Abstract

The dissertation is an inquiry into the foundations of ethics. Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, I argue that there is considerable confusion in current ethical inquiry. The sociological quagmire discussed by MacIntyre is, I argue, symptomatic of a deeper problem, which is the dearth of attention that has been payed to supplying the metaphysical underpinnings of ethics. The only way to remedy this underlying problem is to work to develop a metaphysic of ethics. ;There are, I argue, three primary notions on which a successful ethical theory must be built: virtue, value, and person. In conducting an analysis of virtue, value, and person I draw from the strengths of two traditions: Aristotelian and early phenomenological. As I will seek to demonstrate, it is in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and Scheler's Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values, that the most fruitful investigations into virtue, value, and person are to be found. Relevant parts of these two texts are examined carefully. The overall strategy of the dissertation includes an extended argument concerning the need to combine several elements from these two traditions, as well as an outline of the ways in which they are to be combined. It is from these two traditions, moreover, that the methodological tools for investigating virtue, value, and person are gleaned. ;In calling for and developing a metaphysical foundation for ethics this project takes some of the steps necessary for resolving the debate between virtue-based and rule-based approaches to ethics. The combination of certain parts, a combination which entails the rejection of other parts, from both Aristotle's and Scheler's work lends itself to a metaphysical foundation for ethics that can be made to serve many of the aims of both virtue-based and rule-based approaches in a way that does not force one to choose between them. The project does not propose to resolve fully the conflict between virtue-based and rule-based approaches to ethics, but rather to provide a preliminary investigation which makes this resolution feasible