Dasein and ἦθος: do values exist?

The article considers M. Heidegger’s deconstruction of the metaphysical foundations for the moral philosophy of modern times. Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle (together with an analysis of early Christianity) offers an original version of ontology combined with ethics. In such optics, Being and Time, like Nicomachean Ethics, is an ethical treatise: it is also based on an understanding of human ethos (from the Greek ἦθος, “temper, character, nest”) and reveals the characteristics of life structured by “proper”. During the Age of Enlightenment (17th–19th centuries), a paradigm shift occurred in the field of practical philosophy, associated with the transition from ethics (that is, ethos as a form of life with its practical and normative dimensions) to moral concepts based on individualism and the distinction between facts and values. The split between ontology and the teachings of morality made impossible any rational substantiation or justification of ethics. Unlike modernist theories of morality, which attempt to express impartial and value-free principles of individual behavior, Heidegger explores the conditions for the possibility of changing lifestyles. His understanding of ethics can be interpreted in an Aristotelian context, in which life in society (that is, being in a “shared world”) determines the ontological conditions that make ethical action possible. The philosopher reveals the existence of Dasein in the context of a certain perfectionist understanding: two modes are found in it, one of which is obviously more valuable (or perfect) than the other – at least due to a wider perspective and deep self-understanding. The fulfillment of “ethics” means revealing an individualizing (“owned”) way of disclosing the world, what implies sensitivity to the call of Being and a readiness in the midst of the world to transform one’s finiteness in order to become a “genuine” member of the historical community. In the ontological structure of Dasein, such way of being is fulfilled in special revealing “moods” (πάθη), which are not reducible either to empirical sensibility or to cognitive functions.

The factual enactment of ethical values is expressed in resoluteness, steadfast adherence to the chosen historical heritage, sensitivity to all aspects of the existential situation. These characteristics of revealing “moods” form a list of metacultural virtues that are the basis for mutual understanding and dialogue between representatives of various “ethoses” of a fragmented society.

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