The comparison been Aristotle and Heidegger is an interesting and worthwhile
one, both becuase , I believe, neither Aristotle nor Heidegger is engaging
in any kind of normative ethical theorizing in the strong sense of the
word and because of the close connection which Heidegger seemed to feel
between his work and that of the Stagirite (Heidegger well never be lknown as
'The Messkircher'). Aristotle's ethics, unlike that of Kant, say, is
drawn from experience (and from 'reputable opinions,' _endoxa_, which
are placed on an even keel with expeiience) and so might provide a kind
of model for how a 'phenomenological' ethics might be conducted. It is
true that his ethics is based on, are at least an outgrowth of, hus
physics, metaphysics, biology, etc., but it is important to note that
'scientific method' a la Aristotle is _nothing_ like what we tghink of
today when, using a standard model, we think of the method of science as
consisting in hypothesis, experiement, confirmation or refutation of the
hypothesis. Rather, his method in these areas is not considerably different
from that in ethics. It consists in the examination and, hopefully,
justification of both the appearances which the things offer of themselves
and the 'reputable opinions' which are held about them. Both his
method in ethics and in what we would call metaphysics or the natural sciences
seem to have a close reltionship with Heideggeren phenomenology. (It's
interesting to note that both Aristotle and Heidegger have been bitten by
the same etymological bug, incidentally).
It's my suspicion that any kind of 'phenomenological' or Heideggerean
ethics that we might come up with would look something like Aristotle's,
with the difference of course that the 'reputable opinionms' which we
would examine would not be those held in ancint Athens, but those prevalent
in our own cultural context. Such an ethics is bound to be unsatisfactory
to people who think that ethics should provide some kind of commentary,
coming from some kind of extra-cultural point of view, and critique of
existing cultures. It would be conservative rather than liberal, to use
polar terms that I like to refrain from, and justify a lot of things
which are often thought of as injust. Which of course does not a priori
make it wrong.
Another note. I think it would be wise to divorce the concepts of
_Eigentlichkeit_ and _Uneigentlichkeit_ entirely from ethics,
particularly from normative ethics. First of all, as has been pointed
out previously and exhaustively, they are almost completely contentless.
That is, Heidegger deliberately makes them as purely formal as he can.
Second, I don't think that Heideggr is telling us that we _should_ be
authentic rather than inauthentic, but is rather simply discussing a
feature of the being Dasein, namely that it is such as to fall away from
itself and then, intermittently, find itself again. I think this
happens to EVERYBODY, from saints to monsters, and is extraethical in
nature.
Thanks for listening,
Christopher Doss
Polemos Panton Pater Esti.
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