Abstract
The author argues that particular moral decisions and actions are determined by actual experience of human relations rather than by general principles only; moral imperativity may be presented either in the form of principles, or through agent’s immediate reactions to particular communicative situations and other persons’ expectations.
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Notes
- 1.
It is only clear that the law of reputation is based on the divine law. However, uncertainty in Locke ’s explanation of “the divine law” and “the law of reputation” does not allow treating them definitely. Locke clarified neither the relation between duty, right, and virtue, nor between sin, wrong, and vice.
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- 3.
In such representation of morality one point is worth mentioning, though its entire discussion would take us out of the framework of this chapter. Oakeshott understood morality in terms of self-realization of the person as moral agent, particularly, in the second form of morality – in persons’ attitude towards ‘moral ideals’ and ‘moral rules’. However he did not explain the locus of ideals and rules he called ‘moral’ in morality or in relation to it.
- 4.
For positive and negative dimensions of amour-propre see O’Hagan (1999: 171–179). It is worth adding that in its negative meaning amour-propre could be probably considered as one of the direct intellectual precursors of Friedrich Nietzsche ’s notion of ressentiment.
- 5.
The Commandment of Love, even in its partial forms known from Lev. 19: 18, 33–34, is often interpreted as a peculiar expression of the Golden Rule . The difference of the Golden Rule from the Commandment of Love I tried to show in Apressyan (2002).
- 6.
Nameworthy that in the Book of Tobit Ahiqar is mentioned as Tobit’s nephew and friend.
- 7.
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Apressyan, R. (2014). Communicative Source of Moral Imperativity. In: Fløistad, G. (eds) Ethics or Moral Philosophy. Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6895-6_7
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