Against Ethical Exceptionalism – Through Critical Reflection on the History of Use of the Terms ‘Ethics’ and ‘Morals’ in Philosophy

Hans Fink

doi:10.1515/sats-2020-2010

Article

Against Ethical Exceptionalism – Through Critical Reflection on the History of Use of the Terms ‘Ethics’ and ‘Morals’ in Philosophy

Hans Fink

Published/Copyright: November 30, 2020

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From the journal SATS Volume 21 Issue 2

Abstract

In this paper, I aim to support contextual ethics as a broad and open understanding of ethics and the ethical by commenting on the origin of the words ‘ethics’ and ‘ethical’ in Greek philosophy and on the ambiguities built into them from the beginning. I further list some complexities that arose when the Latinate words ‘morals’ and ‘moral’ began to be used in Roman, medieval and modern philosophy, sometimes as synonyms of and sometimes in contrast to ‘ethics’ and ‘ethical’. Finally, I return to discuss the prospects of contextual ethics in the context of developments in moral philosophy in the twentieth century, adding some pragmatist arguments in its favour.

Keywords: Aristotle; contextual ethics; Dewey; ethics; etymology; morals; Plato; von Wright

Corresponding author: Hans Fink, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark, E-mail: filhf@cas.au.dk

References

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Published Online: 2020-11-30

Published in Print: 2020-11-25

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https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2020-2010

Keywords for this article

Aristotle; contextual ethics; Dewey; ethics; etymology; morals; Plato; von Wright