Subjective and Objective Reasons in Ethics

• Thesis title in Czech: Subjektivní a objektivní důvody v etice
• Thesis title in English: Subjective and Objective Reasons in Ethics
• Key words: etika, objektivita, subjektivita, důvody, motivace, normativita
• English key words: ethics, objectivity, subjectivity, reasons, motivation, normativity
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2011/2012
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies (21-UFAR)
• Supervisor: doc. Jakub Jirsa, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 27.06.2012
• Date of assignment: 27.06.2012
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 07.08.2012
• Date and time of defence: 17.09.2014 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 13.08.2014
• Date of proceeded defence: 17.09.2014
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: doc. Mgr. Jakub Čapek, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The thesis will address the contemporary discussion on reasons in ethics, and comment on the questions related to their normativity, their (in)dependence on desires, subjective and objective dimensions, motivational implications etc. The discussion shall be approached by introducing its leading contributors (Derek Parfit, H. Sidgwick, B. Williams, T. Nagel, McDowell etc.) and their approaches to individual problems. Tension between the objective and the subjective will be a recurrent theme throughout the work, and shall serve as a common ground, or tertium comparationis, between the contemporary moral philosophers and Soren Kierekegaard's existentialist themes (truth in subjectivity, inwardness, ultimate truth, unconditional ethical commitment, decision and transcendence). The questions such as "Is there anything that objectively matters?", "Is there anything one objectively ought to do?" or "Are reasons provided by some kind of 'ultimate good' which we strive to attain?" will be answered from at least two different angles: from Kierkegaardian and from the contemporary ethical standpoints. The comparison with Kierkegaard might show that there is something important missing in the contemporary theories, and, that there is perhaps something which Kierkegaard might have neglected and which contemporary theories fruitfully discuss.

References

PARFIT, Derek a Samuel SCHEFFLER. On what matters. 1st publ. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, xlviii, 540 s. ISBN 978-0-19-957280-91.
PARFIT, Derek a Samuel SCHEFFLER. On what matters. 1st publ. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, xiii, 825 s. ISBN 978-0-19-957281-62.
SIDGWICK, Henry a John RAWLS. The methods of ethics. 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, c1981, xxxviii, 528 s. ISBN 0-914145-28-6.
WILLIAMS, Bernard Arthur Owen. Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, ix, 230 s. ISBN 0-674-26857-1.
NAGEL, Thomas. The view from nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, xi, 244 s. ISBN 0-19-503668-9.
KIERKEGAARD, Søren Aabye, Howard Vincent HONG a Edna Hatlestad HONG. Concluding unscientific postscript to Philosophical fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, xi, 630 s. ISBN 0-691-02081-7.