Abstract

There is a prevailing lack of confidence today about the possibility of philosophical ethics. Philosophers tend to believe that ethics must have a foundation, i.e., universal criteria for establishing the objective validity of ethical norms. But, at the same time, they believe that a foundation is difficult to attain because of the uncertainty about the types of validity, universality, and objectivity that are appropriate for ethics. Without a foundation, however, ethics is threatened by relativism, the view that instead of a coherent moral theory we are faced with a plurality of incommensurate moral standpoints relative to particular historical conditions. ;In this dissertation I shall argue that the lack of confidence in philosophical ethics is unwarranted. I shall develop a hermeneutic conception of philosophical ethics, based on Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method, that is able to resolve the problems of incommensurability and avoid the threat of relativism. This can be done, I shall argue, without a foundation in the traditional, i.e., transcendental sense. In the introduction I explain the present predicament of philosophical ethics and outline my strategy for improving it. Chapter One is a critique of the Kantian paradigm of philosophical ethics based on pure practical reason. In Chapters Two and Three I present my understanding of hermeneutics as a theory of the practice of historical consciousness: Chapter Two is a discussion of three stages in the history of modern hermeneutics--Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Heidegger; and Chapter Three is devoted to Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. The fourth chapter outlines a hermeneutic conception of philosophical ethics derived from hermeneutics as practical philosophy. The core of this conception is a dialogical/dialectical model of ethical reflection based on the hermeneutic notion of effective-historical consciousness. The fifth and final chapter is a continuation of the fourth, plus a response to the various criticisms of hermeneutic ethics and hermeneutics in general. My overall purpose is to contribute to the rehabilitation of philosophical ethics.