Founding Community

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Morality and Phenomenology

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 1-8

3. The Ego and the Other in a Pairing Relation

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 9-30

4. Instinct and the Presence of the Other

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 31-53

5. Moral Categoriality & Moral Being

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 54-77

6. Phenomenological Communitarianism

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 78-120

7. Non-Human Life and the Boundaries of Community

   • H. Peter Steeves

   Pages 121-143

8. Back Matter

   Pages 144-161

   PDF

Phenomenology, in its traditional encounters with ethics, has commonly aimed at a more descriptive rather than prescriptive goal. The direction of this project, however, is both phenomenological and prescriptive as I attempt to provide a phenomenological foundation for communitarian ethical theory. I argue, following Husserl, that the Ego and the Other arise together in sense and thus we are committed to community in a foundational way. I am always and fundamentally constituted as a member of a community - as a Self among Others - and, given this, there are certain ethical implications. Namely, there is a communal Good of which my good is but a perspective; indeed, it is a perspective on a Good which encompasses the whole of the living world and not just humanity. Consequently, we are foundationally imbedded in a deep community and a deep communitarian ethic.

• Edmund Husserl
• ethical theory
• ethics
• morality
• phenomenology

• Department of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno, USA

  H. Peter Steeves

Policies and ethics