Ethical discourse and Foucault's conception of ethics

✍ Scribed by Mary Candace Moore

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1987
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 1016 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0163-8548
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00142987

✦ Synopsis

Gadamer states that Aristotle asks the ethical question of the 'humanly good' or what is good in terms of human action [ 1975: 278]. The ethical problem is described this way:

If man always encounters the good in the specific form of the practical situation in which he finds himself, the task of moral knowledge is to see in the concrete situation what is asked of it or, to put it another way, the person acting must see the concrete situation in the light of what is asked of him in general. [Gadamer, 1975:279] The nature of the Platonic good is that it can be known only indirectly, thus, as Gadamer suggests, it must be shown through the specific form of the good in a particular situation. The ethical problem is two-fold: it involves the need for action in a practical situation and it asks as well that such action demonstrate knowledge of what is at stake in general. There are occasions in every life in which one must take a stand, or make a decision to act one way rather than another. Yet the question is always present concerning the problem of which insight should guide action. The ethical position is one that recognizes that at some point deliberation needs to be brought to an end and action taken, and yet in order for deliberation to have first occurred there must be some counsel or aid to thinking. Thus right conduct in any situation requires knowing what in general can be brought to bear on or can be shown by one's actions.

Gadamer divides ethics into two parts: philosophical ethics and moral consciousness. He writes concerning the relation between the two: