WAR AND MODERN CHALLENGES TO UNIVERSAL ETHICS
Part one
Keywords:
moral catastrophe, paradox of humanity, discourse of war, existential war, universal and particular moral positions, ethics of the good, emergency ethicsAbstract
The aim of this essay is to philosophically reconstruct the latest challenges to universal ethics in light of the current experiences of a moral catastrophe resulting from full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine. First, as an authoritative example of these challenges, the author considers the paradox of humanity—international recognition of human rights and, simultaneously, the practical anomie in the real protection of the rights of citizens of a national state when it is weakened (Arendt). Second, based on the analysis of everyday war discourse, the basic structure of attitudes towards war is clarified. This is the position of either a participant in the events as a first person 'from the inside' of the war experience, or the 'external' position of an observer/expert as a third person. The outlined disposition provides a methodology for approaching the moral assessment of war events from either an internal, particular, or an external, universal, point of view. The position 'from the inside' of belonging to a national community in a war threatened with destruction reveals the concept of existential wars. Third, this methodological introduction provides an opportunity to determine the ethical disposition of challenges to universal ethics. Appealing to sociological polls that aimed to analyze the sentiments of people who consider it necessary to defend their country even at the cost of their own lives demonstrates the proximity of such sentiments to Aristotelian ethics. Accordingly, the essay highlights the principles of current debates between representatives of the communitarian direction in philosophy (Taylor, Kymlicka), who are considered followers of the classical ethics of the good, as opposed to neo-Kantianism, which is widespread in the works of liberally oriented researchers (Rawls). Special attention is given to the communitarian criticism of universal ethics, exemplified by the war emergency’s ethics (Walzer), which provides grounds for drawing ethical parallels with the current Russian-Ukrainian war. The essay concludes with a generalization of contemporary substantive challenges to universal ethics.
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