Doubt, Despair, and Doxastic Agency: Kierkegaard on Responsibility for Belief

2.1 An Overview of Kierkegaardian Despair

While Kierkegaard’s interest in despair can be traced to early journal entries from 1835, Kierkegaard’s first extensive treatment of despair occurs in Either/Or (published in 1843).^[4] In part 2 of Either/Or, the ‘ethicist’ Judge William examines the ‘aesthete’ A’s despair as he enjoins A to choose an ‘ethical’ form of life. Following the publication of Either/Or, despair continues to be an important topic in Kierkegaard’s authorship, culminating in 1849 in Kierkegaard’s most developed and systematic treatment of despair in The Sickness unto Death.^[5] At the beginning of this text, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus famously defines the self as a relation that relates the poles of the synthesis constitutive of the human being: infinitude and finitude, temporality and eternity, and possibility (or freedom) and necessity (SUD 13/SKS 11, 129).^[6] Anti-Climacus proceeds to characterize despair – that is, the spiritual ‘sickness unto death’ – as a misrelation of the self. According to Anti-Climacus’s first taxonomy of the forms of despair – which considers despair with regard to the constituents of the synthesis – despair involves a failure to properly relate the constituents of the synthesis. For instance, possibility’s despair involves overemphasizing one’s freedom, whereas necessity’s despair involves inadequately embracing one’s freedom. According to Anti-Climacus’s second taxonomy of the forms of despair – which considers despair with regard to consciousness – one can despair either consciously or unconsciously. Unconscious despair involves ignorance that one is a self; conscious despair of weakness (Svaghed) involves not willing to be oneself; and conscious despair of defiance (Trods) involves willing to be oneself in the wrong way.

Yet interpreters disagree about how to further specify Kierkegaard’s claim that despair is a misrelation of the self. On perhaps the most common interpretation, Kierkegaard endorses a perfectionist (and eudaimonic) account of despair on which despair is not fundamentally a psychological state but rather a failure to be (and failure to will to be) the self one ought to be, and thereby a failure to perfect one’s nature or flourish.^[7] As Hannay puts it, “[W]e can say quite generally that despair in Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms is unwillingness to live up to an expectation of selfhood” (Hannay 1998, 338). While interpreters differ in precisely how they characterize this ‘expectation’ (or norm, or telos) of selfhood, it is often taken to involve (roughly) being wholeheartedly oriented towards and stably committed to the Good,^[8] such that one properly relates to oneself, one’s neighbor, and God.^[9]

However, a prominent alternative to the perfectionist interpretation is Kosch’s (2006a, 2006b) ‘agential interpretation’ of Kierkegaardian despair.^[10] On Kosch’s interpretation, despair does not fundamentally consist in failing to perfect one’s nature or failing to flourish, but rather fundamentally consists in misrelating to one’s agency.^[11] In Kosch’s words, “Despair in the most general sense [is] the unwillingness to accept human agency with all of its particular conditions” (Kosch 2006a, 97). In § 4, I will argue that Kosch’s agential interpretation can ultimately be synthesized with the perfectionist interpretation. But first, I aim to show that Kosch’s interpretation can be extended to shed light on Kierkegaard’s views regarding the relationship between despair and doubt. Let me begin by spelling out Kosch’s interpretation in more detail.

2.2 Kosch on Kierkegaardian Despair

On Kosch’s reading, Kierkegaard holds that one can misrelate to one’s agency by being unwilling to accept either of two conditions on one’s agency: first, one’s responsibility for deciding how to act, and second, ethical obligations with a source external to one’s own will. By unconsciously rejecting the first condition, one manifests unconscious despair. By consciously rejecting the first condition, one manifests the passive despair of weakness. And by rejecting the second condition, one manifests the active despair of defiance.

Kosch argues that unconscious despair and passive despair of weakness are the primary forms of despair that Judge William diagnoses A as manifesting in Either/Or. Kosch writes, “Despair, for the Judge, is the conscious or unconscious assumption of a passive or fatalistic attitude towards one’s existence, motivated by a misconstrual of the nature of one’s agency” (Kosch 2006a, 143). Kosch shows that Judge William’s criticisms of A are also intended to target the German Idealist (especially Hegelian and Schellingian) compatibilist conception of free agency. Kosch explains that Kierkegaard objects to compatibilism on the grounds that “seeing one’s activity as part of a deterministic historical process […] cannot be reconciled with the forward-looking standpoint of agency which forces deliberation and choice” (Kosch 2006a, 149). Consequently, Kosch claims, “The conversion to an ethical standpoint” – and thus the overcoming of despair – “is, in the Judge’s characterization, equivalent to the acceptance of choice, the taking up of responsibility” (Kosch 2006a, 150).^[12]

Kosch proceeds to argue that Kierkegaard’s fundamental critique of ‘the ethical’ later in his authorship – particularly his critique of the German Idealist (especially Fichtean) ‘ethics of autonomy’ – is likewise that it misconstrues the nature of human agency.^[13] Because proponents of the ethics of autonomy take the individual’s self-legislating will to be the source of ethical norms, they refuse to countenance any sources of normative authority external to the individual’s will (Kosch 2006a, 169–174). And by failing to recognize any ethical norms beyond the will’s “own sovereign self-determination,” the proponent of the ethics of autonomy manifests active, defiant despair (Kosch 2006a, 173).

2.3 Despair and Doxastic Agency

Yet a striking absence from Kosch’s (2006a) agential interpretation of Kierkegaardian despair is any discussion of the relationship between despair and doxastic agency. While it is possible that Kosch would grant that misrelating to one’s doxastic agency could be a form of despair and simply does not discuss this, a more principled explanation of this absence is that Kosch takes Kierkegaardian despair to consist only in the failure to properly exercise one’s agency in performing bodily actions, not in forming beliefs. This is because Kosch argues that Kierkegaard denies direct doxastic voluntarism (the view that we have direct voluntary control over our beliefs analogous to the direct voluntary control that we have over our bodily actions). Kosch claims that if Kierkegaard were to endorse direct doxastic voluntarism,

[this] would have serious consequences for the sort of normative criterion Christianity could be, since the claims it would make on an individual’s conduct would have what force they have on the basis of that individual’s decision to put credence in them. On such an interpretation, the individual himself becomes the source of the bindingness of the imperatives that guide his conduct. (Kosch 2006a, 188–189)

Kierkegaard rejects the view that the individual is the source of the bindingness of the imperatives that guide his conduct. By modus tollens, Kosch infers, Kierkegaard rejects direct doxastic voluntarism.^[14]

However, it is unclear why Kosch thinks that Kierkegaard endorses the conditional claim this argument relies on, namely that if direct doxastic voluntarism is true, then one is obligated to φ only if one believes that one is obligated to φ.^[15] Perhaps Kosch associates direct doxastic voluntarism with the ‘ethics of autonomy’s’ emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual’s will and its denial of obligations with a source external to the individual’s will. But having voluntary control over one’s beliefs as a psychological matter does not entail having the capacity to voluntarily bind or free oneself from moral obligations as a normative matter. While Kierkegaard holds that we possess practical agency over what we believe – as we will see in § 3 – to my knowledge there is no textual evidence indicating that he thinks this agency over our beliefs constitutes a normative power enabling us to bind or free ourselves from moral obligations at will.

To the contrary, there are good reasons to think that Kierkegaard endorses a sophisticated version of direct doxastic voluntarism on which our agency over our beliefs parallels our agency over our bodily actions in central respects.^[16] In the Climacus writings, Kierkegaard insists that we can never know any contingent proposition about the external world with complete certainty (PF 79–86/SKS 4, 278–285). Thus, he infers, it is always possible to doubt any contingent proposition about the external world. And whether we doubt or believe is determined by the will. Climacus claims, “doubt (tvivlen) can be terminated only in freedom, by an act of will (Villies-Akt)” (PF 82/SKS 4, 281). He continues, “belief (troen) is not a knowledge (Erkjendelse) but an act of freedom, an expression of will (en Villiens-Yttring)” (PF 83/SKS 4, 282). So, Climacus explains, “The conclusion of belief (Troens Slutning) is no conclusion (Slutning) but a resolution (Beslutning), and thus doubt is excluded (Tvivlen udelukket)” (PF 84/SKS 4, 283).

Examining this sentence helps to illuminate Kierkegaard’s conception of belief as involving a voluntary resolution that excludes doubt.^[17] Kierkegaard regards belief as involving a resolution in the sense that it halts further deliberation about whether p is true. In the Climacus writings, Kierkegaard claims that terminating inquiry, reflection, or deliberation about whether p involves a “leap” (spring): a free, voluntary, and qualitative transition from one state to another (PF 42–43/SKS 4, 247–249; CUP1 112–116, 335–338/SKS 7, 109–112, 306–309). As long as one chooses to inquire, reflect, or deliberate about whether p, one suspends judgment on p. Inquiring also entails doubting. In the (unpublished and incomplete) manuscript Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est, Kierkegaard characterizes doubt as a state in which one is “interested” in the question of whether p – i.e., one is consciously considering whether p – but has not concluded deliberation about whether p (JC 170/SKS 15, 57). One can “neutralize” doubt by “canceling” one’s interest in the question of whether p and thereby ceasing to consider whether p (JC 170/SKS 15, 57). But by voluntarily resolving to close inquiry into the question of whether p and thereby settling the question of whether p by forming a belief that p or a belief that not-p, doubt is “excluded” (PF 84/SKS 4, 283) and “conquered” (JC 170/SKS 15, 57).

In light of Kierkegaard’s claim that we can voluntarily resolve to believe or doubt just as we can voluntarily resolve to act, I suggest that we can extend Kosch’s interpretation of the relationship between agency and despair to shed light on Kierkegaard’s understanding of the relationship between doubt and despair.^[18] I aim to show in the following section that Kierkegaard takes the failure to properly exercise one’s doxastic agency – especially, but not exclusively, by doubting – to manifest an important form of despair which has been largely overlooked in Kierkegaard scholarship.^[19] These failures to exercise our doxastic agency come in three basic forms which are instances of unconscious despair, the despair of weakness, and the despair of defiance, respectively.^[20] The movement from unconscious doxastic despair to doxastic despair of weakness to doxastic despair of defiance thus represents an increasing intensification of despair which simultaneously constitutes dialectical progress towards overcoming despair.^[21] The following section will draw on a variety of signed and pseudonymous texts written throughout the course of Kierkegaard’s authorship to examine these three forms of doxastic despair in turn.

3.1 Unconscious Doxastic Despair

Kierkegaard takes a ubiquitous form of doxastic despair to consist in holding, unreflective, unexamined beliefs about ethico-religiously significant matters. Like Hume, Kierkegaard holds that we habitually form many beliefs about the world without consciously choosing to do so by passively assenting to the way things appear to us.^[22] For instance, in Works of Love, Kierkegaard writes, “The individual first begins his life with ‘ergo,’ with belief (Troen). But most people live so negligently (skjødesløst) that they do not notice at all that in one way or another, every minute they live, they live by virtue of an ‘ergo,’ of a belief (Troen)” (WL 230/SKS 9, 232, emphasis Kierkegaard’s). That is, Kierkegaard thinks that most people fail to recognize that they are freely making an inference from how things appear to how they really are.

It may typically be unproblematic to believe unreflectively, for example, that our sense perception of the middle-sized dry goods around us is veridical. However, holding unreflective beliefs about ethico-religiously significant matters – paradigmatically by habitually accepting the ethical and/or religious views common in one’s society – is a central aspect of the unconscious despair that Anti-Climacus describes in The Sickness unto Death. According to Anti-Climacus’s second taxonomy of despair – “Despair as Defined by Consciousness” – unconscious despair is the most immediate, least reflective, and least dialectically advanced form of despair. Unconscious despair is characterized by both ignorance of having a self and indifference towards this ignorance. Anti-Climacus writes, “it is far from being the case that men regard the relationship to truth, relating themselves to the truth, as the highest good, and it is very far from being the case that they Socratically regard being in error in this manner as the worst misfortune – the sensate in them usually far outweighs their intellectuality” (SUD 42–43/SKS 11, 157–158). The person in unconscious despair thus demonstrates a lack of concern for exercising their agency in numerous respects, including with respect to their beliefs.^[23]

Kierkegaard’s concern with unconscious doxastic despair can be traced back to his Magister’s thesis, The Concept of Irony. Kierkegaard argues that via his negative, ironic use of the elenchus, Socrates sought to induce doubt to reflectively distance his interlocutors from their unreflective ethico-religious beliefs.^[24] Kierkegaard argues that proper Socratic irony (irony “in the eminent sense”) does not simply aim to undermine specific beliefs, but rather targets “the entire given actuality (Virkelighed) at a certain time and under certain conditions” to undermine one’s fundamental ethical worldview (CI 254/SKS 1, 292). That is, irony aims to suspend one’s views about morality (Moral) and ethics (Sædelighed) (CI 283/SKS 1, 318). In K. Brian Söderquist’s words, by inducing doubt about his interlocutors’ conventional beliefs about ethico-religious matters, Socrates sought to “deliver listeners from the unexamined life as he questioned their seemingly unassailable convictions” (Söderquist 2013, 356).^[25] Indeed, much of Kierkegaard’s authorship can plausibly be interpreted as aiming to stir his readers out of their unreflective beliefs and thereby help them overcome unconscious doxastic despair. Thus, the reflective doubt that Socrates (and Kierkegaard qua ‘Christian Socrates’) seeks to induce constitutes dialectical progress in overcoming despair.

