General Ethics

This is an attempt to present a theory of morals that is broad but specific, non-reductive but coherent. The author's approach is governed by the question: "good persons exist - how are they possible?". It explores what is good, or has been considered to be good within various normative systems of belief. Central to this method is the author's premise that our social world view is constructed around a hierarchy of ethical norms. Ethics are therefore a condition of our world, because our presence in the world is governed by social meanings which are the instruments of social regulation. The author explores the social corollaries of this grounding of ethics in the normative categories of our social "life-world". Analyzing central concepts of ethics (such as voluntary actions, responsibility, consequences, justice, as well as wider notions of moral authority and mental states), she aims to provide a grounding for a general theory of morals.