Etická analýza zúfalstva v diele Nemoc k smrti

The article analyses the question of man ́s despair. In his book The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard discusses despair and looks at it from several angles. In his opinion despair is a crisis of identity, it is a sin, it means turning away from God. Kierkegaard believes there are several levels of despair which follow one another and with each level the sin grows. Kierkegaard ́s assertion is based on the assump- tion that despair is a sin which is just the opposite of faith. The present paper is an attempt to describe Kierkegaard ́s categorisation of human despair in more detail. With respect to difficult crisis of hu- man identity, which still persists, we deem Kierkegaard ́s analysis very topical from the viewpoint of theology as well as from the viewpoint of philosophy.