Hannes Nykänen

Is there within the domains of morality a distinction that can be properly drawn by using the concepts of applied and theoretical ethics? Could not all ethics be an application of something that has no theoretical foundation -- or perhaps only another kind of foundation? Or perhaps ethics could also be a theory about something that is altogether inapplicable? Moral philosophers have not managed to rule out the possibilities indicated by questions such as these and this fact could perhaps be taken as a reminder that a relevant moral philosophy should probably not distance itself too much from either putatively theoretical or applied aspects of moral issues. In the present volume a number of writers wrestle with the problem concerning applied and theoretical ethics, illuminating it from different angles.

Moral philosophers often feel a need to underpin ethics with a metaphysical or supernatural law or principle, the idea being that would it be only for human beings, there could be no goodness. In this paper, I show the implausibility of this idea, by criticizing the fundamental role I assigned to supernaturality in my PhD thesis The “I”, the “You” and the Soul: an Ethics of Conscience. In this paper, I show how the view laid out in the thesis gives a distorted picture of the meaning of both conscience and love. In the thesis, I claimed that the love in the light of which conscience presents my neighbour “cannot” be my love, as I thought that conscience announces itself even against my will. Instead, I argued that the love that “presents” my neighbour as someone to love is a supernatural love and that our moral task is to respond to that love. In this paper, I show how this account makes nonsense of both conscience and love, by making them impersonal.

Moral philosophers often feel a need to underpin ethics with a metaphysical or supernatural law or principle, the idea being that would it be only for human beings, there could be no goodness. In this paper, I show the implausibility of this idea, by criticizing the fundamental role I assigned to supernaturality in my PhD thesis The “I”, the “You” and the Soul: an Ethics of Conscience. In this paper, I show how the view laid out in the thesis gives a distorted picture of the meaning of both conscience and love. In the thesis, I claimed that the love in the light of which conscience presents my neighbour “cannot” be my love, as I thought that conscience announces itself even against my will. Instead, I argued that the love that “presents” my neighbour as someone to love is a supernatural love and that our moral task is to respond to that love. In this paper, I show how this account makes nonsense of both conscience and love, by making them impersonal.

Within the domains of morality, is there a distinction that can be properly drawn by using the concepts of applied and theoretical ethics? Could not all ethics be an application of something that has no theoretical foundation - or perhaps only another kind of foundation? Or, perhaps ethics could also be a theory about something that is altogether inapplicable? Moral philosophers have not managed to rule out the possibilities indicated by questions such as these, and this fact could perhaps be taken as a reminder that a relevant moral philosophy should probably not distance itself too much from either the putatively theoretical or applied aspects of moral issues. In this volume, a number of writers wrestle with the problem concerning applied and theoretical ethics, illuminating it from different angles. (Series: Applied Philosophy / Anvendt Filosofi - Vol. 5)

Questions of ethics and the study of culture are tightly interwoven. Are we to see ethics as one thread in the fabric created by human culture or does ethics rather transcend culture? The discussions in this volume take place within this spectrum. Eleven Wittgenstein scholars explore how ethics is embedded in everyday activities and speech. The topics dealt with range from the ways we speak about human practices and nature, religious belief, gender, and moral understanding to questions about Wittgensteinâ (TM)s views on ethics and what it means to understand and attend to a particular individual. Central points of departure are, firstly, that ethics cannot be reduced to any specific cultural form and, secondly, that how we conceive of language is crucially connected with how we perceive the relation between culture and ethics. The points of view put forth frequently pose radical questions to the mainstream of philosophy. The different uses to which Wittgensteinâ (TM)s thought is put also raise important questions about how one should understand the role of language, ethics and culture in his philosophy.

