Problems of Moral Philosophy

by Adorno, Theodor W.; Schroder, Thomas; Livingstone, Rodney

• ISBN13: 9780804739368
• ISBN10: 0804739366
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), one of the leading social thinkers of the 20th century, long concerned himself with the problems of moral philosophy, or " whether the good life is a genuine possibility in the present." Consisting of a course of lectures (captured by tape recorder), the book presents a more accessible Adorno than in his published works.

Author Biography

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was a prominent member of the Frankfurt School and one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century in the areas of social theory, philosophy and aesthetics.

Table of Contents

Lecture One	1	(11)
Moral philosophy as a theoretical discipline
The concept of practice
Theory as resistance and a `testing of reality'; against practicism
Naivety and reflection
On the tension between theory and practice
Spontaneity and resistance
The irrational
Hostility to moralities confined to particulars
Ethics as bad conscience; on behalf of a morality bluntly incompatible with our experience
Lecture Two	12	(10)
`Morality and its Discontents'
The problem of ethos and personality
The ethical is no natural category
Morality and social crisis
The sociology of the repressive character
The general and the particular
Plan of the lecture course
Texts to be studied
Lecture Three	22	(11)
Arguments ad homines
Lectures: attempts at critical models
The dual nature of reason in Kant: theory and practice, epistemology and metaphysics
The problem of freedom
On the theory of antinomies
Dialectics
The distinction between scepticism and `the sceptical method'
Lecture Four	33	(11)
The nature of the antinomies
Causality and freedom; spontaneity
The thesis of the third antinomy
The proof of the thesis
The motif of a causality born of freedom
The antithesis
Lecture Five	44	(11)
The principle of causality and the necessity of the antinomies
Dialectics in Kant and Hegel
Problem of the prima philosophia: the first cause
Causality, law and freedom
External nature of the concept of causality
Freedom as a given
Summary: causality born of freedom
Lecture Six	55	(12)
The dual character of Kantian philosphy; the one and the many
Once again: theory and practice
On the Doctrine of Method: The nature of reason
Speculation
Freedom and the domination of nature
The disappointing of metaphysical expectations
The rejection of philosophical indifference
The idea of God and the rights of criticism
The priority of practice
Lecture Seven	67	(11)
Theory and practice of the `Doctrine of Method'
Form and content in practical philosophy
Practice as the exclusion of experience; freedom as reason
What is primary and what is secondary? The moral law as a given
Can social contradictions be resolved? Bourgeois optimism
Can the moral law be learnt through experience?
Lecture Eight	78	(11)
Difficulty of distinguishing between a priori knowledge and knowledge from experience
Necessity and universality; a `second-order given'
The coercive character of empirically given morality
Psychoanalytical objection
The ethics of conviction
The return of teleology; the element of heteronomy
Lecture Nine	89	(11)
The laws of freedom
The principle of exegesis; the `extinction of intention'
The dual character of nature
Kant `breaks off' the argument; Resistance to and acceptance of heteronomy
The element of the Absurd
The historical dialectics of morality; the `growing old of morality'
Lecture Ten	100	(10)
The intolerable dualism of freedom and law; The Protestant tradition
The experience of spirit and nature as opposed to domination
Methodological excursus: literal interpretation versus the history of ideas
Kantian ethics is the moral philosophy par excellence
Formalism and rigorism
Lecture Eleven	110	(11)
The grounding of morality in reason: Against `the education of the heart'
Prince Hamlet
The element of non-identity; coercion by a third party
Reason as practice
The restricted nature of Kantian ethics; bourgeois calculus and bureaucratic virtue
The ambivalence of the unmediated good
Autonomy and heteronomy
Lecture Twelve	121	(5)
Self-determination
No cult of values
The absence of balance between freedom and law
Formalism and social context
Kant's writings on moral philosophy
The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
Lecture Thirteen	126	(10)
Excursus on phenomenology
The concept of the will
Psychological aspect: Good will and ill will
Duty and reverence
The element of repression
The disappearance of freedom
Transition to the problem of an ethics of responsibility and conviction
Lecture Fourteen	136	(10)
The suppression of instinct as the general philosophical attitude
Self-preservation and compensation
The fetishization of renunciation
The idea of humanity: a hypothesis
The totalitarianism of ends
Reason as an end in itself
Lecture Fifteen	146	(11)
Kant's ethics of conviction [Gesinnung]
War on two fronts: against empiricism and theology
Difference from Plato: the idealism of reason
Early bourgeois pathos and Rousseauism
Interiority and the German misere
Lecture Sixteen	157	(10)
The dialectical element of morality
Excursus: Ibsen's The Wild Duck
Conscience: `can be very hard'
Explication: entanglement in existing reality
The critique of Hegel's sublation [Aufhebung] of morality
Lecture Seventeen	167	(10)
Resistance to a false life
Fallibility in the face of the masks of evil
Contra Nietzsche's critique of morality
The limits of morality as the crisis of individualism; transition from critique to political consciousness
Editor's notes	177	(37)
Editor's afterword	214	(3)
Acknowledgements	217	(1)
Index	218