acceptable behavior. would then mean a guidance to norm-forming and socially weaker and the more caring ones. Education to good morals careless steal the most for themselves at the expense of the anomic space of the “jungle”, where the more powerful and malized schemes of behavior in order not to remain in an In the name of security and order, we wistfully accept nor- maneuvering space, freedom and self-will of individuals. properties and rights. At the cost of limitation of one’s own require obedience. It all secures mutual protection of lives, ing rights to an external authority, let them lead, obey and and trends – means to commit the individual decision-mak- lawgiver – may it be a collective mass and its conventions same rules. To succumb to laws and norms set by an external way to “survive” is to reach a state where all would follow the in us and around us (Gilles Lipovetsky) it seems that the only ity (Zygmunt Bauman), among narcissists and individualists In a “liquid” society amidst the “liquid” rationality and moral- and morality. Émile Durkheim, John Rawls and others) theories of justice or contractualistic (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Auguste Comte, clude all deontological (Immanuel Kant) and social-normative (political, social) or internal (moral) law. This set of ethics in- more powerful defend the rule of meta-individual rules, external as all ethical conceptions that due to the fear of egoism of the The “third-person ethics” (It/They–ethics) may be understood 4 The Third-Person Ethics environment possible. of profit with the least harmful impacts on social and natural this sense reduced to so-called healthy lifestyle and pursuit calculating society is what is wanted. Moral education is in possibilities of one’s own protection against attacks of the for knowing…) have become almost outdated. Increasing the of the world, transcending one’s own boundaries, knowing ture of spirit, keeping the received heritage, humanization (general development of personality, cultivation of the cul- so-called “high aims” of the classical humanistic education utes to fixation of one’s own material and social position, the In this process, the only valued thing is the one that contrib- emotive, affective and social relationships are subordinated. by adjustment to an individual fight for “survival”, to which Hedonism and utilitarianism in education are manifested dental support they remain alone, vulnerable and resigning. is closed up in their individualism and without any transcen- ualistic theory.” (Lipovetsky 2008, 11). The hedonist of today as possible… is just the backmost manifestation of the individ- AnDREJ RAJSKý S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 9 1 7 ed himself during the investigation of the consistent slaughthe architect of the “Final Solution”, Adolf Eichmann defend- workEichmann in Jerusalem (orig. 1963). The nazi criminal, ical depravedness, as pointed out by Hannah Arendt in the action to action according to duty, which resulted in histor- against the ethics of impersonal law is the reduction of good pression of selfishness. Perhaps, the best-known reservation desire for happiness (in the eudaimonic tradition) was an ex- from the morally right action is also problematic, as if the titanism. After all, the exclusion of the pursuit of happiness es, outcome and consequences, leads to cynicism and unreal based on rational consideration regardless the circumstanc- another weakness of the ethics of rules. A decision of man 2014, 107). The lack of regard to situation and context is is to take the context of action into consideration, too (Sokol of thinking”, proposed “ethics of responsibility”, while its task al moral patterns. Max Weber, in a reaction to Kant’s “ethics ethics for stiffness, abstractness and destruction of tradition- Moses Mandelssohn, or later Friedrich Nietzsche blame this affects are bearers of immorality. Critics of the period such as have a place in the “pure” deontological ethics. Passions and emotional motivation or intuition of good or evil does not of “moral feelings” from the horizon of ethical practice. Any action. The second problem of the ethics of rules is exclusion stract ethical thinking is, therefore, separated from real moral “dropped out” of the perspective of the ethics of duty. Ab- does not ask about what is good for life. Good and good life in the sense that it sets what is right and obligatory, but it practice. Kantian tradition separates ethics from morality scendental matters. governing their civilization fairly, without a reference to tran- the enthusiastic enlightenment belief that man is capable of structions from the universal law. The ethics of rules reflects how man should behave is their own reason, deducing in- rule, valid for everyone. The highest sovereign who dictates vidual experience and conscience, but based on an objective ual may bring in moral judgements based not on their indi- aims. Thus, ethics becomes a rational science and an individ- it commands to act with respect to higher, meta-individual circumstances of action, it is not a description of a state, but Moral imperative does not describe human motivations and time, freedom of man from the world of natural determinism. nal emotions. Kant strives to “free” morality and at the same necessity of natural laws and thus, follows principally irratio- others), according to whom, morality is identified with the to skepticism of empiricists (John Locke, David Hume and morally right. Kant reacts with his rationalistic conception pure awe to the law and not because of his own benefit, acts According to Kant, he who follows moral rules because of
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