Abstract

This thesis is a constructive work in the tradition of morality. The thesis divides into three parts. Part One argues that morality is best considered as a tradition (in MacIntyre’s sense) in ethical thinking which begins with the Stoics, develops in Christian thought and reaches its apotheosis in Kant. This tradition structures ethical thinking around three basic concepts: cosmopolitanism, or universal applicability to human beings as such, the dignity of human beings and reciprocity. It is this tradition in ethical thinking which Nietzsche sets out to destroy. Part One then critiques conceptions of morality which take it that universal and exceptionless rules form the core of morality: it criticises both the possibility of putting forward an adequate set of such rules and the proposed relationship between morality and human life that is implicit in these accounts. Part Two begins with Nietzsche’s challenge: that morality is a system of values rooted in nihilistic resentment at the vitality of other, stronger modes of living. It argues that this challenge must be taken seriously, and that the best way to do this is to make it clear that morality has as its fundamental basis a responsiveness to the value of human life; hence it is Nietzsche’s ethics that should be called nihilistic. The rest of Part Two examines the possibility of answering Nietzsche’s challenge by demonstrating a necessary connection between human selfhood and the acknowledgement of the dignity of human beings. Here I argue that neither Christine Korsgaard’s neo-Kantian arguments nor Charles Taylor’s phenomenologically based approach can provide a convincing reason for thinking that there is such a necessary connection. Part Three turns towards pragmatism, and in so doing gives up on the attempt to show that morality is somehow necessary for all human beings. Nietzsche’s challenge is answered more subtly: an empirically backed theory of human selfhood explains the point of morality in terms of our basic need for recognition. I complete the reconstruction of morality by reinterpreting the dignity of human beings in a naturalistic way and adopting a conception of moral rules that is informed by Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics.