ABSTRACT
The point of this paper is to draw attention to a difference between the logics of ethics and of morality: and then to use contrasting responses to this difference to distinguish between modern and postmodern preoccupations. These contrasting responses are to be found in the writings of Hegel and of Heidegger, hence the juxtaposition of my title. By setting up these contrasts, a space can be cleared for the emergence of what I take to be a much needed new form of thinking about the human condition, with the limitations of neither morality nor ethics. The genealogy intended, then, is of this new form of thinking, which I suppose to be in process of development, not already in existence. The strategy of this paper is to mark the limited relevance of two outmoded forms of moral reflection, and to provide a focus for inquiry about just what the issues and the constraints are which make these two forms of reflection inadequate for current conditions. The strategy is to identify a certain form of moral theory as distinctive of a modern sensibility and to identify critiques of that theory as contributing to a postmodern reformulation. The terms ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ are here taken not to have connections to particular historical periods; instead they pick out contrasting forms of theoretical construction. 1
