Abstract

The place of scientific results, the role of scientific method, and the impact of the scientific temper in ethical theory are surveyed. The concept of an "existential perspective of an ethical theory"--"its view of the world and its properties, man's nature and condition, insofar as these enter into its understanding of moral processes and moral judgments"--is sketched and used to clarify the diversity of ethical approaches. Edel promises, but does not here develop, a scientific ethics based on the behavioral sciences.--A. P. D. M.