Husserl’s Phenomenology of Will in His Reflections on Ethics

Abstract

For a long time it was a commonplace in phenomenological literature that Husserl’s philosophical views are determined by logical and epistemological questions. Consequently the theory of action and practical life was at best considered to be a neglected subject in his phenomenology. In recent years this judgement has begun to be corrected. A growing number of enquiries deal with questions of Husserl’s practical philosophy.² Such studies received an important impetus in 1988 with the edition of the lectures on ethics and value theory which Husserl held in the years between 1908 and 1914.³ There is no doubt that because of these facts the usual picture of Husserl has to be altered. Ethics and the practical life constitute a distinct topic in Husserl’s thought, and his interests in this sphere date back to the time before Logical Investigations. ⁴ Remembering Husserl’s well-known and offensive remark about the responsibility of philosophers as ‘functionaries of mankind’,⁵ there are even reasons for considering the ethical dimension as the more or less secret goal of Husserl’s whole philosophy.⁶ But nevertheless, the above-mentioned edition of the early lectures corroborates at least partly the formerly-held opinion that Husserl’s approach to philosophy is primarily theoretical.

I would very much like to thank Michael Gorman and Ronit Jariv for important assistance in correcting the English text of this essay. In addition, I am grateful to Ralf Peters for his critical remarks.