3.2 Doxastic Despair of Weakness

Nonetheless, Kierkegaard insists that the person who doubts regarding fundamental ethico-religiously significant matters still remains in despair. Although Kierkegaard allows that skeptical doubt about ordinary empirical matters is often unobjectionable, both totalizing, global skepticism – expressed by H. L. Martensen’s Cartesian dictum ‘De omnibus dubitandum est’ (‘Everything must be doubted’) – and skepticism about particular ethico-religiously significant propositions can manifest despair. Kierkegaard argues that a common pathological, despairing response to doubt is to take doubt to be out of one’s agential control, whether this is due to one’s own personal psychological proclivities or because one takes doubt to be psychologically and/or rationally necessitated by theoretical reason.

Kierkegaard consistently asserts that one can passively doubt in two different ways: by engaging in “scientific” (videnskabelig), disinterested, objective speculative doubt, or by engaging in “personal” (personlige), interested, subjective, existential doubt (e.g., EO2 95/SKS 3, 97–98; FT 110/SKS 4, 198). Speculative doubt is exemplified by the Danish Hegelian philosophers (especially Martensen) who take philosophy to begin with doubt and hold that we ought to continue deliberating, reflecting, and doubting until we have acquired knowledge involving objective certainty. Yet due to their epistemological holism – according to which one cannot know part of reality in isolation from an understanding of the whole – they remain (or purport to remain) in a state of universal doubt until they have attained ‘presuppositionless’ knowledge of the entirety of reality.^[26] And because speculative doubters regard doubt solely as a theoretical, intellectual enterprise, they lack a properly ‘interested,’ personal, passionate concern with their doubt.^[27]

By contrast, beginning in his early journal entries and continuing throughout at least his first authorship, Kierkegaard takes passionate, existential doubt to be exemplified by the character of Faust.^[28] A explains, “Faust is a doubter (Tvivler), but [unlike the speculative doubter] he is no vain fool who wants to make himself important by doubting what others believe; his doubt has an objective foundation (objectiv Grund) in him” (EO1 208/SKS 2, 203). Lisi (2014) argues that Kierkegaard understands Faustian doubt (both in A’s remarks in Either/Or and elsewhere in his authorship) as involving an attempt to find a principle to unify experience, whether this is a practical principle that gives structure to one’s own personal experiences or a theoretical principle enabling one to attain knowledge of the whole of reality. A explains, “[Faust’s] doubting soul (tvivlende Sjæl) finds nothing in which it can rest, and now he grasps at erotic love (griber han Elskoven), not because he believes (troer) in it but because it has an element of presentness in which there is a momentary rest and a striving that diverts and that draws attention away from the nothingness of doubt (Tvivlens Intethed)” (EO1 206/SKS 2, 201). Because Faust’s endless quest for such a principle to structure and unify his experience manifests an existentially consuming form of doubt, Faust exhibits a totalizing, existential form of doubt that manifests despair. Existential doubt is thus a deeper, more intensified form of doubt than speculative doubt.

Yet despite their differences, both speculative and existential forms of passive doubt involve taking oneself to be compelled to continue suspending judgment indefinitely. In Either/Or and the Climacus writings, Kierkegaard argues especially forcefully that doubting in this way manifests despair by constituting a failure to take responsibility for one’s doxastic agency.^[29]

In Either/Or, A’s existential, Faustian doubt exhibits the doxastic despair of weakness.^[30] Not only does A express a fatalistic unwillingness to take responsibility for his bodily actions (as Kosch argues), but he is unwilling to assume responsibility for his beliefs.^[31] In the ‘Diapsalmata,’ A writes, “I have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge (erkjende) anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything” (EO1, 23/SKS 2, 32).^[32] That is, A’s skepticism results from the vice of cowardice, rather than a judgment that he is epistemically required to doubt. And because of his doubt, A despairs. He laments, “my soul’s poisonous doubt consumes everything (min Sjæls giftige Tvivl fortærer Alt)” (EO1 37/SKS 2, 46). In this respect, A seems to regard his doubt as closely resembling Faust’s doubt (EO1 204–214/SKS 2, 200–209). His various attempts to avoid boredom and nihilism – chronicled throughout part 1 of Either/Or^[33] – thus partly function as ways of both distracting himself from his consuming doubt and evading responsibility for forming the beliefs partly constitutive of ethical commitments. So, I suggest, just as A despairs by incessantly deliberating about how to act without decisively choosing to form committal intentions or resolutions (EO2 165/SKS 3, 162),^[34] A likewise despairs by incessantly doubting and refusing to take responsibility for resolving to conclude his deliberation about what to believe about ethically significant matters.

One prima facie challenge for this interpretation of Either/Or is that while Judge William diagnoses A’s refusal to take responsibility for his agency in acting as a form of despair, he appears to affirm A’s views regarding the necessity of doubt and thus appears to deny that we have agency in believing. Judge William writes, “Choose despair, then, because despair itself is a choice (Valg), because one can doubt (tvivle) without choosing it, but one cannot despair (fortvivle) without choosing it” (EO2 211/SKS 3, 203). He continues:

Doubt is thought’s despair; despair is personality’s doubt. (Tvivl er Tankens Fortvivlelse, Fortvivlelse er Personlighedens Tvivl.) That is why I cling so firmly to the defining characteristic “to choose” (Bestemmelse at vælge); it is my watchword, the nerve in my life-view (Livs-Anskuelse), and that I do have, even if I can in no way presume to have a system (System). Doubt is the inner movement in thought itself (indre Bevægelse i Tanken selv), and in my doubt I conduct myself as impersonally (upersonligt) as possible. I assume that thought, when doubt is carried through, finds the absolute (Absolute) and rests therein; therefore, it rests therein not pursuant to a choice (Valg) but pursuant to the same necessity (Nødvendighed) pursuant to which it doubted, for doubt itself is a qualification of necessity, and likewise rest. (EO2 211–212/SKS 3, 203)

Doubt is a qualification of necessity because it is thought’s despair, and the realm of thought is governed by necessity. By contrast, despair pertains to the realm of personality, which is governed by freedom. For this reason, Judge William explains, “[T]here is much truth in a person’s saying ‘I would like to believe, but I cannot – I must doubt’ (jeg kan ikke, jeg maa tvivle)” (EO2 212/SKS 3, 203).

