Husserl’s personalist ethics

Abstract

The point of departure of any ethical theory is the anthropological fact that normally developed humans must lead their own lives themselves. This means that their conduct is neither programmed nor determined by instincts. Human beings must on every occasion engage the circumstances of a practical situation by their own choice and decision. Even when they find themselves delivered over to the stimuli and powers of particular circumstances in a completely passive manner, this does not occur in the way that it does for a robot, but rather, on the basis of a background of an essential possibility that they can conduct themselves otherwise than they are now behaving. Where there is the possibility of a choice, then the question inevitably arises regarding the principle of the choice. On what do we base our decision to choose one possibility rather than another? We can let fate decide, we can consult astrological charts, we can appeal to an authority, or we can try to find out what we truly want, what are our deepest desires and what choice agrees best with these desires. Finally, we can also inquire into what decision is the objectively correct and rational one, i.e. which decision is good independent of our subjective preferences. This latter case, of course, presupposes a standard of the objectively good and rational, in regard to which we can be responsible for and evaluate our decisions as well as our ensuing actions.The consideration that we, as normally developed humans, must ourselves lead our lives, that our lives do not make sense and take shape without us, does not merely mean that our behavior is not determined in regard to particular details in the manifold changes of the practical situations within which we find ourselves, but rather, in principle ours is a self-determined behavior. Furthermore, it means that our life as a unified whole is in principle self-determined. When I live for the moment, i.e., in a wanton and random

Values of love: two forms of infinity characteristic of human persons

“…3 I will not discuss in this paper the changes that the concept of personal values brings about in Husserl's axiology and value theory (cf. Melle 1991;Hart 1992;Melle 2002;Hart 2006;Melle 2007;Peucker 2008;Hart 2009;Loidolt 2012;Drummond 2015a;Crespo 2015;Drummond 2018). These are fundamental and farreaching and need a separate, full-length paper to be analyzed.…”

Pensamientos caminados para caminar: una contribución al concepto de meditación filosófica en Ortega y Gasset como síntesis de teoría y práctica

“…Tampoco es comprensible radicalmente la fenomenología de Husserl si no somos conscientes de que la propuesta de filosofía que presenta como ciencia de fundamentación absoluta está ordenada en sentido práctico/ existencial. No podemos extendernos aquí sobre este decisivo aspecto de la fenomenología husserliana (FUNKE, 1982(FUNKE, , 1983COBET, 2003;MELLE, 2007;BRAINARD, 2007;WALTON, 2017;LERNER, 2017), pero baste decir que para Husserl (1917, p. 271), en clave ilustrada, el saber teórico fundamenta la existencia: La orientación de la respuesta a la pregunta teórica de la filosofía puede y debe ser determinante de la vida (lebensbestimmend) y decisiva para la propuesta más elevada de una meta (oberste Zielgebung) de vida personal.…”

From Happiness to Blessedness: Husserl on Eudaimonia, Virtue, and the Best Life

“…53 See XLII,[348][349][350][351][352][353][354][355][393][394][395][396][397][398][399][451][452][453][454][455][456][457][491][492][493][494]. See also (Melle, 1991(Melle, , 2002(Melle, , 2007Peucker, 2008 Husserl recognizes that, given the vagaries, vices, and vicissitudes of the world, virtue off ers the best prospect of happiness (XLII, 297-333), but he, like Aristotle, also realizes that virtue does not guarantee happiness (XLII,382). Yet he cannot without further ado be characterized as a virtue ethicist in the Classical Western tradition 55 .…”