Human beings are meaning making creatures. We can't help but contrive and codify, systems, rules, positions, behaviours. Why is ethics different to any other human behaviour? Or are you coming at this from a foundational position? — Tom Storm

If there is a foundation that reveals itself in the inspection of the phenomenon of ethics, then what would that be?

There is no ‘foundation’ for phenomenological investigations. That is basically one of the greatest benefits of phenomenology. It doesn’t adhere to any particular ‘foundation’ although it was created (by Husserl) to provide a better grounding for science (not ethics). It is a ‘science’ of consciousness.

If it was used for ethics it would have to take on other forms. Heidegger and others (the hermeneutical types) probably go there in part with their slither the greater phenomenological body (meaning based principally on interpretations of mere words tangential to experience).

We can still ask what is there in ‘ethics’ that cannot be taken out. That would be up to you … you see the problem therein?

Except, our innate moral intuitions already underlie any such review. Reason here can only rationalize what we already feel to be true.

You are one of many who feels compelled to believe that ethics is Real with a capital R. I don't sympathize. Do you seriously think there is a material basis for ethics? This is
philosophically naive. — hypericin

Odd here: You speak of innate moral intuitions, then deride ethical Realism with a capital R.

At any rate, no it's not naïve at all. In fact, the idea is so obvious than I cannot even imagine seriously dismissing it. Keep in mind that an ethical situation is what I am calling a thing of parts, and what I mean by this is that is stands analysis as a simple ethical case apart from any theory, empirical or otherwise. There are the facts of a case, then there is the intuitive essence. This latter carries the argument.

Corrected :point:

Good. What does phenomenology make of ethics - isn't this the approach you are suggesting? For my money what sits before ethics is behaviour that either repels or attracts us. Then comes the postulation. — Tom Storm

I ask then, what is in an attraction or repulsion?

Sorry about this elentic method of going about this. My argument is not popular, so I am not going to simply lay it out for all to misconstrue. Best if I let others come to see it as I do through their own reasoning. At least they can't blame me when they themselves have constructed the premises.

I don't follow.

"Don't follow" what?

We can still ask what is there in ‘ethics’ that cannot be taken out. That would be up to you … you see the problem therein? — I like sushi

But it is not up to me, I mean, I don't decide what is delicious, disgusting, joyful, wretched and so on. I may choose among things, but choices all presuppose an established value, which is there, in the ethical matter, and ethics and all of its complications turns on this.

You do. Your choice is just not blatantly apparent because it readjusts constantly (to some degree). The taste of something will vary due to mood, environment and patterns. An example would be symmetry … it is generally a pleasing feature. There are circumstances where symmetry effects taste. Such experiences refine/readjust initial experiences.

Joy is an attitude not really a ‘feeling’. The ‘feeling’ is attached to an attitude and the attitude to the feeling. They are not the same thing yet exist due to each other. We have gone past the point where they can be viewed as one item because our language has evolved this way due to societal interactions.

The ‘established value’ is established how and by whom/what?

In terms of philosophical investigation we ‘view’ a sound and notice that it requires volume, tone and timbre. We cannot talk about a sound without these things. It is nonsensical to then atomise ‘volume’ endlessly.

We make value judgements based on the instant. This is different to meditating on how these judgements are made. By meditating on how the judgements are made we are necessarily involved in judgements of judgements of judgements … or we can simply pick very different items of judgement and see if anything common shows itself. Either way we’re forcing our will upon the situation so we don’t know if we’ll favour what is or what we want to believe is.

Ethics is social. The irony is to dig under this is to dispense with the social by believing we can dispense with the social

Ethics is shrouded in law making. If I want to kill you that is fine in my opinion … but this is untrue because there are other factors such as empathy at play and the very language I am using to ‘think through’ and distinguish concepts such as ‘kill’ that are social terms not independent personal terms. The ‘essence’ of me is not atomised it is nebula … and not really an ‘essence’ as it is temporally and spatially indefinite.

We rather not have things done to us.. This can be summarized in a principle: Don't do things to others you wouldn't want done to you.. This "don't want it done to us" can be generally deemed as "harm", or "suffering". Don't do it to others is a good place to start. Don't start it for others is also part of that.

What ethic we/I use is regarded in terms of emotional wellbeing and logical analysis (or rational thought).

The ‘emotional wellbeing’ involves self-deception as much as revelation (or perhaps more so).

The ‘rational’ is tied to the disassociation of authorship over our actions. All too often people ‘rationalise’ their actions (pre/post) in order to protect/confront their emotional states. To look at ourselves and see how monstrous we are (not can be, WE ARE) is not an easy task or a sensible one for that matter, unless we understand the danger … which we cannot. This is basically the Jungian Shadow.

As good a place to start as any. Any starting point needs to be seen as wrong at some point though.

As good a place to start as any. Any starting point needs to be seen as wrong at some point though. — I like sushi

The counter to that is that people have different opinions on what is good or bad. Your assumption of good onto someone else could be drastically wrong. Then we have a more important foundation.. be cautious to what you do to others, as it may not be what they want, and if they mistakenly did that to you, you might not want it either. Don't presume. Don't start create situations for others that create collateral damage for them, if you can help it.

Blah blah blah. I don’t respect your opinion because I understand it.

ask then, what is in an attraction or repulsion? — Astrophel

I suspect many are built into our lizards brains and may not be related to rational thought. Some are about survival and procreation. I hate it when people rest all things on evolution but I suspect that we are repulsed and attracted by biological imperatives which then work their way up over history into predilections and imperatives.

Curious point - many animals have strong codes of behaviour. Where does that come from? Same as above I'd say. They keep it simple, they clearly don't go on the lecture circuit advocating mindfulness or contemplative prayer.

