Key Arguments

• After describing Heidegger’s approach, Ricoeur explicitly states: 'To this demoralization of conscience, I would oppose a conception that closely associates the phenomenon of injunction to that of attestation.'
• He defines the new structure of conscience in terms of otherness and voice: 'Being-enjoined would then constitute the moment of otherness proper to the phenomenon of conscience, in accordance with the metaphor of the voice. Listening to the voice of conscience would signify being-enjoined by the Other.'
• He insists that this conception would restore the ethical sense of 'debt' that Heidegger had ontologized: 'In this way, the rightful place of the notion of debt would be acknowledged, a notion that was too hastily ontologized by Heidegger at the expense of the ethical dimension of indebtedness.'
• He links conscience back to his ethical triad: 'In fact, it is the entire triad presented in the three preceding studies that offers itself here to a rcinterpretation in terms of otherness. I am called to live well with and for others in just institutions: this is the first injunction.'
• Ricoeur characterizes the passivity specific to conscience in this model as listening to a second‑person address that pervades ethics: 'If this is so, the passivity of being-enjoined consists in the situation of listening in which the ethical subject is placed in relation to the voice addressed to it in the second person.'
• He summarizes the structure of this second‑person injunction across ethical levels: 'To find oneself called upon in the second person at the very core of the optative of living well, then of the prohibition to kill, then of the search for the choice appropriate to the situation, is to recognize oneself as being enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions and to esteem oneself as the bearer of this wish.'
• He explicitly contrasts his approach with the reduction of conscience to 'good'/'bad' verdicts and court‑like judgment, arguing that re‑connecting injunction and attestation will prevent the 'short-circuit between conscience and obligation' that 'results [in] the re duction of the voice of conscience to the verdict of the court.'

Source Quotes

346). It is as though the philosopher were referring his reader to a moral situationism destined to fill the silence of an indeterminate call.63 To this demoralization of conscience, I would oppose a conception that closely associates the phenomenon of injunction to that of attestation. Being-enjoined would then constitute the moment of otherness proper to the phenomenon of conscience, in accordance with the metaphor of the voice.

It is as though the philosopher were referring his reader to a moral situationism destined to fill the silence of an indeterminate call.63 To this demoralization of conscience, I would oppose a conception that closely associates the phenomenon of injunction to that of attestation. Being-enjoined would then constitute the moment of otherness proper to the phenomenon of conscience, in accordance with the metaphor of the voice. Listening to the voice of conscience would signify being-enjoined by the Other. In this way, the rightful place of the notion of debt would be acknowledged, a notion that was too hastily ontologized by Heidegger at the expense of the ethical dimension of indebtedness.

Listening to the voice of conscience would signify being-enjoined by the Other. In this way, the rightful place of the notion of debt would be acknowledged, a notion that was too hastily ontologized by Heidegger at the expense of the ethical dimension of indebtedness. But how are we to avoid falling back into the trap of "bad" and "good" conscience, from which we are protected by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, each in his own way?

In fact, it is the entire triad presented in the three preceding studies that offers itself here to a rcinterpretation in terms of otherness. I am called to live well with and for others in just institutions: this is the first injunction. However, following a suggestion mentioned above, one borrowed from Franz Rosenzweig in The Star of Redemption (bk.

Conscience, as attestation-injunction, signifies that these "ownmost possibilities" of Dasein are primordially structured by the optative mood of living well, which mood governs in a secondary fashion the imperative of respect and links up with the conviction belonging to moral judgment in situation. If this is so, the passivity of being-enjoined consists in the situation of listening in which the ethical subject is placed in relation to the voice addressed to it in the second person. To find oneself called upon in the second person at the very core of the optative of living well, then of the prohibition to kill, then of the search for the choice appropriate to the situation, is to recognize oneself as being enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions and to esteem oneself as the bearer of this wish.

If this is so, the passivity of being-enjoined consists in the situation of listening in which the ethical subject is placed in relation to the voice addressed to it in the second person. To find oneself called upon in the second person at the very core of the optative of living well, then of the prohibition to kill, then of the search for the choice appropriate to the situation, is to recognize oneself as being enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions and to esteem oneself as the bearer of this wish. The otherness of the Other is then the counterpart, on the dialectical level of the "great kinds," to this passivity specific to being-enjoined.

Key Concepts

• To this demoralization of conscience, I would oppose a conception that closely associates the phenomenon of injunction to that of attestation.
• Being-enjoined would then constitute the moment of otherness proper to the phenomenon of conscience, in accordance with the metaphor of the voice. Listening to the voice of conscience would signify being-enjoined by the Other.
• In this way, the rightful place of the notion of debt would be acknowledged, a notion that was too hastily ontologized by Heidegger at the expense of the ethical dimension of indebtedness.
• I am called to live well with and for others in just institutions: this is the first injunction.
• the passivity of being-enjoined consists in the situation of listening in which the ethical subject is placed in relation to the voice addressed to it in the second person.
• To find oneself called upon in the second person at the very core of the optative of living well, then of the prohibition to kill, then of the search for the choice appropriate to the situation, is to recognize oneself as being enjoined to live well with and for others in just institutions and to esteem oneself as the bearer of this wish.

Context

Constructive turn in 'c. Conscience' where Ricoeur, after critiquing Heidegger, sketches his own account of conscience as a dialectical phenomenon uniting attestation and ethical injunction, structured as a second-person voice calling to the 'good life with and for others in just institutions'.