Horizons of vulnerability and the problem of human dignity: Ethical and phenomenological assessments

Ignacio Quepons

doi:10.14712/24646504.2019.10

Abstract

The paper suggests how a phenomenological account of vulnerability, in the context of moral emotions, may address the clarification of the problem of human dignity. In order to present this claim, the paper emphasizes the horizon dynamics involved in the emotional disclosure of the axiological sphere in Husserl’s phenomenology, in regard to some essential aspects of the experience of feeling vulnerable. Afterwards, it is suggested how such consciousness of being vulnerable is connected to the realization of basic values, particularly, the very intrinsic value of human life.

Highlights

The paper suggests how a phenomenological account of vulnerability, in the context of moral emotions, may address the clarification of the problem of human dignity
In order to present this claim, the paper emphasizes the horizon dynamics involved in the emotional disclosure of the axiological sphere in Husserl’s phenomenology, in regard to some essential aspects of the experience of feeling vulnerable
The purpose of this paper is to suggest how a phenomenological reflection on the experience of vulnerability[2] addresses the problem of human dignity

Summary

Husserl and the possibility of a phenomenological ethics of vulnerability

Along the different moments of his intellectual development, Edmund Husserl, founder of the phenomenological tradition, attempted to provide philosophical foundations of morality based on his phenomenological account of the emotive experience. According to Husserl, emotions are essential to the disclosure of values and, in consequence, are an undeniable source of knowledge for the clarification of sense of the moral experience.[13] In order to sustain his point, Husserl described the emotions as complex lived-experiences[14] conformed by intentional meanings consistent with logical judgment and a formal explanation of axiology.[15] inasmuch the very foundation of his theory is based on a principle of experience, Husserl’s late investigations on this topic lead him to a progressive emphasis on the notion of human person as ultimate ground for his ethics.[16] The last stage of Husserl’s intellectual development emphasizes the experience of the person as a complex of habitualities17 [Habitualitäten] and a progressive unity of individualization as a subjective moral agent.[18]. If it is possible to find such a kind of idea of human dignity, it should not come from the abstraction of the concrete and fragile circumstances of human existence, but as it is disclosed by the concrete experience

Horizons of vulnerability

From the phenomenology of vulnerability to a negative theory of human dignity

Conclusions