A Phenomenological Defense of Radical Re-evaluation

The everydayness of moral judgements and beliefs makes them so pervasive that we are hardly ever wondered by them. In our time more than ever, it is common for a large number of people to speak out on the many different forms of global media about injustice. And yet, it seems to become more difficult to recognise the special nature of morality. That is, as we proclaim our judgements more and more, it becomes harder to experience the wonder of their origin. Philosophy could help us. Metaethics for instance, understood as philosophical research into the nature of moral properties and their relation to beliefs and judgements, is a way of wondering about normative ethical claims. Most of the contemporary debate that identifies with this name is practiced by analytic philosophers, as is attested by the theories dealt with in the introductions to metaethics by Andrew Fisher and Steven Miller. The wondering about normative ethical claims that is practiced within this debate is, however, quite different from what I wish to achieve. Their aim is to determine on what basis ethical judgements of a subject could be correct from within an already present understanding of the relation between us and the world. In contrast, wonder helps us reach the origin of morality because it lets us experience the uniqueness of there being a value rich universe in the first place. I will base my paper on Taylor’s view on the moral self. It will require some work to bring to light the unarticulated metaethical position that it harbours. In doing so, I hope to provide an account that can help the contemporary metaethical debate reach a broader perspective. One which goes beyond the dry wondering about normative ethics by recovering a sense of wonder and traversing to a more original questioning.