Seeing the other

pp. 134-144

in: Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard's mirrors, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

Kierkegaard seems to make a viable case that Scripture and ethically edifying narratives can operate as "mirrors," in which moral agents see their own condition reflected to them in conceptual content which ostensibly does not include them. But what of persons, other ethical agents, and moral patients, as mirrors? Relating ourselves to moral exemplars is, as John Lippitt notes, "a vital part of ethical and religious development and self-understanding" for Kierkegaard.¹ But the way in which we relate ourselves to exemplars is potentially problematic for other aspects of our moral vision.