Time and Ethics

One of the central normative tenets of Being and Time is that one should remain true to one's ownmost self, with 'one's ownmost self' defined in terms of one's mortality. That definition has been challenged in a variety of ways, e. g. for Sartre, one's death is the most anonymous, not the most personal, of events, while Spinozism precludes the possibility of death inhering in Conatus. Here, a further objection is that 'one's death' is a completely contentless notion, thereby leaving the derived notion of Selfhood groundless. The position here is, instead, that what is 'one's ownmost' is everything that one has done, culminating in one's most recent experiences, or, in other words, one's Temporality, as has been previously explained. Hence, Time is Ethically significant, i. e. it is the sphere in which one is true to oneself, e. g. personal integrity in conduct. But, as has also been previously discussed, Space, too, is Ethically significant, as the structure of one's extending oneself towards others. Thus, Ethics is constituted by a combination of Space and Time, i. e. it concerns the achieving of a balance between extending oneself towards others and remaining true to oneself. Recognition of the former Ethical dimension is lacking in Being and Time, that of the latter, in Levinas' theory.