Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.21146/2074-4870-2022-22-1-81-88
O. Pugachev, S. S. Gorbunov
The article is a preface to the translation of two Strasbourg sermons on reverence for life delivered by Albert Schweitzer in the midst of a difficult time, harsh both for himself and the world. Schweitzer’s return from Africa and internment, the Paris Peace Conference and the eve of the Versailles Treaty went along with fear of new means of destruction. In February 1919 sermons, Schweitzer tries to rehabilitate Christian morality, which has been reduced to nothingness. In response to Nietzsche’s “God is dead”, Dr. Schweitzer speaks of perception based on true reason and true heart, referring to the idea of a new whole Humanity. The basis of the new ethics, the foundation of all morality, should be a mysterious and incomprehensible phenomenon of life and the noble feeling of reverence for it. When doctrinaire morality turns out to be helpless in the face of a real possibility that the mankind will be destructed by its own technical power, it is reverence for life that becomes the great and simple commandment, resisting the concept of a superman. Schweitzer’s ideas are in tune with the works of Russian philosophers (Vladimir Solovyov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Fyodorov), who urged to actively overcome death. In the second sermon, Schweitzer speaks of an ambivalent will to live, of temptations and deep contradictions of a moral consciousness that is forced to make a choice in favor of this or that life, of the need for active compassion for all living beings. In the 1919 sermons, four years before the publication of Culture and Ethics, Schweitzer focuses on the ethical issue, and the first two ones, delivered in February, embody his principle of reverence for life.
{"title":"The “Open Letters” about Goodness for the World","authors":"O. Pugachev, S. S. Gorbunov","doi":"10.21146/2074-4870-2022-22-1-81-88","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21146/2074-4870-2022-22-1-81-88","url":null,"abstract":"The article is a preface to the translation of two Strasbourg sermons on reverence for life delivered by Albert Schweitzer in the midst of a difficult time, harsh both for himself and the world. Schweitzer’s return from Africa and internment, the Paris Peace Conference and the eve of the Versailles Treaty went along with fear of new means of destruction. In February 1919 sermons, Schweitzer tries to rehabilitate Christian morality, which has been reduced to nothingness. In response to Nietzsche’s “God is dead”, Dr. Schweitzer speaks of perception based on true reason and true heart, referring to the idea of a new whole Humanity. The basis of the new ethics, the foundation of all morality, should be a mysterious and incomprehensible phenomenon of life and the noble feeling of reverence for it. When doctrinaire morality turns out to be helpless in the face of a real possibility that the mankind will be destructed by its own technical power, it is reverence for life that becomes the great and simple commandment, resisting the concept of a superman. Schweitzer’s ideas are in tune with the works of Russian philosophers (Vladimir Solovyov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Fyodorov), who urged to actively overcome death. In the second sermon, Schweitzer speaks of an ambivalent will to live, of temptations and deep contradictions of a moral consciousness that is forced to make a choice in favor of this or that life, of the need for active compassion for all living beings. In the 1919 sermons, four years before the publication of Culture and Ethics, Schweitzer focuses on the ethical issue, and the first two ones, delivered in February, embody his principle of reverence for life.","PeriodicalId":360102,"journal":{"name":"Ethical Thought","volume":"116 8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130077908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-104-115
M. Rendl
Georg Simmel’s heritage is seldom identified with the subject of ethics. He is mostly considered as a representative of the ‘philosophy of life’, who didn’t make a significant contribution to its development. Some of his works, in which he has worked out a peculiar ethical representation, seem more surprising. This ‘popular’ ethic is attractive today because it focuses on the real, living person with fragile existence and easy changeable values, ideals and principles. His or her actions don’t always correspond to the ethical model, but it doesn’t mean that they are unethical. Ethics as a theory doesn’t match with ethics as the real practice of human life: this idea represents Simmel’s starting point and forms his concept as the ethics of individuality. I would like to discuss some conspicuous problems in Simmel’s interpretation of ethics in his essay ‘the individual law’ as well as his criticism of the general ethics of Immanuel Kant. Simmel asks basic questions that each intelligent person is concerned with: What is the meaning of duty and morality? How should you adapt these categories to your own life? Can a person do something without ethics? The Simmel’s solutions are not ideal. They ask for comments. I want to discuss their advantages and disadvantages and see whether Simmel’s project can be explained as ethics at all.
