Founding Community: A Phenomenological-Ethical Inquiry

✍ Scribed by H. Peter Steeves Ph.D. (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 170
• Series: Phaenomenologica 143
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Phenomenology, in its traditional encounters with ethics, has commonly aimed at a more descriptive rather than prescriptive goal. The direction of this project, however, is both phenomenological and prescriptive as I attempt to provide a phenomenological foundation for communitarian ethical theory. I argue, following Husserl, that the Ego and the Other arise together in sense and thus we are committed to community in a foundational way. I am always and fundamentally constituted as a member of a community - as a Self among Others - and, given this, there are certain ethical implications. Namely, there is a communal Good of which my good is but a perspective; indeed, it is a perspective on a Good which encompasses the whole of the living world and not just humanity. Consequently, we are foundationally imbedded in a deep community and a deep communitarian ethic.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-x
Morality and Phenomenology....Pages 1-8
The Ego and the Other in a Pairing Relation....Pages 9-30
Instinct and the Presence of the Other....Pages 31-53
Moral Categoriality & Moral Being....Pages 54-77
Phenomenological Communitarianism....Pages 78-120
Non-Human Life and the Boundaries of Community....Pages 121-143
Back Matter....Pages 144-161

✦ Subjects

Ethics; Phenomenology; Philosophy