Moral und Hypermoral

Beschreibung

This volume collects Arnold Gehlen's contributions to pluralistic ethics written between 1952 and 1975 (with Moral und Hypermoral as its centerpiece. They show Gehlen as a conservative and independent philosopher and intellectual who defies conventional political classifications.
This volume collects Gehlen's contributions to pluralistic ethics written between 1952 and 1975 which seek to answer the questions of man about himself from the perspective of ethics. At the centre of this volume is the seminal essay Moral und Hypermoral, in which Gehlen, as an anthropological sociologist, scientifically and historically substantiates his theory of ethical pluralism. His pluralistic ethics of duty and social ethics distinguishes between different ultimate instances, which are understood as instinctive, conflicting drives and, as social regulations, shape human behaviour in society. Due to the instability and plasticity of human instinctual structures, ethics tend to become absolute in phases of social upheaval and eventually immoderate as ‘pure morality’. In Western industrialised societies, Gehlen diagnoses a ‘moral hypertrophy’ in which mass eudaimonism (ethics of prosperity) and humanitarianism (duty of universal philanthropy) undermine the institutions as the supporting structures of culture. Gehlen sees the role of the institution of the state as a necessary counterweight, which ensures internal and external security with its ethos. His analyses, closely linked to his ethics, are critical of the times and morals, primarily directed against the contemporary American-European way of life and the claim to power of a universalist morality which Gehlen sees as being supported by the majority of intellectuals. Late capitalism, which he had criticised as early as the 1930s, also appeared problematic to him, as it reinforces modern individualism and subjectivism and undermines the institutions that provide stability. Finally, he sees the ruthless exploitation of nature as a threat to our existence and argues in favour of nature conservation as a state task. Religion, which Gehlen counted as a supra-subjective value, is another important topic in his ethical writings. Even in his early philosophical works, Gehlen dealt with ethics, which he already then understood as pluralistic, and with questions of religion. Based on the philosophy of religion voiced by German idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel), Gehlen, who did not see himself as religious, attempted to determine the nature of man and his position in the world. His ethics and moral criticism characterise Gehlen as a conservative and independent philosopher and intellectual who defies conventional political classifications.

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Lothar Samson

Themen in »Moral und Hypermoral«

Gehlen, Arnold Gesamtausgabe Philosophie Soziologie Kulturanthropologie Moral Institutionen Religion Ethischer Pluralismus Verhaltensforschung Humanismus Umwelt Ethik Wissenschaft Samson, Lothar

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