Ethics
2 total works
Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), along with Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, was instrumental in restoring metaphysics to the study of philosophy. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Hartmann was clearly influenced by Plato. His tour-de-force, Ethik, published in English in 1932 as Ethics, may be the most outstanding work on moral philosophy produced in the twentieth century.
In the first part of Ethics (Moral Phenomena), Hartmann was concerned with the structure of ethical phenomena, and criticized utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism as misleading approaches. In the second part, Moral Values, the author describes all values as forming a complex and as yet imperfectly known system. The actualization of the non-moral and elementary moral values is a necessary condition for the actualization of the higher values. It is on this account that rudimentary values have a prior claim.
Hartmann outlines the main features of the chief virtues, and shows that the moral disposition required in any exigency is always a specific synthesis of various and often conflicting values. Specifically describing fundamental moral values-such as goodness, nobility, and vitality-and special moral values-such as justice, wisdom, courage, self-control, trustworthiness, and modesty-Hartmann takes theoretical philosophy and brings it very much into the realm of the practical.
A compelling and insightful volume, Moral Values remains an essential contribution to the moral and ethical literature of the twentieth century. Hartmann offers a self-contained system of ethics that yet offers a conservative outlook on social life.
Ethics is Nicolai Hartmann's magnum opus on moral philosophy. Volume 1, Moral Phenomena, is concerned with the nature and structure of ethical phenomena. Volume 2, Moral Values, describes all values as forming a complex and imperfectly known system. The final volume, Moral Freedom, deals with one of the oldest puzzles in both philosophy and theology: the individual's freedom of the will.
Freedom of the will is a necessary precondition of morality. Without it, there is no morality in the full sense of the word. In Moral Freedom Hartmann sets out to refute the determinist view that freedom of the will is impossible. Following Kant, while rejecting his transcendentalism, Hartmann first discusses the tension between causality and the freedom of the will.
The tension between the determination by moral values and the freedom of the will is next examined, a crucial issue completely overlooked by Kant and virtually all other modern philosophers, but recognized by the scholastics. Why should we believe in the freedom of the will with regard to the moral values? Are there good reasons for thinking that it exists? If freedom of the will vis-a-vis the moral values does exist, how is it to be conceived? Moral Freedom concludes with the famous postscript on the antinomies between ethics and religion.
Hartmann's Ethics may well be the most outstanding treatise on moral philosophy in the twentieth century. Andreas Kinneging's introduction sheds light on the volume's continuing relevance.