| Ethics should involve something of a “call,” something having a claim on us, something that draws us and motivates a commitment in the midst of counterimpulses. Such a call need Not reflect the traditional force of a command, but since normative matters imply the human potential to alter one’s behavior in the face of other (likely more ready) inclinations, then some sense of a “self-transcendence” is needed to capture the tone of obligation that seems so indigenous to ethics. Here Heidegger’s ontological critique of subjectivity can bear fruit in moral philosophy. I have noted that many problems in ethical theory can be traced to the modern tendency to ground values in a subject, variously conceived in individual, collective, or cognitive terms. I have sketched how emotivism, egoism, and utilitarianism are liable to the charge that responsiveness to, and responsibility for, others might be unintelligible in their orientations. We also indicated how Kantian ethics purchases responsibility and obligation at the cost of an impartial universalism that may not be responsive enough to situated finitude. In different ways then, the orientation toward the subject in modern moral theory can be implicated in various problems that have continued to frustrate ethical discourse. | Ethics should involve something of a “call,” something having a claim on us, something that draws us and motivates a commitment in the midst of counterimpulses. Such a call need Not reflect the traditional force of a command, but since normative matters imply the human potential to alter one’s behavior in the face of other (likely more ready) inclinations, then some sense of a “self-transcendence” is needed to capture the tone of obligation that seems so indigenous to ethics. Here Heidegger’s ontological critique of subjectivity can bear fruit in moral philosophy. I have noted that many problems in ethical theory can be traced to the modern tendency to ground values in a subject, variously conceived in individual, collective, or cognitive terms. I have sketched how emotivism, egoism, and utilitarianism are liable to the charge that responsiveness to, and responsibility for, others might be unintelligible in their orientations. We also indicated how Kantian ethics purchases responsibility and obligation at the cost of an impartial universalism that may not be responsive enough to situated finitude. In different ways then, the orientation toward the subject in modern moral theory can be implicated in various problems that have continued to frustrate ethical discourse. |