Yet with the distinction between existential doubt and speculative doubt in view – which Judge William introduces earlier in Part 2 of Either/Or (EO2 95/SKS 3, 97–98) – it is clear that this passage pertains not to the entire genus of doubt but only to the species of speculative doubt. Judge William here prefaces his discussions of doubt with a reference to Martensen’s speculative doubt: “There has been more than sufficient talk in modern philosophy about all speculation beginning with doubt (Tvivl), but insofar as I have been able on occasion to be occupied by such deliberations, I sought in vain for some enlightenment on how doubt is different from despair (Fortvivlelse)” (EO2 211/SKS 3, 203). So although Judge William claims that speculative doubters take themselves to be psychologically and rationally compelled to doubt, this does not imply that genuine existential doubters lack agency over whether they doubt. Rather, Judge William is mocking those (namely, Martensen and his students) who have “recommended and promoted” doubt yet “hardly understood what they were saying” (EO2 212/SKS 3, 203). Indeed, the speculative doubter’s claim that doubt is psychologically and rationally compelled is part of what Judge William distances himself from when he denies that he is “a logician (Logiker)” and claims that he has “only one category” – namely, “the significance of choosing (Betydningen af det at vælge)” (EO2 213/SKS 3, 205).^[35] Judge William can therefore be interpreted as criticizing both the Hegelian philosopher’s speculative doubt and A’s Faustian, existential doubt for denying the significance of choice regarding their beliefs.^[36]

In the sermon at the end of Either/Or – the ‘Ultimatum’ – the Jutland pastor further develops Judge William’s view by arguing that we have a free choice about whether to believe or doubt (in an existential rather than speculative sense) that we are in the wrong in relation to God.^[37] You will only believe that you are in the wrong in relation to God, the Jutland pastor argues, if you love God and wish to be in the wrong in relation to God. He explains, “You did not arrive at this acknowledgment out of mental toil (Tankens Besværlighed); you were not forced (Du nødsagedes ikke), for when you are in love (Kjærlighed) you are in freedom (Frihed)” (EO2 349/SKS 3, 328). That is, the wish to be in the wrong in relation to God “is love’s wish and consequently a matter of freedom (Frihedens Sag), and you were by no means forced to acknowledge that you were always in the wrong. Thus it was not through deliberation (Overveielse) that you became certain that you were always in the wrong, but the certainty (Visheden) was due to your being built up by it” (EO2 350/SKS 3, 328). And by lovingly and freely choosing to believe that you are always in the wrong in relation to God, the Jutland pastor claims, “[A]n end is put to doubt (Tvivlen standset), for the movement of doubt consisted precisely in this: that at one moment (Øieblik) he was supposed to be in the right, the next moment in the wrong, to a degree (til en vis Grad) in the right, to a degree in the wrong” (EO2 352/SKS 3, 330–331). The Jutland pastor thus anticipates Climacus’s claim that we can freely choose to overcome doubt by resolving to terminate our deliberation and believe.

Indeed, as we saw above, in Fragments Climacus insists that whether one believes or doubts is determined by the will. Climacus develops and applies this view in the Postscript, where he argues that the person who chooses to doubt rather than form a belief about the nature of the highest good is in despair.^[38] In the first paragraph of the first chapter of the Postscript (“The Historical Point of View”), Climacus remarks that the “infinitely interested” (uendeligt interesseret) person who seeks to base their eternal happiness on a historical claim such as the doctrine of the Incarnation – that is, an existential doubter – must despair, as objective historical inquiry can never provide the certainty they seek (CUP1 23/SKS 7, 30). The only way to overcome this despair is to resolve to make a ‘leap’ (spring) to believe despite the objective uncertainty of the historical evidence.^[39] Without making this leap, inquirers who remain in a state of doubt by continually searching for more historical evidence regarding the reliability of Christian doctrine and take themselves to be compelled to doubt until they have attained objective certainty fail to properly exercise their doxastic agency and thereby despair.

Similarly, Climacus argues that speculative doubters (paradigmatically Hegelian philosophers) fail to accept responsibility for their beliefs for (at least) two reasons. First, the speculative doubter fails to recognize that they are a subject who doubts by mediating between ideality and reality (that is, by mentally representing reality as actually or possibly having particular properties).^[40] In the Postscript, Climacus writes, “Speculation (Speculationen) does everything – it doubts everything (tvivler om Alt) etc. The speculative thinker, on the other hand, has become too objective (objektiv) to talk about himself. Therefore he does not say that he doubts everything but that speculation does it and that he says this of speculation – he says no more, as in a case of private proceedings” (CUP1 51/SKS 7, 56). However, Climacus explains, this is a mistake: “As is well known, Socrates states that when we assume flute-playing, we must also assume a flutist, and consequently if we assume speculative thought (Speculation), we also have to assume a speculative thinker (Speculant) or several speculative thinkers” (CUP1 51–52/SKS 7, 56). That is, by attempting to abstract away from their individual perspective to attain a god’s-eye point of view, the speculative thinker ignores the fact that the individual thinking subject plays an ineliminable role in the act of thinking.^[41]

Second, speculative thinkers must either take themselves to be compelled to remain in a state of skeptical doubt until they have attained objective certainty by reaching a complete, holistic understanding of reality or (perhaps more commonly) mistakenly believe that they have already attained this complete, holistic understanding (CUP1 34/SKS 7, 40). They thus remain in despair unless they make the leap to believe in full recognition of objective uncertainty (CUP1 105–106, 112–116, 335–338/SKS 7, 102–103, 109–112, 306–309).^[42] Regarding belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation, Climacus explains:

While the understanding despairs (Forstanden fortvivler), faith (Troen) presses forward victoriously in the passion of inwardness (Inderlighedens Lidenskab). But when the believer uses all his understanding (Forstand), every last turn of despair, just to discover the difficulty of the paradox, then truly no part is left with which to explain (forklare) the paradox – but for all that, there can indeed be the ample firmness of faith (rigeligt Troens) in the passion of inwardness. (CUP1 225 n1/SKS 7, 207)

Embracing this “passion of inwardness” involves terminating one’s doubt by accepting one’s doxastic agency and resolving to form a belief about whether the doctrine of the Incarnation is true, despite its persistent objective uncertainty and one’s inability to understand it. Consequently, by taking theoretical reason to compel doubt, the disinterested, objective speculative philosopher (like the interested, subjectively concerned historical inquirer) refuses to take responsibility for their doxastic agency and thereby exhibits the doxastic despair of weakness.

3.3 Doxastic Despair of Defiance

We have seen that Kierkegaard takes a common form of doxastic despair to consist in either unconsciously or consciously failing to assume responsibility for one’s doxastic agency by passively taking one’s doxastic attitudes to be determined by society, habit, one’s own psychological proclivities, or theoretical reason. Yet an intensified, more dialectically advanced form of doxastic despair is the active doxastic despair of defiance. Just as Kosch argues that the despair of defiance involves refusing to recognize or comply with ethico-religious norms with a source external to one’s own will, the doxastic despair of defiance consists in embracing one’s doxastic agency yet misusing it by refusing to recognize or comply with externally given ethico-religious norms governing belief. Kierkegaard takes the doxastic despair of defiance to reflect a prideful insistence on maintaining one’s own autonomy and self-sufficiency by seeking to avoid vulnerability to and obligations towards others. Correspondingly, in addition to distinguishing between two forms of passive doubt – disinterested, speculative doubt exemplified by Martensen and passionate, existential doubt exemplified by Faust – Kierkegaard also takes there to be a third, active form of doubt exemplified by the ancient Pyrrhonian Skeptics and by the German Romantic ironists.^[43]