Why not "Do undo others before they do undo you"?

Kant's old rationalisation itself relies on recognising the other. That's were we start.

Still no mute button? :(

Kant's old rationalisation itself relies on recognising the other. That's were we start. — Banno

Yeah but then I sort of gave the counter.. people's ideas of what they might like can differ.. Thus I would say that lest one is unethical by being unduly negligent, the foundation would seem weighted such that it is best to not create harm unnecessarily upon others. When given the choice of creating harm in order to create happiness, not creating harm wins out.

I ask then, what is in an attraction or repulsion? — Astrophel

Are dichotic features real? How are difference defined? What is a the difference between open and closed as opposed to hot and cold? Opposites come in various forms and some are harder to categorise than others. Some can be called gradable in one situation and something else in another.

I can be NOT hot but not necessarily cold. The door be open OR closed NOT somewhere in between.

Attraction and repulsion are just two ways of saying the exact same thing depending on what features you are focusing on.

The counter to that is that people have different opinions on what is good or bad. Your assumption of good onto someone else could be drastically wrong. — schopenhauer1

I don't think the point is to take the Golden Rule in such a concrete manner. 'Do unto others' can mean we respect the other's preferences even if we don't share them, just as we how they well respect ours. Live and let live. No one has ever started a bar fight or war over being shown excessive courtesy... or not being stolen from or assaulted or murdered.

As psychological example …. Morbid curiosity! I can be ‘attracted’ to something I find ‘repulsive’.

What makes something ‘repulsive’ is the same as what makes it ‘attractive’ … novelty! Fear is part of discovery in some step of the journey. Discovery without some initial comprehension of fear isn’t discovery it is just ‘normal’.

I don't think the point is to take the Golden Rule in such a concrete manner. 'Do unto others' can mean we respect the other's preferences even if we don't share them, just as we how they well respect ours. Live and let live. No one has ever started a bar fight or war over being shown excessive courtesy... or not being stolen from or assaulted or murdered. — Tom Storm

I actually agree with that assessment. But I am giving an example where someone presumes the other person wants something because they themselves want it.. Taking the ultra-affirmative version creates an ethic that is not "live and let live" but "live and assume everyone should want what I want". Thus if I took an action that forced your hand because I am doing what I would have wanted, that is unethical.

If these studies conclude that history is a progression, then they are already assuming a fixed basis of the movement of history, a founding value defining the progress as progress rather than mere change. Progress is a ‘good’ kind of change, a change that conserves its origin. This conserving is the good isn’t a placing of ethics in first position, it’s a confusion of ethics with Nietzsche’s aesthetic ideal, the attempt to freeze history. — Joshs

If the history is IN the occurrent ethical issue then I follow the epoche down to the wire: I call the history incidental, Hume's facts, along with everything else that would steer judgment that is factual. This would include physiological details, the dialectic tension between opposing values, claims about our natural constitution, legally and culturally arguments, and so on. You see, I am convinced Husserl was on to something in his reduction to essentials, the "originary presentive intuitions" but everywhere I look, I see Derrida deconstructing what is supposed to be originary. But then I follow follow Michel Henry's Four Principles of Phenomenology: So much reduction, so much givenness; so much appearing, so much being.
What then is given, and is there more or less givenness, being, appearance? Is there anything that can survive, that is, be intuitively free of, the "play of difference and deference," free of "taking something AS"? The answer, it seems, is yes nd no. No, because, and I am still working on the way to caste this, no, because language is the "through which" the given is given. Yes, because language does not construct affectivity (to speak broadly of feelings, likes, dislikes, etc.).
I don't want to freeze history. I want to discover what is "presuppositionless" in historically structured occurrent affairs, and affectivity (broadly conceived) is this.

btw Ethics doesn’t exist. The illusion is believing in a system of laws to the point that it overrules what you actually want/need/wish to do with your life.

The selfless man is spineless, selfish man is spineless. But the man who cares for being neither one nor the other … is the Self.

The Self is not ethical.

Kant and Bentham-Mill would've never formulates their theories sans a definition i.e. answering the question "what's ethics?" is first and foremost.

For Kant, ethics is simply a universal law! Consequences, ergo what an act leads to, whether happiness/sorrow, are immaterial.

For Bentham-Mill ethics is grounded in the happiness-suffering duo! Consequence, happiness/suffering to be specific, matter.

Are these not the same thing?

My best guess: Bentham-Mill ethics is basically an interim solution to ethical problems/dilemmas until such a point when Kantian ethics becomes practicable/implementable.

What we believe will nearly always overwhelm what we observe. This is especially the case for pillars upon which we orientate our lives - rightly or wrongly. We need to be delusional and misinformed in order to grasp at understanding as if some ultimate understanding exists … that is basically the core of ‘ethics’. — I like sushi

Depends on what is at issue. More to the point is when what we observe overwhelms what we believe. Language brings the world to heel with pass the salt and talk about late buses and busy family life and so on and so on. This world is where people live, but pull apart from this enterprise of busyness and ask basic questions, you discover all knowledge claims implicit in this are "open". This is a radical, and overarching openness that runs through all things, and is overwhelmingly alien to familiar thinking.

You do. Your choice is just not blatantly apparent because it readjusts constantly (to some degree). The taste of something will vary due to mood, environment and patterns. An example would be symmetry … it is generally a pleasing feature. There are circumstances where symmetry effects taste. Such experiences refine/readjust initial experiences. — I like sushi

You said it yoursef: your taste will vary due to mood, etc. I am not a mood. When a mood comes to me, I can deal with it, true, but the mood and its alternatives are givens. You are thrown into a world of givens. Choice intervenes, but choices are only among what is given to choose; and so many are now beyond choice: I can't choose to hate chocolate or adore traffic noise.