Ethics and Phenomenology

Ethics and Phenomenology is a collection of essays that explore the relationship between moral philosophy and the phenomenological tradition. Phenomenology is a vast and rich philosophical tradition which seeks to explain how we perceive the world. This, in turn, involves questions about one’s relationship to the world and how one both acts and should act in the world. For this reason phenomenology entails an ethics, even if such an ethics is not always apparent in the work of phenomenological thinkers . The book is devoted to two central tasks: Section One offers essays exploring the resources available to moral philosophy in the work of the major phenomenologists of the 20th-century, including Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and others. Part Two consists of essays demonstrating the way that the phenomenological method can facilitate advances in our thinking through the exploration of contemporary ethical issues, including environmentalism, intellectual property, parenting and others.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Ethics and the Classical Phenomenologists Chapter 1: A Phenomenological Ethics of the Absolute Ought: Investigating Husserl’s Unpublished Ethical Writings Sophie Loidolt Chapter 2: Between Scheler and Hartmann: Problems of a Material Value-Ethics Eugene Kelly Chapter 3: Heidegger’s Aristotelian Ethics J. Jeremy Wisnewski Chapter 4: Metaphysics after ‘the End of Metaphysics’: Recovering ‘the Good’ from Heidegger Lawrence Vogel Chapter 5: Merleau-Ponty and the Ethics of Engagement Mark Sanders Chapter 6: The Hell of Our Choosing: Sartre’s Ethics and the Impossibility of Interpersonal Conversion Ed Grippe Chapter 7: Levinasian Autonomy: How to Free a Hostage Dwight Furrow and Mark Wheeler Part II: Phenomenological Approaches to Issues in Ethics Chapter 8: Hands-On Care: Tactility and Ethical Performance Maurice Hamington Chapter 9: The Phenomenological Shift of Parenthood Janet Donohoe Chapter 10: Coding the Dictatorship of ‘the They:’ A Phenomenological Critique of Digital Rights Management Gordon Hull Chapter 11: Person and Environment: Vital Sympathy and the Roots of Environmental Ethics John White Chapter 12: Husserl and the Responsibility and Sacrifice of Derrida Janet Donohoe Chapter 13: War as katharsis? Scheler’s Phenomenological Analysis Susan Gottlöber Chapter 14: Eichmann in Athens: Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas and the New Problem of Evil Lawrence Vogel Chapter 15: From the Other to the Subject: Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler Leah McClimans Chapter 16: Phenomenology as an Ascetic Practice Paul Gyllenhammer

About the Author :
Mark Sanders is a faculty associate with the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics. He became the undergraduate coordinator for the Philosophy Department in 2011. J. Jeremy Wisnewski is associate professor of philosophy at Hartwick College and the coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program.

Review :
Ethics and Phenomenology is an uncommonly interesting and well-integrated collection of essays. Beginning with new insights into the ethical thought of an array of phenomenological figures, the volume ends with a set of original ideas inspired by them. The collection provides illuminating connections between both well-known and less well-known philosophers and it delves into an important range of contemporary issues including medical care, good parenting, intellectual property law, the environment, war, evil, and the status of women. Reminding us again of the richness of the phenomenological tradition, this collection also helps us to think better about our ethical aspirations. This fresh and engaging collection fills a gap in our thinking about the relationship between ethics and phenomenology. The range of phenomenologists covered and explained in reader-accessible ways is enormous. Most importantly, the volume addresses ethical issues of major importance: for example, parenthood, the environment, and the digital revolution. This book is worth reading cover to cover and would make a superior text for a thorough course in phenomenology. Ethics and Phenomenology contains original, productive work on ethics. Part I of this book contains critical evaluations of the contributions to ethics made by the founding phenomenological thinkers, and Part II contains studies of contemporary ethical issues inspired by phenomenological methods. This book brings new understanding of classical authors and new insight in contemporary ethical debates.