Bertrand Russell has described how on one day in 1902 while riding a bicycle he suddenly realised that he was no longer in love with his wife. Kierkegaard said and surely correctly that any attitude that can be discovered in a sudden flash while riding a bicycle is only an aesthetic reaction and not relevant to the precepts which define marriage.
So what are the differences here? Well the paradigm of aesthetic experience in the romantic
lover who is immersed in his/her own passion, as in Romeo and Juliet (below).
By contrast the paradigm of the ethical is 'marriage', a statement of commitment and obligation through time, in which the present is bound to the past and to the future. Each of the two states is informed by different concepts, incompatible attitudes, rival interests,competing premises.
Yet suppose someone is confronted with a choice having as as yet embraced neither. Kierkagaard offers no reason for preferring one to the other. He is neither A nor B
for he believes there is no rational choice between the two, there is no need for either/or.
Reasons for our choices have histories. Without falling into the trap of conspiracy theory - it is by delving into such histories that we unearth the power play, discourses, rationale of our string pulling puppet masters.
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