Illusions of Ethical Independence: the Last Word in Either/Or

What are we to make of the sermon at the end of Either/Or? How does it stand in relation to the book’s preceding presentations of aesthetic and ethical life? Why is it presented under the title, ‘Ultimatum’? This chapter takes up these questions by showing how the sermon, and the fictional Jutland priest to whom it is attributed, serve to represent a certain development within ethical subjectivity. On the reading I develop, the sermon represents, namely, a way of trying to sustain a stance of participation in ethical life, in the face of experiences of human powerlessness and exposure to tragedy, without despair but also without succumbing to illusions of ethical independence. So understood, the sermon offers a perspective that, while it incorporates elements of both, provides a third alternative to the tragic outlook of ‘A’ in Either/Or’s Volume One and the letters of Judge William in Volume Two.