Unlike speculative doubters, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics related to doubt personally and existentially, Kierkegaard claims. And unlike both passive speculative doubters and passive existential doubters, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics intentionally chose to doubt for practical (rather than theoretical) reasons. On Kierkegaard’s understanding of the Pyrrhonian Skeptics, they were extremely epistemically risk-averse – that is, they were extremely averse to the risk of forming false beliefs – because they thought that forming false beliefs would inhibit their flourishing,^[44] and because they sought to attain self-sufficient tranquility (ataraxia) by reaching a state of universal doubt and suspension of judgment.^[45] Moreover, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics did not take their doxastic attitudes to be necessitated by theoretical reason. Rather, Kierkegaard repeatedly claims in the Climacus writings, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics doubted actively and voluntarily (PF 82–85/SKS 4, 281–284; CUP1 318, 352, 399/SKS 7, 289, 322, 363). Because the Pyrrhonian Skeptics both embraced their doxastic agency and doubted for practical reasons, Kierkegaard often expresses admiration for them.^[46]

Of course, Kierkegaard does not ultimately endorse Pyrrhonian Skepticism. But his disagreement with the Pyrrhonian Skeptics is not about whether global suspension of judgment can be epistemically rational.^[47] Rather, Kierkegaard thinks that they have a mistaken conception of human flourishing. Our flourishing does not consist in engaging in speculative thought or contemplation to gain knowledge and understanding, avoiding at all costs the epistemic error of forming a false belief, or attaining a state of tranquil self-sufficiency.^[48] Instead, Kierkegaard argues, flourishing requires believing claims one cannot fully understand (paradigmatically, the doctrine of the Incarnation), taking epistemic risks, and depending both on other human beings and on God not merely despite but partly because of the vulnerability this reliance engenders.^[49]

Similarly, in The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard interprets the German Romantic ironists (especially Schlegel and Tieck) as actively and defiantly taking Socrates’s negative ironic doubt to an extreme.^[50] Just as Socrates sought to induce doubt by undermining his interlocutors’ fundamental ethical views without replacing them with alternative, positive views – thereby leaving his interlocutors in a state of aporia – so too do the Romantic ironists negate and doubt dominant social and ethical views without replacing them with positive alternatives. Kierkegaard thus characterizes both irony (in the eminent sense) and speculative doubt’s attempts to doubt everything as involving an “infinite absolute negativity (uendelig absolute Negativitet)” (CI 254/SKS 1, 292). However, Kierkegaard clarifies:

It might seem now that as the absolute negativity [irony] would be identical with [speculative] doubt. But one must bear two things in mind – first, that doubt is a conceptual qualification (Tvivl er en Begrebsbestemmelse), and irony is subjectivity’s being-for-itself (Ironi en Subjectivitetens Forsigværen); second, that irony is essentially practical (practisk), that it is theoretical (theoretisk) only in order to become practical (practisk) again. (CI 257/SKS 1, 295)

Although Kierkegaard explicitly contrasts irony’s subjective, practical character with speculative doubt’s conceptual (and objective), theoretical character, his characterization of irony here bears a striking resemblance to defiant, existential doubt.^[51] As such, I suggest that the Romantic ironists can be classified as defiant doubters.

Indeed, Kierkegaard characterizes the Romantic ironists as choosing to remain in a state of doubting negativity because they want to be “independent not only of the ethical limitations imposed by an empty cultural convention, but also of any limitation that might originate outside [their] own subjective will and the impulses of mood” (Söderquist 2007, 163).^[52] As Söderquist explains, the Romantic worldview “implies a completely empty nihilistic closure within oneself (Indesluttehed)” (Söderquist 2007, 163) and thereby exhibits the hallmarks of the despair of defiance (Söderquist 2007, 227–229). Consequently, an essential aspect of Kierkegaard’s critique of the Romantic ironists’ refusal to accept externally given ethico-religious norms governing their actions is his critique of their ironic, defiant doubt.

Motivated by the aim of attaining self-sufficient autonomy, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics’ doubt reflects a global form of epistemic risk aversion, and the Romantic ironists’ doubt reflects a global form of negative irony. Yet Kierkegaard thinks many people are similarly motivated by the aim of attaining self-sufficient autonomy to engage in local forms of risk-averse or ironic doubt.

For example, in the chapter of Works of Love titled “Love Believes All Things – and Yet is Never Deceived,” Kierkegaard describes mistrust as using “its acumen (Skarpsindighed) to safeguard itself in believing nothing (Intet at troe)” (WL 235/SKS 9, 236). That is, mistrust is characterized by the aim of “safeguarding” oneself from the error of forming a false belief and being deceived by others. In this respect, the mistrustful character shares (within a restricted domain) the Pyrrhonian Skeptics’ aversion to the risk of forming a false belief. Moreover, Kierkegaard argues that the mistrustful person’s aversion to forming a false belief is neither psychologically nor rationally compelled. “Indifferent” knowledge (that is, evidence) only places the options of believing or suspending judgment in “equilibrium (Ligevægt),” and it is a “choice (Valg)” whether one believes or doubts (WL 234–235/SKS 9, 236). Consequently, just as the Pyrrhonian Skeptics’ doubt is motivated by their practical aim of attaining self-sufficient tranquility and the Romantic ironists’ doubt is motivated by their practical aim of attaining negative freedom and self-enclosed autonomy, the mistrustful person’s aversion to forming false beliefs stems from their (conscious or unconscious) practical aims. For example, they might aim to avoid the vulnerability to deception and manipulation that trust engenders (WL 227/SKS 9, 229), or they might aim to avoid being regarded by others as foolish, stupid, simple-minded, or naïve (WL 226–228/SKS 9, 228–230).^[53]

Likewise, Kierkegaard claims, doubting God – in particular, doubting whether God is love – reflects a presumptuous defiance. In the 1847 discourse “The Joy of It That in Relation to God a Person Always Suffers as Guilty,” Kierkegaard returns to the topic of Either/Or’s ‘Ultimatum’: namely, whether our suffering reflects the fact that God is love and we are in the wrong, or whether God is in the wrong by unlovingly permitting our suffering. Kierkegaard writes, “[D]oubt (Tvivlen) indolently and with brazen obtrusiveness (fræk Paatrængenhed) wants to force itself into the nature of God and demonstrate (bevise) that God is love. But the demonstration will never in all eternity succeed, because it begins with presumptuousness (Formastelighed)” (UDVS 279/SKS 8, 375). That is, the person who doubts whether God is love in the absence of a demonstrative proof is defiantly unwilling to acknowledge either their guilt before God or God’s love, and is thus in despair (UDVS 278/SKS 8, 374).

Furthermore, Kierkegaard observes, defiant doubt tends to develop into an intensified form of defiant belief in which one does not simply aim to avoid the risks of forming a false belief and having one’s reliance on others disappointed, but positively sets oneself against others by believing ill of them. For instance, in Works of Love Kierkegaard argues that the doubting, negative suspicion that “believes nothing at all” has an inherent tendency to turn into a positive suspicion that believes the worst of others:

Mistrust (Mistroiskheden) […] has a preference for evil (Onde) (not, of course, through its knowledge (Viden), which is the infinite indifference (uendelige Lige-Gyldighed), but through itself, through its unbelief (Vantroe)). To believe nothing at all (Intet at troe) is the very border where believing evil (at troe Ondt) begins; in other words, the good (Gode) is the object of belief, and therefore someone who believes nothing at all begins to believe evil. To believe nothing at all is the beginning of being evil, because it shows that one has no good in oneself, since belief (Troen) is the good in a person that does not come with much knowledge (Viden), nor is it necessarily lacking because the knowledge is meager. Mistrust (Mistroiskheden) cannot maintain knowledge in equilibrium (Ligevægt); it defiles (besmitter) its knowledge and therefore verges on envy, malice, and corruption, which believe all evil. (WL 233–234/SKS 9, 235, emphasis mine)

Just as the “infinitely indifferent” evidence does not compel mistrustful doubt, it does not compel cynical belief in others’ wickedness. Yet Kierkegaard astutely observes in this passage that it can be very psychologically difficult to remain in a continual state of suspended judgment, and that vicious character traits (such as being mistrustful) are self-reinforcing and tend to intensify over time.

Similarly, in The Sickness unto Death, Anti-Climacus asserts that the most intensified form of defiant despair involves responding to the ‘offensiveness’ of the Incarnation by “declar[ing] Christianity to be untrue, a lie” (SUD 131/SKS 11, 242), and thereby disbelieving it rather than merely suspending judgment about it. As Anti-Climacus explains in part 2 of Practice in Christianity, disbelief reflects prideful offense (Forargelse) at either the ‘loftiness’ (Høiheden) or the ‘lowliness’ (Ringheden) of the Incarnation.^[54] Anti-Climacus claims that we tend to be especially tempted to take offense at the ‘loftiness’ of Christ’s claim to forgive sins (PC 101/SKS 12, 109),^[55] and at the ‘lowliness’ of the commandment to follow Christ’s self-sacrificial example and thereby suffer and incur the world’s scorn (PC 106–109/SKS 12, 114–117). And crucially, Anti-Climacus argues, whether one overcomes offense and believes in the Incarnation or takes offense and disbelieves is a choice that is not compelled by historical evidence or philosophical arguments (PC 95–96/SKS 12, 104–105). Because belief is not rationally compelled, the person who disbelieves in the Incarnation is making an ethico-religious mistake rather than an epistemic mistake.^[56] In sum, then, the most intensified form of doxastic despair involves defiantly ‘willing to be oneself’ by positively rejecting ethico-religious requirements to form the beliefs necessary to properly relate to one’s neighbor and to God.^[57]

4.1 An Objection

I have argued so far that Kierkegaard takes the failure to properly exercise one’s doxastic agency to manifest an important form of despair. Yet a natural objection to my interpretation is that I have misidentified the attitude with respect to which Kierkegaard thinks one must properly exercise one’s agency in order to overcome despair. Despite Kierkegaard’s close association of doubt and despair, numerous passages throughout his authorship indicate that Kierkegaard does not regard having the correct beliefs about ethico-religiously significant matters as sufficient to overcome despair. Rather, he considers cultivating the theological virtues – faith, hope, and love^[58] – to be the cure for despair.^[59] Anti-Climacus famously claims that the opposite of sin (Synd) – that is, despair before God (SUD 77/SKS 11, 191) – is faith (Tro) (SUD 82/SKS 11, 196).^[60] Moreover, in numerous passages Kierkegaard treats hope (Haab) as the opposite of despair (for example, WL 248–263/SKS 9, 248–262; SUD 38–42/SKS 11, 153–157; FSE 82–83/SKS 13, 103–104).^[61] And Kierkegaard argues in Works of Love that we can overcome despair by loving others with dutiful, agapic, neighbor-love (Kjerlighed) rather than spontaneous, erotic, self-interested love (Elskov) (WL 40–43/SKS 9, 45–50).^[62]

To address this objection, I suggest that we need to look beyond Kosch’s agential account of Kierkegaardian despair and appeal to the perfectionist (or eudaimonic) interpretation of despair as a failure to perfect one’s nature or flourish. Kosch frames her agential interpretation of Kierkegaardian despair as an alternative to this perfectionist interpretation.^[63] But in my view, Kosch is too quick to conclude that the agential and perfectionist interpretations are incompatible. While developing a complete account of the relationship between the agential and perfectionist interpretations is beyond the scope of this paper, in § 4.2 I will adduce some reasons for thinking (1) that Kosch’s objections to the perfectionist, eudaimonic interpretation are not dispositive, and (2) that a restricted version of Kosch’s agential interpretation is in fact consistent with the perfectionist interpretation. In doing so, I aim to show that synthesizing the perfectionist and agential interpretations of despair explains why properly exercising our doxastic agency is necessary to overcome despair, and thereby provides a compelling response to the objection that I have misidentified the attitude with respect to which we must properly exercise our agency to overcome despair.

4.2 Integrating the Agential and Perfectionist Interpretations

Kosch’s first three objections address Judge William’s account of despair in Either/Or.^[64] First, Kosch argues that if Judge William held a perfectionist, eudaimonic conception of despair, “he should be unwilling to say of those immediate individuals for whom nothing had gone awry that ‘these people were indeed happy’ [EO2 192/SKS 3, 186] – yet this is precisely what he does say. Those individuals who do succeed according to aesthetic criteria are happy, enjoy themselves, etc. – and they are in despair” (Kosch 2006a, 146–147). Yet throughout his authorship, Kierkegaard distinguishes between a temporal, prudential notion of happiness, and an eternal, perfectionist, eudaimonic notion of happiness.^[65] Similarly, Judge William claims only that these individuals living in immediacy are happy in the ‘aesthetic,’ prudential sense. Indeed, his claim that they are nonetheless in despair indicates that they are not happy in the ‘ethical,’ eudaimonic sense.

