The philosopher’s path. Husserl and the sense of ethics

Abstract

Husserl’s meditations on ethics are characterized by his attempt to configure it as science, but they end by subordinating ethical problems to metaphysics. Starting by Husserl’s reflection on ethics as Kunstlehre, this paper attempts to show how the sense and scope of ethics expands to the point that its subordination to metaphysics responds to the ethical character that the world and humanity’s existence should both have. With this in view, this paper follows the path that leads from the static foundation of ethics in the first 1914 lessons, to its genetic foundation in the 1920/24 lessons. It concludes considering two texts from the beginning of the 1930’s, whereby Husserl deals again with the arguments of the latter lessons.