On the problem of morality in Husserlian phenomenology

Season 7 continues with another presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality.   This episode features a presentation from Mark Ornelas of University of Cincinnati, United States   Abstract: Husserlian phenomenology attempts to develop a theory of mind that suspends the major metaphysical questions about human experience. As a result, Husserl focuses on the world as given. Typically, the nature and essence of morality is metaethical question; in other words, determining the essence of morality, or the good, is a metaphysical question. The result is a strange position where the phenomenological method is somewhat unavailable to ask how the essence does of the good relate to experience. Essentially, Husserlian phenomenologists would be required to adopt an antirealist position. Metaethical antirealist could use the phenomenological method because they hold that the essential nature of moral facts are not objective, true, or universal facts or properties but are rather ones that are non-objective, conventional, and particularist judgements or states of affairs. Yet Husserl and other phenomeologist that follow such as Stein and Merleau-Ponty, are careful not to endorse such a position. Husserl clarifies his opposition to antirealism in his ethical lectures,  claiming that there is a ’unconditional objectivity of validity in ethics’ (Husserl, Husserliana XXXVII, 147). However, he wants to preserve the notion that affective states indicate moral facts, but cannot be the basis of them, a neo-sentimentalist position. The goal of this paper is to investigate this problem and propose a solution where objective moral facts are investigable in a Husserlian phenomenology. To do so, I will draw on Stein’s understanding of the primordial given. The primordial given, according to Stein is what is naturally given in the world as a part of the essence of the world. I will argue that morality is part of the primordially given resulting a naturalist moral reaslist position.   Biography: I am a current graduate student at the University of Cincinnati of Hispanic descent. My research focuses on morality and moral experience using interdisciplinary methods. My current project is using philosophical and psychological methods to develop a new method to study moral behavior. In addition, I am interested in understanding the nature of moral perception and moral action as it relates agent’s social experience and behavioral history.     Further Information:   This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast.   About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/   About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/