Second, Kosch claims, if Judge William endorsed a eudaimonic account of despair, his view “should be that the lower pleasures of the aesthetic life are replaced in the forefront of the ethical individual’s life by the higher satisfactions of the exercise of virtue. Instead we find him arguing at length that what he himself labels ‘aesthetic’ satisfactions are consistent with and preserved in the life of duty (for instance, in his ‘aesthetic defence of marriage’)” (Kosch 2006a, 147). But it is entirely consistent with Judge William’s dialectical account of human flourishing to say that aspects of ‘aesthetic,’ prudential happiness are sublated (cancelled yet preserved in a higher form) in ‘ethical,’ eudaimonic happiness.^[66]

Third, Kosch rejects the eudaimonic interpretation (which she associates with reading Judge William as a Hegelian) on the grounds that “the position of ‘the German philosophers’ – and it is clear from the discussion that the German philosophers in question are none other than Hegel and his school – is yet another form of despair” (Kosch 2006a, 147). Yet reading Judge William as having a eudaimonic conception of despair does not require regarding him as a thoroughgoing Hegelian. Instead, Judge William can be read as both defending a eudaimonic conception of despair grounded in an account of human flourishing with Hegelian elements, and also departing from Hegel in crucial respects.^[67]

Kosch’s fourth objection addresses the perfectionist interpretation of The Sickness unto Death on which Anti-Climacus regards despair as the “failure to live up to the personal ethical task that has been set for one by God” (Kosch 2006a, 204). Kosch argues this interpretation “can make little sense of the despair of wanting to be oneself. If ‘oneself’ is oneself-as-normative-ideal, there is no available sense of ‘wanting’ or ‘willing’ such that wanting to be oneself itself constitutes normative failure” (Kosch 2006a, 205). But on a very natural perfectionist reading of Anti-Climacus, the despair of defiance – that is, the despair of willing to be oneself – precisely involves not willing to be oneself-as-normative-ideal but rather willing to be someone other than the self that one ought to be.

Fifth, Kosch objects that on the perfectionist interpretation, “the entire discussion of the self’s structure in the first part of [The Sickness unto Death] is strictly irrelevant to the characterization of the forms of despair” (Kosch 2006a, 205). Yet it is unclear why Kosch thinks that Anti-Climacus’s discussion of the structure of the self would be irrelevant to his characterization of the forms of despair on the perfectionist interpretation. To the contrary, the perfectionist interpretation seems extremely well-positioned to explain why it is relevant to characterizing despair: if despair consists in failing to perfect one’s nature and thereby failing to be the self one ought to be, understanding the structure of the self is immediately relevant to understanding despair.

Because proponents of the perfectionist interpretation have good responses available to Kosch’s objections, accepting a more modest, restricted version of Kosch’s interpretation can enrich the perfectionist interpretation of Kierkegaardian despair – rather than replacing it – by illuminating the role that misrelating to one’s agency plays in failing to perfect one’s nature. Although Kosch is correct that Kierkegaard takes misrelating to one’s agency to be central to despair, we can take this point on board without saying that Kierkegaardian despair must be defined or analyzed simply as a misrelation to one’s agency. Instead, I suggest that for Kierkegaard, being in despair – by failing to wholeheartedly orient oneself towards and be stably committed to the Good such that one properly relates to oneself, one’s neighbor, and God – constitutively involves misrelating to one’s agency without consisting solely in misrelating to one’s agency.

To illustrate this broader claim about the relationship between the agential and perfectionist interpretations of Kierkegaardian despair, I will argue that Kierkegaard takes our beliefs to play a significant role in perfecting our natures by orienting our whole person towards the Good and thus properly relating to ourselves, others, and God. Consequently, failing to properly exercise our doxastic agency partly constitutes being in despair without being identical to being in despair. Correspondingly, properly exercising one’s doxastic agency is necessary (albeit not sufficient) to overcome despair.^[68] Although developing a complete explanation of why Kierkegaard takes our beliefs to be ethico-religiously significant goes beyond the scope of this paper, I will sketch the outlines of an interpretation on which Kierkegaard takes our beliefs to be derivatively ethico-religiously significant in virtue of partly constituting other attitudes – such as faith, hope, and love – that play a more fundamental role in constituting our relationships to ourselves, others, and God.^[69] Let us examine the role of belief in each of these attitudes in turn.

4.3 Despair and the Theological Virtues

Although Kierkegaard develops a multi-faceted account of faith (Tro) and emphasizes different aspects of faith in different texts,^[70] Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms consistently maintain that (Christian) faith is partly constituted by belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation. For instance, in Fragments Climacus distinguishes between two types of belief (Tro): belief in its “direct and ordinary meaning” (for example, a belief that I have hands, or a belief that Caesar crossed the Rubicon), and belief in its “wholly eminent sense” (that is, Christian faith) (PF 87/SKS 4, 285).^[71] While Kierkegaard also takes faith to have affective, volitional, and interpersonal dimensions, Kierkegaard regards belief as an essential component of faith. Moreover, Kierkegaard often claims that unreflective belief – which does not grasp the objective uncertainty and absurdity of the paradoxical doctrine of the Incarnation and has not grappled with the possibility of offense towards the Incarnation – is insufficient for genuine faith.^[72] Consequently, failing to properly exercise one’s doxastic agency – by unreflectively believing the doctrine of the Incarnation, doubting it, or defiantly disbelieving it – precludes faith (SUD 129–131/SKS 11, 240–242). Having a stable, resilient commitment to the Good requires faith.^[73] Thus, faith is necessary to overcome despair.

Kierkegaard also consistently takes hope (Haab) to involve a doxastic component. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard writes, “To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope (At forholde sig forventende til det Godes Mulighed er at haabe)” (WL 249/SKS 9, 249, emphasis Kierkegaard’s).^[74] By contrast, “To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil (Ondes) is to fear (frygte)” (WL 249/SKS 9, 249, emphasis Kierkegaard’s).^[75] Throughout the chapter “Love Hopes All Things – And Yet is Never Put to Shame,” Kierkegaard maintains that those who fear rather than hope fail to properly orient themselves towards the good and thereby despair. And one way in which we can fail to hope is by disbelieving in the possibility of the good. Kierkegaard writes, “The person in despair (Den Fortvivlede) also knows what lies in possibility, and yet he gives up possibility (opgiver han Muligheden) (to give up possibility is to despair) or, even more correctly, he is brazenly so bold as to assume the impossibility of the good (antage det Godes Umulighed)” (WL 253/SKS 9, 253).^[76] Similarly, in The Sickness unto Death Anti-Climacus characterizes necessity’s despair (which plausibly roughly corresponds to the despair of weakness here) as involving a lack of belief in the possibility of the good. What distinguishes the hopeful person from the despairing person, Anti-Climacus explains, “is whether he will believe that for God everything is possible, that is, whether he will believe (om han vil troe)” (SUD 38/SKS 11, 153, emphasis Kierkegaard’s). He continues, “The believer sees and understands (Den Troende seer og forstaaer) his downfall, humanly speaking (in what has happened to him, or in what he has ventured), but he believes. For this reason he does not collapse. He leaves it entirely to God how he is to be helped, but he believes that for God everything is possible (er Alt muligt)” (SUD 39/SKS 11, 154, emphasis Kierkegaard’s).

At first glance, it might seem that the doxastic condition on relating oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is simply having a non-zero credence in the proposition that God could bring about the good, and that correspondingly the person who despairs in virtue of failing to satisfy the doxastic condition irrationally has a credence of zero in the proposition that God could bring about the good. However, Kierkegaard endorses a stronger doxastic condition on hope. While there is not space to develop or defend this interpretation in detail, I suggest that by extending Li and Chignell’s (2023) interpretation of Either/Or – on which A holds a ‘focus theory’ of hope, such that hoping that p involves not only believing that p is possible and desiring that p, but also involves a disposition to attend to p under the aspect of its ‘unswamped’ possibility^[77] – we can see why Kierkegaard himself also takes hope to preclude disbelief.

