The Journal of Value Inquiry32: 275–278, 1998. 275c 1998Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

BOOK REVIEW

Edward Mooney, Selves in Discord and Resolve.New York: Routledge,1996, 103 pp. (indexed). ISBN 0-415-91370-5, (Pb) US$ 17.95.

Edward Mooney’sSelves in Discord and Resolveis more than an analysis ofSøren Kierkegaard’s moral and religious psychology. It is a contribution topost-analytic philosophy.

Showing how Kierkegaard’s edifice unfolds with each contribution, Mooneyfocuses onEither/Or, The Job Discourse, Fear and Trembling, Conclud-ing Unscientific PostScript, andSickness Unto Death. The initial theme ofMooney’sbook springs from Kierkegaard’s reaction inEither/Or against theesthete. While a “well-assimilated member of Danish society”, the estheteremains ethically empty (p. 12). Striking a Kantian chord, Kierkegaard showsthat “whatever outward acts may lie in accord with moral code . . . the esthetedoes not act from a moral stance or source” p. 12). More specifically, he has avacuous self-relationship. He displays an acute sensitivity to the Socratic callto know thyself. What is missing is an effort to choose thyself. By emphasizingthis qualified Socratic call, and by drawing out the general Kantian roots ofthis task, Mooney frames Kierkegaard’s project within themes recognizableto readers less versed in European existentialism.

A defining point of Kierkegaard’s existential ethics, and the focus ofMooney’s post-analytic analysis, is its deeply rich account of self-choice.Contrasting Kierkegaard’s position with the positions of R.M. Hare, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of Kierkegaardian choice,Mooney stresses that self-identity is not “the product of whim, making it lookas though he has absolute power to make himself into whatever he wanted”(p. 16). Neither does self-choice entail separating “from others or becominga solitary recluse” (p. 16). Selfhood demands neither the romantic physicalisolation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’sReveries of a Solitary Walkernor theromantic existential separation of Richard Rorty’s strong poet. Unlike Rorty’sinsistence that romantic self-creation is private and irrelevant to public life,Kierkegaardian self-choice responds to the individual’s identity as the fruitof a historical community. A person’s self-choice is, in part, a response to anidentity that is already given to the person. Self-choice is, as Mooney, quotingStanley Cavell, puts it inKnights of Faith and Resignation, “not – it is thereverse of – possessive; . . . it is the exercise not of power but of reception”(p. 91).

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As with Cavell’s Emersonian speculations, the roots of Kierkegaardianself-choice reach deeper than historical community. Self-identity is a giftfrom an eternal source that is radically and inexplicably other. With this,Mooney brings forward Kierkegaard’s most provocative theme. Taking a cluefrom Charles Taylor’s account of relations of renewal, Mooney suggests thatotherness is experienced as “world-conferral” (p. 38). The plausibility ofthis interpretation is best left to Kierkegaard scholars. Yet Mooney offers arewarding encounter with Kierkegaard’s self-described irrational Christianity,showing how inexplicable shifts of someone’s worldview challenge the limitsof ethical pursuits.

Kierkegaard offers a radical challenge to ethics in his provocative portrayalof Abraham inFear and Trembling. Importantly, he does not abandon thecall he makes inEither/Or to choose thyself.Fear and Tremblingreframesthis task. It “drives a wedge between respect for the moral law and worshipof a Source of all value” (p. 59). Confronted with the choice between hisson and the moral law, and God’s demand to sacrifice his son, Abrahamfaces the trembling despair of some ethical journeys. Even though he hasnot entirely chosen what he values and who he is, and he finds himselfcommitted to a deed that conflicts with the moral law he accepts, Abrahamremains true to the commitments that fill his world. This example can bephilosophically distracting, misleadingly suggesting that everyone will faceequally horrendous deeds. Insightfully Mooney’s references to Kierkegaard’ssimple shopman helps readers avoid this conclusion. Like the shopman whoquietly lives an uneventful life, we need never face Abraham’s dramaticchallenge. This is not the point.

Whether it is through horrendous ordeals or mundane events, an ethicallife “is perfect neither in intention nor in accomplishment” (p. 25). Thereremains an “inevitable gap between what the moral self requires of itselfand what its actual performance and motives are” (p. 25). To choose thyself,an individual faces the despairing recognition of this inevitable tragedy. AsMartha Nussbaum has proposed in herFragility of Goodness, an ethical lifeis like a fragile plant that is vulnerable to setbacks. Mooney introduces arewarding theme. As a response to the despairing upheavals of an ethical life,choosing thyself involves a commitment to existential accord and resolve. Tochoose thyself involves facing despairing dramas of recognized failure andanticipated reconciliation, responsibly accepting the burden of fault whilefaithfully hoping for existential renewal.

