This work renews the basic questions and principles of philsophical ethics and provides a thorough account of how being oneself presupposes freedom and responsibility. The author focuses on the descriptive and conceptual analysis of the experiences through which human lives become aware of themselves as being provoked and urged to respond appropriately to the various dimensions and phenomena of the universe. Operating on the provocative thesis that if the ethical is real, it cannot be proved, because it is either nothing at all or an irreducible origin, the book pursues the question that defines ethics: How should I live? After setting out a preliminary definition of terms, it provides insight into the relation of human individuals and the world by showing that the traditional separation between is and ought overlooks their profound coincidence, and by clarifying the determining, though often overlooked, role of affectivity and katharsis in all ethical experiences.