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Ontology and attention: addressing the challenge of the amoralist through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and care ethics

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posted on 2023-05-21, 08:33 authored by Anya DalyAnya Daly
This paper addresses the persistent philosophical problem posed by the amoralist-one who eschews moral values-by drawing on complementary resources within phenomenology and care ethics. How is it that the amoralist can reject ethical injunctions that serve the general good and be unpersuaded by ethical intuitions that for most would require neither explanation nor justification? And more generally, what is the basis for ethical motivation? Why is it that we can care for others? What are the underpinning ontological structures that are able to support an ethics of care? To respond to these questions, I draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty, focusing specifically on his analyses of perceptual attention. What is the nature and quality of perceptual attention that underwrite our capacities or incapacities for care? I proceed in dialogue with a range of philosophers attuned to the compelling nature of care, some who have also drawn on Merleau-Ponty and others who have examined the roots of an ethics of care inspired or incited by other thinkers.

History

Publication title

Philosophies

Volume

7

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

2409-9287

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

MDPI AG

Place of publication

Switzerland

Rights statement

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies

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