DE Weekly: Heidegger, Dostoevsky, & Authentic Being-for-Others
Below is an archived email originally sent on July 20, 2026.
Heidegger, Dostoevsky, & Authentic Being-for-Others
Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about the various writings and opinions of Existentialist authors who gave us a foundation for what could be called “existential ethics.”
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Emmanuel Levinas, who opined that we should treat ethics as “first philosophy,” meaning fundamentally underpinning our philosophy should be the obligation of ethical responsibility.
Last week, I covered the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, differentiating personal responsibility from individualism, and existential ethics from moral relativism.
I ended that newsletter with a postscript saying I could add much more to the topic, and that is what I intend to do today.
I left off clearing up that the framework for existential ethics should not be conflated with the sort of “moral relativism” readers of Nietzsche misappropriated in the twentieth century to disastrous effect.
Instead, every choice we make in life should consider the well-being and freedom of the Other, striving toward a commitment to protect the freedom of others, to which we are ethically obligated. To this end, Levinas, Sartre, and de Beauvoir are in agreement.
The question we are tasked with answering through our being is: how do I achieve authenticity through my actions? Put another way, how are we to live authentically––in Good Faith––to enhance the freedom of others?
Sartre writes, “Authenticity reveals that the only meaningful project is that of doing (not that of being).” We are reminded of his notion that existence precedes essence, implying that we are nothing that we do not make of ourselves, and in viewing life as a project, we should always be working toward some greater good, embracing our unbridled freedom toward a good essence.
This is the tension of the Self we all might feel at one moment or another: the Other has the power to strip us of our freedom, just as we have the power to strip them of theirs. But, since we exist foremost as a Being-for-others, we are obligated to do exactly the opposite of this.
Our ethical infinite obligation is to maximize the freedom of others––freedom to choose, freedom to exist, and freedom to reciprocate in the same fashion.
Martin Heidegger, a predecessor of and one of the strongest influences on Sartre, developed this idea in Being and Time.
He discussed the concept of “liberating concern,” wherein our central aim should be to free the Other from the trap of self-deception so they can create their own existence, to “become transparent to himself in his care and become free for it.”
This does not mean we should interfere with the freedom of others in so doing; that would reduce them to a dependent “thing,” an object that requires sheltering from their own existence.
Instead, we are to help them recognize the anxiety of their total responsibility for their own life and give it back to them in the form of understanding how to confront the human condition.
This type of care for the Other Heidegger called vorausspringt, a relation that “leaps-ahead.”
In “leaping ahead” of the Other in the manner described above, we do not “take away his ‘care’ but rather . . . give it back to them authentically as such for the first time.”
When we do this, we accomplish the goal of not only realizing our own freedom and ethical responsibility, but also do the same for others.
And so, while those who would purport that existential ethics leads only to moral relativism through the trap of moral nihilism, when adopted correctly it is intended to lead instead to a mutual binding together of the Self and the Other. When approached correctly, it awakens the sense within us of essential dependency on others, and thus to an enhancement of our freedom.
As de Beauvoir concludes, “to will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.”
One author whose writings have been essential to understanding the existential dilemma was none other than Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian author whose novel The Brothers Karamazov dealt with the question of the “terrible individualism” of modernity.
The character of Father Zossima in this story said that modern man “is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity . . . but this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another.”
For Zossima (and thus, we suppose, for Dostoevsky), individualism with no ethical limitations placed on it has become for us the highest value, leading not to more freedom but to less; loneliness and despair has been the result.
To undo the damage and to rebuild toward a more ethical set of values, we are obligated to recognize the vulnerability of the Other, to recognize the same in ourselves, and to adopt an attitude of self-sacrifice to live up to the ethical infinite obligation Levinas wrote we have.
Human beings are not meant to exist as isolated creatures all with a will totally separate from those of their fellow human beings.
We all exist and all work to build an essence of our own, but that individual will and that essence is fundamentally entangled with (and dependent upon) the will and the essence of others.
Such is the realization that Sartre’s character Garcin had at the end of No Exit, when he had his eyes opened to the fact that his Self would always be known and understood by the Other.
The impetus upon this realization should not be to revile in horror and an inward turn; rather, it should be to act and to live with compassion and charity toward the Other, in hopes that they will do the same.
“We are all responsible to all and for all.” –– Father Zossima, The Brothers Karamazov
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
Thanks for sticking around for three straight weeks of existential ethics. I rather like when I can expand on a single topic in different ways across more than one newsletter.
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