Philosophical Ethics

Abstract

Abstract Schleiermacher’s philosophical ethics comprises the basic principles of a cultural theory, including his understanding of human sciences, which further includes the study of theology. Since it operates on a different categorial level, it must not be confused with his Christian ethics (Die christliche Sittenlehre). As a philosophical undertaking it develops an alternative to Kantian and Fichtean concepts of duty and their claims for universality and formal justification procedures. Schleiermacher conceives of an ethics of individuality, first outlined in his Soliloquies (1800), according to which humans are not just exemplars of rational beings underlying general rules, but are members of a community in which each person represents the human species in their own unique manner. In his later academic lectures, this leads him to a theory of reason embedded in nature and especially in human actions developed from a descriptive point of view. It is a theory with a tripartite framework, integrating duties, virtues, and goods. Yet its central form pursues an ethics of goods, which offers an understanding of human action organized by communication and mutual cooperation and realized by a critical theory of institutions.