Heidegger is often understood to have forsaken the very possibility of ethics – we find numerous variations of this view in the secondary literature. And yet, in Letter on Humanism, Heidegger stresses the importance of ethics (thought anew as originary ethics) in the context of the dangers posed by the technological age. In this Element, the author will try to unpack what Heidegger might have meant by this. Ultimately, his account of the essence of the human being will prove to be the key to understanding what he describes as 'originary ethics'.