otherwise—that are like so many seeds within him; but also, as we have seen, by his lack of will.

He therefore lets his talents develop of their own accord, without ordering them, without taking any definite direction, in a kind of anarchy: His soul is like a piece of ground on which all sorts of herbs grow, each with an equal right to thrive; his self rests in this variety. Thus, you see what aesthetic development means: it is a development like that of a plant; and although the individual becomes, he becomes what he is immediately. ¹

There is, to be sure, an aesthetic seriousness—one can choose to cultivate this or that talent, to become a Don Juan, a Faust, and so on—and it is like all seriousness, useful for a man; but it can never save him entirely. Only ethical seriousness can.

Only the ethical person develops and matures in the sense in which we say someone grows up. Whereas the aesthete remains, all his life, a kind of irresponsible 'adolescent', the person who has reached the ethical stage is an 'adult': he has chosen to become one, and has not relied on spontaneous development to reach this full and completed form of himself. It is a free and voluntary choice.

We understand, then, that Judge Wilhelm does not merely describe two stages of existence—he ranks them: I cannot live under aesthetic determinations; I feel that what is most sacred in my life would perish. I demand a higher expression, and I find it in the ethical.

But is that also Kierkegaard's own position as author? Does Kierkegaard himself advise his readers to turn towards the ethical life? That is not certain. There are signs that might give one pause.

In the Preface, Victor Eremita raises the question and answers it as follows: there is no need to ask who has 'won', whether A was convinced by B, or the other way round, because 'these papers have no ending'. That is all to the good:

One sometimes finds stories in which certain characters set out opposing ways of looking at life. The ending is generally that one convinces the other; whereas the point of view ought to recommend itself, the reader is presented with this historical result: the other was convinced. I therefore find it fortunate that these papers give no information about that. Once the book is read, A and B will be forgotten; only the two conceptions will continue to confront one another, without this or that personification providing a definitive solution.

There is no genuine choice—no 'either/or'—if one branch of the alternative imposes itself of its own accord. What constitutes choice as such, what gives it its tragic character, is precisely that nothing is self-evident: one must choose without knowing, as if leaping off a precipice.

Certainly, the ethical man, embodied by Judge Wilhelm, has the last word—giving us the impression that he carries the day. But it is naïve to think that whoever has the last word is right.

We do not know the aesthete's reply to Judge Wilhelm. But that is in fact part of the logic of his character. When one has an aesthetic conception of life, one does not seek to ground one's position rationally or deploy arguments: logic is not part of the aesthete's arsenal. He may try to persuade, to seduce, but not to convince—for that would be to embark on something serious. One might imagine that A's only reply to B's letter would be a great burst of laughter.

By leaving the two conceptions on an equal footing, with nothing coming to rank them, Kierkegaard lives up to the genius of his title: Either/Or. For the difficulty of choice appears here in all its tragic force.

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¹ Our translation. The references for the quotations are available in the book Kierkegaard: A Close Reading