THE FINITUDE AS CONDITION OF ETHICAL JUDGMENT: FROM THE ILLUSION OF PERMANENCE TO ETHICAL OPENNESS

This article proposes and grounds a hypothesis on the relationship between consciousness of finitude and ethical judgment: the perception of one's own temporality is not merely an existential theme, but a condition of possibility for ethical judgment. The argument unfolds in four movements. The first identifies the illusion of permanence as a mechanism for the indefinite suspension of the fundamental ethical question, for what purpose?, and shows how this suspension manifests in accumulation, power, and structural indifference to the suffering of others. The second examines the philosophical tradition, from Aristotle to Heidegger, through the Stoics and Lévinas, to show that finitude has never been reduced to a merely existential theme: it operates in the architecture of the good life and of responsibility for the other. The third distinguishes consciousness of finitude from fear of death and answers the objection that appealing to finitude is rhetorical manipulation rather than argument. The fourth movement extends the hypothesis from the individual to the collective plane, engaging Hans Jonas and Derek Parfit on responsibility toward future generations, showing that institutions and civilizations can live, as much as individuals, under an illusion of permanence, and that the finitude of planetary balance itself demands the same rupture of indefinite postponement that personal finitude demands of the individual. The article concludes that ethics, beyond the rational inquiry into the common good, is also a reconciliation of human beings with their finite condition, with practical consequences for how we evaluate our responsibilities toward others, present and future.