ethics of value as opposed to a "merely" form.al one) are, however, disappointed by conscience. Such "practical" directions are not given by the call of conscience for the sole reason that it summons Dasein to existence, to its ownmost potentiality-of-being-a-self. With its unequivocally calculable maxims that one is led to expect, conscience would deny to existence nothing less than the possibility of acting. Because conscience evidently cannot be "positive" in this way, neither does it function in the same way "only negatively." The call discloses nothing that could be positive or negative as something to be taken care of, because it has to do with an ontologically completely different being, namely, existence. On the contrary, the correctly understood call gives the "most positive thing of all" in the existential sense-the ownmost possibility that Dasein can give itself as a calling back that calls it forth to its factical potentiality-of-being-a-self. To hear the call authentically means to bring oneself to factical action. But only by setting forth the existential structure implied in our understanding of the summons when we hear it authentically, shall we attain a completely adequate interpretation of what is called in the call.
We wanted to show how the phenomena that alone are familiar to the vulgar interpretation of conscience point back to the primordial meaning of the call of conscience when they are understood in an ontologically appropriate way; then, since the vulgar interpretation arises from the limitations of the entangled self-interpretation of Dasein, and since falling prey belongs to care itself, we must show that this interpretation, even though it is self-evident, is by no means accidental. [295]
The ontological critique of the vulgar interpretation of conscience could be subject to the misunderstanding that, by showing the lack of existential primordiality of the everyday experience of conscience, one wanted to pass judgment upon the existentiell "moral quality" of Dasein. Just as existence is not necessarily and directly jeopardized by an ontologically insufficient understanding of conscience, the existentiell understanding of the call is not guaranteed by an existentially adequate interpretation of conscience either. Seriousness is no less possible in the vulgar experience of conscience than is a lack of seriousness in a more primordial understanding of conscience. Still, the existentially more primordial interpretation also discloses possibilities of a more primordial existentiell understanding, as long as our ontological concepts do not get cut off from antic experience.
§ 60. The Existential Structure of the Authentic Potentiality-of-Being Attested to in Conscience
The existential interpretation of conscience should expose an existent [seiende] attestation in Dasein itself of its ownmost potentiality-of-being.