Human despair and faith are compounded by the complexity of existentialrenewal. Examining the account of the self inSickness Unto Death, Mooneyoffers a description, reminiscent of Thomas Nagel, of human existence asan ensemble of juxtaposed pairs. To be a self is to face ongoing conflicts

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between eternal and temporal perspectives, to be infinite and finite, and tostruggle with freedom and necessity. In addition, more than an unrelatedcollection of relations, a self is a “flourishing whole in a fluid unity” (p. 91).A self is, he proposes, like a musical ensemble which finds coherence andunity through dynamic interaction between distinct parts.

Extending his engaging musical metaphor, Mooney compares the despair-ing inevitability of existential renewal to a tonal shift. Just as music can“become so fractured and disjointed that no sense of authoritative center . . .is present,” someone trying to live an ethical life faces disjointed momentsof normative conflict (p. 98). The person’s identity is seemingly lost. Just as“what in the old key was a fundamental pitch may in the new key becomea passing tone, relatively unimportant,” an individual’s life is vulnerable toradical adjustments that despairingly leave behind past commitments (p. 98).Instead of resigning from the world, abandoning it before it is tragically lost,living an ethical life calls for moments of deep inexplicable faith that thecommitments defining our identity will endure through despairing existentialrenewals.

Mooney’sSelves in Discord and Resolvebegins as a post-analytic analy-sis of Kierkegaard, with references to contemporary authors. As such it is acontinuation of hisKnights of Faith and Resignation. But it unfolds into aKierkegaardian analysis of post-analytic themes. The chapter “KierkegaardOur Contemporary” draws comparisons among the writings of Harry Frank-furt, Charles Taylor, and Nagel, and the claim inConcluding Unscientific Post-scriptthat “Truth is Subjectivity.” The chapter “A View From Here and Now”focuses on Kierkegaard and Nagel. Mooney’s comparison of Frankfurt’s dis-cussion of higher order beliefs and desires with Kierkegaard’s account of“double reflection” is especially rewarding (p. 67). In Williams’s account of“ground projects,” as well as analogous themes in Nagel and Taylor, Mooneyfinds Kierkegaardian themes, stressing “the failure of reason, in any ultimatesense, to gird up our cares” (pp. 73–74). In the process, Mooney clarifies thenotion of truth as subjectivity, portraying it as a call to be true to subjectivity.Kierkegaard challenges readers to face the qualified Socratic task to choosethyself in lieu of receptivity. He calls us to continue ethical, self-definingpursuits despite despairingly inevitable ordeals.

Mooney’s book has two shortcomings. First, considering Mooney’s focuson receptivity, the chapter on Nagel is disjointed and anti-climatic. A morepunctuated culmination might have explored Charles Taylor’s writings, whichrichly examine the sources of self-identity. In addition, Mooney’s Kierkegaar-dian analysis unnecessarily truncates existential pursuits. It drives a wedgebetween ethical commitments and the task of becoming a self. Choosing thy-self is the inward task of becoming ripe for renewal, a task that Kierkegaard

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insists conflicts with, and demands suspension of, mundane ethical pursuits.But ethics need not be suspended for a supraethical existential call. It neednot lead to Mooney’s call to faithful receptivity. Selfhood is not passive-ly received. Existential renewal more plausibly involves cultivating a senseof self through an integrated natural process involving active influence andreceptive acceptance. Though active influence and receptive acceptance canconflict, resolution does not demand either one at the expense of the other. Itinvolves their integration.

Despite these concerns, however, Mooney’s book is rewarding. A maturesense of selfhood demands more than self-knowledge. It is, in part, to facechoices given an awareness of ourselves as choosing individuals. While oftennot acknowledged, post-analytic philosophical literature explores these andother existential themes. It is what Mooney dubs “romantic analysis” (p.65). Interested in revealing this as much as Kierkegaard’s edifice,Selves inDiscord and Resolveis more than a clear presentation of Kierkegaard’s moraland religious psychology.

Michael DonovanDepartment of PhilosophySanta Rosa Junior College

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