Perhaps the most central feature in Nietzsche’s philosophy is his effort to formulate a philosophy that would constitute a ”yes” to life. According to Nietzsche, this task presupposes a revaluation of all values. This is because philosophy from Socrates onwards is in his view a denial of life and Christianity, the other pillar of Western thought, is an even more insidious ”no” to life. I think that Nietzsche’s project of revaluating all values is a failure. The central ideas that guide his criticism do not constitute any revaluation of Western, moral values. In the present paper my aim is to show in what sense the central elements in Nietzsche’s thought are firmly anchored in those very values that he took himself to have undermined. However, Nietzsche’s critique of our ”highest” values does reveal some deeply troubling features of these values. This becomes visible in Nietzsche’s struggle with his relationship to other human beings, more particularly with ”love for one’s neighbour”. His difficulties with love – and in question is not the Christian idea of love – produces an ethics of ”decency” that despite its unusually high pitch is still easily recognisable as a typical ethics of respect of a basically Kantian cut. Thus, I will also discuss Kant’s difficulties with love. The high pitch in Nietzsche’s thought is internally connected to the fact that Nietzsche makes explicit some moral ideas that form the repressed core of Western ethics but which are normally (no quotation marks needed) considered too embarrassing and too revealing to be touched upon. One could say that the repression that comes out in Nietzsche’s text drags so to speak with it issues that connect to ”shame” in a way that transcends the normal, social tolerance for shame. Thus, Nietzsche unwittingly reveals the fundamental shame-character of not only his own moral responses, but also of Western ethics in general. Nietzsche’s ethics is, then, not a revaluation but a revelation of Western values or, as I think: of value based ethics in general.

This chapter shows how philosophical reasoning point by point follows the same logic as that of a person who denies her conscience and defends her evil acting. This logic involves that one denies understanding that one’s acting is evil. Since being evil means that one is ruthless towards some other person, denial here means that one denies both one’s own understanding and, in and through this, the understanding of the other person. In short, one refuses to be in understanding with the other. From this refusal all the central philosophical concepts will unfold, beginning with the most fundamental ones, namely subjectivity and objectivity. The ‘problem’ of other minds is analogous to, and homologous with, a moral problem where openness with the other is unbearable.

This introductory chapter argues that the great excitement around the discourse of mind is not generated by legitimate scientific expectations but by an obscure notion that uncovering the truth about the mind is simultaneously a very important and a morally uncommitted task. By contrast, we suggest that the ‘life of the mind’ is inevitably morally engaged, and that any meaningful analysis of the mind will enter into this morally charged field where ‘neutrality’ is impossible and truthfulness and philosophical adequacy are themselves moral tasks. Critically discussing the technoscientific view of the mind, the idea of naturalism, the nature of ethics and the conception of philosophy as a theoretical endeavour divided into different sub-disciplines, the chapter also briefly describes the contents of the volume.

Heidegger's account of the concept of conscience, given in Being and Time, is in many respects remarkable. Since the Middle Ages only a few philosophers have thought about conscience and probably no one with a rigour that equals that of Heidegger. Nevertheless Heidegger's account is imbued with some typically philosophical flaws. In his effort to avoid becoming a spokesman of any particular interpretation of conscience Heidegger singles out, with a characteristic philosophical gesture, the formal features of conscience. However, this formalisation has the consequence that the most crucial aspect of conscience, its call to love our neighbour, is left out. In this paper I will analyse Heidegger's account in some detail, display its errors and the philosophical character of those errors as well as sketch out an alternative account of conscience. This reveals that Heidegger's account does not make any distinction between a false conscience, which is an experience of the pressure of social values, and authentic conscience, which presents my neighbour in the light of love. Also, his account cannot make sense of the authority of conscience. Finally, I raise the question whether Heidegger's flaws tell us something about philosophy.

This volume brings together a collection of essays that explore in a new way how unacknowledged moral concerns are integral to debates in the philosophy of mind.The radical suggestion of the book is that we can make sense of the internal dynamics and cultural significance of these debates only when we understand the moral forces that shape them. Drawing inspiration from a variety of traditions including Wittgenstein, Lacan, phenomenology and analytic philosophy, the authors address a wide range of topics including the mind/body-problem, the problem of other minds, subjectivity and objectivity, the debates on mindreading, naturalism, reductive physicalism, representationalism and the ‘E-turn’; Dennett’s heterophenomenology, McDowell’s neo-Kantianism, Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ considerations and his notion of an ‘attitude towards a soul’; repression, love, conscience, the difficulties of self-understanding, and the methods and aims of philosophy. Through a combination of detailed, immanent criticism and bold constructive work, the authors move the discussion to a new level, beyond humanistic or conservative critiques of naturalism and scientism.

Moral norms and values have in most cultures been taken to form a common moral space that is founded in culture. In the Western world this shows itself in etymology: The words ethos, mores, and Sittlichkeit all refer to cultural norms and traditions. The meaning of ‘common moral space’ can be understood in different ways, but in some version it forms the backbone of the views of most moral philosophers and psychologists including Kant and Freud. (I call this consensus ‘classical.’) I mainly address Freud, but I also briefly discuss Kant. The idea that truth, rationality, meaning, language, and morality are essentially common and shared can be articulated in many ways from the Kantian idea of a kingdom of ends of ..