The Time of Life explores Heidegger's rethinking of ethics and of the ethical in terms of an understanding of the original Greek notion of ēthos. Engaging the ethical in Heidegger's thought in relation to Aristotle, Michel Foucault, and Friedrich Hölderlin, William McNeill examines the way in which Heidegger's thought shifts our understanding of ethics away from a set of theoretically constructed norms, principles, or rules governing practice toward an understanding of the ethical as our concrete way of Being in the world.

Central to this study is the consideration of the ethical in relation to time: the time of biological life, the time of human life as biographical and historical, the temporality of human action, and the historicality of human thought. In addition, this book critically examines the predicament of ethical responsibility in a scientific-technological era, considering how the world of modern science and technology call upon us to rethink the nature of ethical responsibilities.