Published : 2016-11-18

SOVEREIGNTY OF MORAL AGENT AND SOVEREIGNTY OF GOOD

Marcin Mariusz Baran



Section: Thematic Articles

Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The following article aims to identify the main reasons that make it impossible to reconcile the modern notion of sovereignty or autonomy of the moral agent with the notion of the really existing sovereign good.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The main emerging research problem is to identify the sources of motivation behind the limitation of modern ethical thinking. For this purpose the author implements the interpretive stance inspired by Charles Taylor. It consists in exploring the moral motivation underpinning particular views on moral philosophy.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: It begins by indicating the motivations that fuel the twofold limitation of the good part of modern ethical thinking. The first restriction consists in reducing moral philosophy to questions of making any serious reference in ethical considerations to an objective moral source which exists independently from the human agent, be it Good, value or God. Following Taylor, who draws on Iris Murdoch, there are listed two reasons for the first limitation: the affirmations of ordinary life and the disengaged reason. As for the second restriction the influence of the “Enlightenment myth” and the “metaphysics of the modern world” which is implied by it are indicated as its determinants.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The analysis brings the author to conclusion that that the main reasons for the impossibility of a reconciliation between the sovereignty of the moral agent and the notion of a really existing sovereign good are the “Enlightenment myth” and the “metaphysics of the modern world”.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The article concludes with the observation that either the “Enlightenment myth” or the “metaphysics of the modern world” are vastly uncritically assumed in contemporary ethical thinking. It is necessary to articulate and verify them, to which this article is a modest contribution and exhortation.

Keywords

sovereignty of moral agent ; autonomy ; sovereignty of good ; moral sources ; moral obligation



Details

References

Indicators

Authors

Download files

PDF (Język Polski)

Altmetric indicators


Licence

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CC BY-ND licence that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are asked to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). We advise to use any of the following reserach society portals:


Redakcja czasopisma
Horyzonty Polityki

email: horyzonty@ignatianum.edu.pl
email: horyzonty.polityki@ignatianum.edu.pl
tel. +48 12 3999 651
O platformie:
Copyright 2019 by Uniwersytet Ignatianum w Krakowie
OJS Support and Customization by LIBCOM
Platform & workfow by OJS/PKP