In short, relating oneself expectantly to p involves being disposed to attend to p as possible rather than as improbable. But Kierkegaard takes belief that p to be a state in which one is disposed to rule out or disregard the possibility that not-p in one’s reasoning.^[78] Consequently, one cannot hope that p while disbelieving p. For example, if Abraham believed that he would not get Isaac back in this life after sacrificing him, he would not be disposed to consider getting Isaac back as a live possibility in his reasoning even if he had a non-zero credence in its possibility, so he would not be disposed to attend to it under the aspect of its unswamped probability. We can spell out this argument as follows:

1. Hope that p entails being disposed to attend to p under the aspect of its unswamped possibility.

2. Belief that not-p entails being disposed to disregard the possibility that p in one’s reasoning.

3. Being disposed to disregard the possibility that p precludes being disposed to attend to p under the aspect of its unswamped possibility.^[79]

4. Therefore, believing that not-p precludes hoping that p.^[80]

Attending to the connection between hope and belief thus reveals another respect in which Kierkegaard thinks failing to properly exercise one’s doxastic agency constitutively entails despairing. Disbelieving that the good will obtain precludes relating oneself expectantly to the good by being disposed to attend to the good under the aspect of its unswamped possibility. Failing to be disposed to attend to the good under the aspect of its unswamped possibility precludes properly orienting oneself towards the good. And by failing to properly orient oneself towards the good and thereby failing to perfect one’s nature, one despairs.^[81]

Finally, Kierkegaard takes loving – and thereby properly relating to – God, one’s neighbor, and oneself to constitutively involve having (and being disposed to have) certain beliefs. This is partly because Kierkegaard (WL 225/SKS 9, 227) follows Paul in regarding love (Kjerlighed) as the “greatest” of the theological virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13) and takes love to involve both faith and hope. But Kierkegaard also takes love to involve beliefs in numerous ways that do not (in any straightforward way) reduce to faith or hope. In particular, Kierkegaard takes love to involve trusting others and refraining from wrongly blaming them, and Kierkegaard regards trust and love as partly cognitive states.

In Works of Love, Kierkegaard argues that “love believes all things” (Kjerlighed troer Alt) – that is, the loving person believes the best of others – partly because believing well of others is partly constitutive of trusting them. The central contrast Kierkegaard draws in this chapter is between the trusting person and the mistrustful person. While the loving, trusting person believes all things, “[M]istrust believes nothing at all (Mistroiskhed troer slet Intet)” (WL 226/SKS 9, 228). As we saw above, defiant doxastic despair – including its instantiation in the mistrustful person – is paradigmatically motivated by the aim of attaining autonomous self-sufficiency and avoiding vulnerability to others. However, Kierkegaard argues that although the mistrustful person avoids being deceived or betrayed by others, in virtue of “believing nothing at all,” the mistrustful person is ultimately more deceived than the trusting person: “And yet, even though one is not deceived (bedrages) by others, is one not deceived, most terribly deceived, by oneself, to be sure, through believing nothing at all, deceived out of the highest, out of the blessedness of giving of oneself, the blessedness of love (Kjerlighedens Salighed)!” (WL 235/SKS 9, 236). In Mark Tietjen’s words, Kierkegaard thinks that those who mistrustfully “make suspicion a default position” incur the significant moral cost of closing themselves off to “a relationship of love, respect, and concern for the other” (Tietjen 2010, 100). Thus, misusing one’s doxastic agency by refraining from believing the best of others (especially by refusing to form the beliefs partly constitutive of trust) fosters interpersonal alienation and precludes properly loving and relating to others.

Kierkegaard also argues that we ought to refrain from believing ill of others by lovingly “hiding a multitude of sins.” As M. Jamie Ferreira observes, Kierkegaard’s rationale for the injunction to hide others’ sins “seems to include the cultivation of relationships and community” (Ferreira 2001, 175). That is, a primary reason why love hides others’ sins is that, to the extent that we judge others to be culpable or guilty and thereby blame them, we are alienated from them and our relationship is impaired. When it seems highly probable that another person has sinned, the loving person will typically believe that they have sinned yet proceed to “hide” their sin by forgiving it and thereby repairing their relationship (WL 294–297/SKS 9, 291–294).^[82] Yet Kierkegaard holds that our evidence never decisively settles the question of whether others have engaged in culpably wrongdoing (WL 231/SKS 9, 232–233). Accordingly, there is always some danger of falsely judging another person to be culpable and thereby wrongly impairing our relationships. For this reason, Kierkegaard argues that the loving person is averse to making “the error of thinking too ill (troe for ondt) of another person” (WL 232/SKS 9, 233).^[83] Consequently, Kierkegaard argues, the loving person is disposed to give others the benefit of the doubt either by refraining from believing that they have acted wrongly in the first place, or by believing a “mitigating explanation” or a “lenient interpretation” of their behavior (WL 291–294/SKS 9, 289–291) to lessen one’s judgment of their culpability and thereby refrain from blaming them.

Similarly, Kierkegaard characterizes the loving person who wishes to be in the wrong with respect to their beloved as lacking the disposition to blame their beloved for their suffering. As Sharon Krishek argues, the “upbuilding thought of the [Jutland pastor’s] Sermon – that is, that ‘in relation to God we are always in the wrong’ – is the thought that we are wrong whenever we blame or even tend to blame God for causing us loss or suffering” (Krishek 2009, 62, emphasis mine).^[84] As we saw above, doubting whether p entails treating not-p as a live possibility. Consequently, as Kierkegaard explains in “The Joy of It That in Relation to God a Person Always Suffers as Guilty,” the person who doubts whether they are in the wrong in relation to God “deliberate[s] (overveie) upon whether God is indeed love” and thereby treats blaming God as a live possibility (UDVS 273/SKS 8, 369–370). In Krishek’s words, “To be in doubt here means to accept the possibility that we are right in relation to God, we are right in blaming him for doing us wrong” (Krishek 2009, 72, emphasis mine). But such doubt is incompatible with properly loving and relating to God. Accordingly, Kierkegaard holds that overcoming despair by loving and properly relating to both other human beings and God entails not only being disposed to refrain from believing ill of them and thereby refrain from blaming them, but (in at least some contexts) also entails being disposed to refrain from doubting their love and thereby refrain from regarding blaming them as a live possibility.

In sum, I have argued that perfecting one’s nature – and thereby overcoming despair – requires cultivating the theological virtues, and the theological virtues are partly constituted by beliefs. Properly exercising one’s doxastic agency by forming the beliefs constitutive of the theological virtues is therefore necessary to overcome despair.