Deleuze, Kierkegaard and the Ethics of Selfhood

Deleuze and Kierkegaard’s radical ethics of ‘becoming what one is’. Andrew Jampol-Petzinger pursues Gilles Deleuze’s significantly under-discussed interpretation of Soren Kierkegaard. He presents a view of ethics and selfhood that responds to theories of moral judgment and selfhood based on stable, substance-orientated forms of identity. Starting from their common rejection of these categories of moral judgement, and looking at their shared projects of ethics as fundamentally a matter of becoming who one is, Jampol-Petzinger argues for a conception of normativity that privileges ideas of growth and self-overcoming while also recognizing the importance and need for values adequate to leading a livable life.