Abstract
This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “phenomenology”: a narrow sense (drawn from Nagel) and a broader sense (drawn from Husserl). It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and intentional differences belonging to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “phenomenology” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “moral phenomenology.”
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Notes
This understanding goes as far back as Aristotle; cf. De anima 425b12–18; Sense and Sensibilia 448a26–30; and Nicomachean Ethics 1170a29–b1.
The term “intention” is here used in the sense deriving from intentionality. It is not to be understood as restricted to volitions. Instead, it refers to the directedness of consciousness. By virtue of this directedness a conscious subject experiences an object in a determinate way and as having a determinate, albeit further determinable, significance.
Although more complicated cases wherein the feeling or emotion is rooted in another axiological property are also possible, these in turn will point back to simpler apprehensions of an object’s or situation’s non-axiological properties.
To say that B is founded upon A is to say (1) that B presupposes A as necessary for it and (2) that B builds itself upon A so as to form a unity with it.
Husserl’s German captures this difference well in the distinction between Wertnehmen and Werturteil, which parallels the distinction between Wahrnehmung and Urteil.
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Drummond, J.J. Moral phenomenology and moral intentionality. Phenom Cogn Sci 7, 35–49 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9064-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9064-0