{"title":"Some Questions to Georg Simmel’s Ethics (in his Essay “The Individual Law”)","authors":"M. Rendl","doi":"10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-104-115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-104-115","url":null,"abstract":"Georg Simmel’s heritage is seldom identified with the subject of ethics. He is mostly considered as a representative of the ‘philosophy of life’, who didn’t make a significant contribution to its development. Some of his works, in which he has worked out a peculiar ethical representation, seem more surprising. This ‘popular’ ethic is attractive today because it focuses on the real, living person with fragile existence and easy changeable values, ideals and principles. His or her actions don’t always correspond to the ethical model, but it doesn’t mean that they are unethical. Ethics as a theory doesn’t match with ethics as the real practice of human life: this idea represents Simmel’s starting point and forms his concept as the ethics of individuality. I would like to discuss some conspicuous problems in Simmel’s interpretation of ethics in his essay ‘the individual law’ as well as his criticism of the general ethics of Immanuel Kant. Simmel asks basic questions that each intelligent person is concerned with: What is the meaning of duty and morality? How should you adapt these categories to your own life? Can a person do something without ethics? The Simmel’s solutions are not ideal. They ask for comments. I want to discuss their advantages and disadvantages and see whether Simmel’s project can be explained as ethics at all.","PeriodicalId":360102,"journal":{"name":"Ethical Thought","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121178648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-18-25
Victoria S. Iugai
A simplified version of philosophical discussion on any problem could be summarised like this: to explain a phenomenon P theory A is developed, then in response to A theory B is developed, then these theories are modified and give rise to new argument, including arguments based on or inspired by some scientific findings and theories from other fields of philosophy. However, in moral responsibility discussion, it is complicated to distinguish one central conflict. Different philosophers write about moral responsibility as a problem of ethical evaluation of an action, and metaphysical conditions do moral responsibility, and criteria of moral agent, and possibility of several agents sharing responsibility for the same action, etc. In this paper, I discuss “Ethics and metaphysics of moral responsibility: that is a rigorous analysis of various theories of moral responsibility turned into in the original systematisation of the conceptual chaos in contemporary debates on moral responsibility. The first part of the paper includes tackling the problem of moral responsibility and a short review of the theories of moral responsibility. In the second part, there are conceptual clarifications of the term “appropriateness” that is the key term for interpreting conditions of moral responsibility. In the paper, I have two pursues. First, to highlight strong and less strong points of analysis of the problem of moral responsibility proposed by E. Loginov, M. Gavrilov, A. Mertsalov and A. Iunusov. Second, to draw an attention to theoretical challenges of moral reactions when it is assumed that moral reactions come in degrees.
{"title":"The Complexity of Moral Responsibility and Its Degrees","authors":"Victoria S. Iugai","doi":"10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-18-25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-18-25","url":null,"abstract":"A simplified version of philosophical discussion on any problem could be summarised like this: to explain a phenomenon P theory A is developed, then in response to A theory B is developed, then these theories are modified and give rise to new argument, including arguments based on or inspired by some scientific findings and theories from other fields of philosophy. However, in moral responsibility discussion, it is complicated to distinguish one central conflict. Different philosophers write about moral responsibility as a problem of ethical evaluation of an action, and metaphysical conditions do moral responsibility, and criteria of moral agent, and possibility of several agents sharing responsibility for the same action, etc. In this paper, I discuss “Ethics and metaphysics of moral responsibility: that is a rigorous analysis of various theories of moral responsibility turned into in the original systematisation of the conceptual chaos in contemporary debates on moral responsibility. The first part of the paper includes tackling the problem of moral responsibility and a short review of the theories of moral responsibility. In the second part, there are conceptual clarifications of the term “appropriateness” that is the key term for interpreting conditions of moral responsibility. In the paper, I have two pursues. First, to highlight strong and less strong points of analysis of the problem of moral responsibility proposed by E. Loginov, M. Gavrilov, A. Mertsalov and A. Iunusov. Second, to draw an attention to theoretical challenges of moral reactions when it is assumed that moral reactions come in degrees.","PeriodicalId":360102,"journal":{"name":"Ethical Thought","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129890365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-116-128
E. Lepekhova
This paper deals with the problem of the correlation between ethics and religious consciousness in the philosophy of the Japanese scholar, philosopher and publicist Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903). Analyzing various ethical systems (utilitarianism, intuitionism, rigorism and rationalism), in the discourse about what is the primary one: public morality or religious consciousness, he comes to the conclusion that the structure of individual and social life should be based primarily on the principles of spirituality (seishinshugi). To the individual following only ethical norms without realizing his spiritual nature seems difficult, and sometimes simply impossible. Spirituality itself, according to Kiyozawa Manshi, has a clearly expressed Buddhist meaning: it is the absolute transcendental truth of the Buddha Amida Tathagata, the infinite (mugen) principle that underlies everything and can determine ethical norms. The philosophical views of Kiyozawa Manshi are of special interest, demonstrating a situation, influenced by the change of socio-political conditions, ethics and religious preferences in society where, in response, the most educated representatives sought to establish their own standards of morality and spirituality, in which religion played a formative role.
{"title":"Ethics and Religious Consciousness in the Philosophy of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903)","authors":"E. Lepekhova","doi":"10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-116-128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21146/2074-4870-2021-21-2-116-128","url":null,"abstract":"This paper deals with the problem of the correlation between ethics and religious consciousness in the philosophy of the Japanese scholar, philosopher and publicist Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903). Analyzing various ethical systems (utilitarianism, intuitionism, rigorism and rationalism), in the discourse about what is the primary one: public morality or religious consciousness, he comes to the conclusion that the structure of individual and social life should be based primarily on the principles of spirituality (seishinshugi). To the individual following only ethical norms without realizing his spiritual nature seems difficult, and sometimes simply impossible. Spirituality itself, according to Kiyozawa Manshi, has a clearly expressed Buddhist meaning: it is the absolute transcendental truth of the Buddha Amida Tathagata, the infinite (mugen) principle that underlies everything and can determine ethical norms. The philosophical views of Kiyozawa Manshi are of special interest, demonstrating a situation, influenced by the change of socio-political conditions, ethics and religious preferences in society where, in response, the most educated representatives sought to establish their own standards of morality and spirituality, in which religion played a formative role.","PeriodicalId":360102,"journal":{"name":"Ethical Thought","volume":"252 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115006837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}