Soren Kierkegaard did not believe that God defined and created human morality, he instead believed that it was up to us as individuals to define our own morals, values ​​and ethics. Kierkegaard wanted man to "wake up" and renounce the comfortable and sentimental illusions of modern life. He defined this change as the absorption of the lower form of aesthetic life to live an ethical life. Kierkegaard defines an ethical life as when one becomes aware of oneself. It is therefore not a question of transforming a person into someone else, but rather of transforming oneself into an individual. In this sense, “ethics” represents “universal” and prevailing social norms. These social norms are what are used to justify actions within communities. This is what the implications of freedom in an ethical life entail. This essay will explore how living an ethical life can improve the society we live in and therefore provide greater opportunities for freedom. This will be analyzed by defining an ethical life, comparing it to an aesthetic life and discussing how this relates to the idea of ​​freedom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Ethical living is becoming aware of yourself and acting accordingly. Ethics «does not want to make the individual another, but the individual himself; it does not want to destroy aesthetics but to transfigure it” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p.253). Ethical life thus absorbs aesthetic life and develops it into a higher form of life, ethics in no way excludes aesthetics. Ethics focuses on personality and aesthetics is recontextualized as part of man's understanding of the world and himself. This allows different people to coexist in harmony and individuals to act in accordance with what is good for society. Usually, we view ethics as abstract and separate from ourselves, so we avoid it because we don't understand what will come of it. This is similar to those who fear and avoid death since “if a person fears transparency, he always avoids the ethical.” This is what creates our secret horror and fear of it, since ethics requires transparency. You have to become transparent with yourself, so your morality can't come from a religious book or a rule book, it comes from within you. This power terrifies most people as the responsibility and control now belongs to them. There is no “absolute” to blame as that power resides within us. What prevents the ethical from being an abstract concept and what allows it to be fully realized is when the individual accepts this realization and embraces it. Kierkegaard defines it as “the person who sees life ethically sees the universal, and the person who lives ethically expresses the universal in his life” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p.256). Therefore, the person who lives an ethical life is working to become a universal human being. The individual lives with the certainty of living an ethically structured life. They don't need to reflect on insecurities that would otherwise torment them and cause them anxiety, like that of someone who lives an aesthetic life. An aesthetic life seems to be much more attractive as it “places the meaning of life in living for performance.” of one's duties” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p.254). This positions the person under the illusion of having an ethical vision of life, but his mistake is that of having placed an external relationship to duty. Furthermore, they cannot be both unique and universal at the same time. The ethical and the aesthetic appear similar at first glance, but it takes a true and deep understanding of oneself to be able to develop an aesthetic individual into an ethical person. Kierkegaard explainsthat “if ethical life did not have a much deeper connection with personality it would always be difficult to support it” against aesthetic life”. This statement suggests that ethics has a deep connection with the nature of human beings. Therefore, if a person does not come to understand and live this way of life, then he lacks essential humanity and at the same time lacks the great good. This insists that ethical living is crucial in society as it allows a person to evaluate the morality of their decisions. An aesthetic life is determined by duty or a particular set of rules, but duty and the individual are two separate things, according to Kierkegaard. He describes the person who lives an aesthetic life as “an accidental human being; he believes he is the perfect human being by being the one and only human being.” This life of duty is unromantic and boring; therefore, the person is dissatisfied. They live too narrowly without any understanding of the larger world occupied by other individuals. It is impossible to become the universal human being with this mentality. This prevents the individual from understanding the society around him and how he coincides with it and with others. With respect to an ethical life, the main difference between the two is that the ethical individual is transparent with himself. The ethical person "does not allow vague thoughts to rustle within him or allow tempering possibilities to distract him with their sleight of hand." This is what holds the aesthetic individual back, so that he cannot live a free life. They rely on other people to validate their thoughts and actions, while the ethical person is confident enough in their beliefs and morals to know what is the right thing to do themselves. The aesthetic person has only superficial motivations since he cannot understand any deeper meaning than that. This understanding of an individual's morals and ethics opens up the possibilities of freedom for the person. One or the other explains that by living an ethical life a person is freed from the constraints of others around him since he is no longer confined and forced to "talk about duty all the time, to worry all the time whether he is fulfilling it, at all times to seek advice from others as to what his duty is.” Ethics encourages a person to analyze their own actions. They are not bound by the bindings of a book or the statements of another individual that dictate what decisions they should take. The ethical individual is now not limited by the limitations of his external duties related to an aesthetic life. When man has immersed himself in living an ethical life he will not feel destroyed in the fulfillment of his duties it frees man since he is no longer a slave to the material and aesthetic duties of his life that are external to him. Thus, the truly ethical person acquires a sense of serenity and security since he now obtains his duties from within himself. Ethics offers freedom because it requires the person to be both individual and universal. Evidently "the personality does not have the ethical outside itself, but inside itself and emerges from this depth". He wants people to realize that every individual has the power to decipher their own way of life and therefore should not rely on any other power. Kierkegaard attacking our general sense that life has purpose and meaning gives the individual a sense of freedom. They no longer simply rely on an external source to inform them of what is right and moral. However, ethics cannot provide an individual with complete freedom as it does little to cultivate one's spiritual self. When living an ethical life, one is diverted from self-exploration as the person is required to follow a set of socially accepted norms on.253-259.