Development of the Concept of Ethics from Søren Kierkegaard’s Viewpoint in Facing Three Spheres of Life

Even if Kierkegaard in his thoughts accords a special status to ethics as one of the spheres of life, this does not mean that ethics plays no role in the aesthetic and religious stages . Since ethics manifests itself in them, it is insufficient to offer just one single interpretation of the ethical – which appears to take the form of morality based on the universal – in order to understand comprehensively the ethical in Kierkegaard’s thought . Thus it is appropriate to explore the ethical in a broad range of his works so as to highlight its neglected aspects which are not necessarily compatible with the common account of the ethical as the universal . Explicating these different aspects, this article seeks to provide a more inclusive account of the ethical in other spheres of life than the common account . To do so, it examines the roles and functions of the ethical in three spheres of aesthetics, ethics, and religion separately, and explains their similarities and dissimilarities .