Principles and Persons - An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism

Many critics have claimed that existentialism has not produced any ethics, as distinct from the moralistic assertions of its individual proponents. Challenging this view, Professor Olafson demonstrates that Sartre, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty indeed worked out a powerful ethical theory and that their positions must be understood as deriving from a voluntarist concept of moral autonomy that can be traced beyond Nietzsche and Kant to certain tendencies in late-medieval thought. He demonstrates that a broad parallelism exists between developments in ethical theory among Continental philosophers of the phenomenological persuasion and the more analytically inclined philosophers of the English-speaking world.

About the author

Frederick A. Olafson was a professor of education and philosophy in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

Summary

He demonstrates that a broad parallelism exists between developments in ethical theory among Continental philosophers of the phenomenological persuasion and the more analytically inclined philosophers of the English-speaking world.

Product details

• Authors: Frederick Olafson, Frederick (University of California At Sa Olafson, Frederick (University of California at San Diego) Olafson
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9781421430546
• ISBN: 978-1-4214-3054-6
• No. of pages: 278
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Ethics & moral philosophy, Ethics and moral philosophy, Phenomenology & Existentialism, Phenomenology and Existentialism