Das inkarnierte Ethos. Metaethische Perspektiven der Spätphilosophie Merleau-Pontys.

Abstract

Is the capability of ethical behaviour a natural human trait or is it basically socialized? How then can universal principles of Ethics be justified and reasonably legitimated? Traditionally, those questions are part of a controversial debate in Philosophy. This thesis develops a new approach in the research field of Metaethics, where the debate seems stuck between naturalistic and constructivistic explanatory models. The new approach works with the late Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty from his uncompleted last work "The Visible and the Invisible". Not being an ethical theory itself, it creates the concept of the so called "flesh" – an elemental texture of connection between the Subject and the Object. The thesis uncovers this concept in terms of its consequences for intersubjectivity and develops a "third" perspective for the debate on moral capability. This perspective starts with the intertwining of subject and object as a new understanding of the Other, who is no longer viewed as the opposite of the Self. The fundamental connection of the Self and the Other is pre-reflexive and therefore builds the foundation for an ethical commitment. At the same time the new approach of this thesis does not implicate determinism, as the freedom of the subject in the process of decision-making is not being neglected.