ABSTRACT
In a previous paper (Wilkinson 1999), I outlined the basis of a possible universal ethic based upon the envisioning of possible futures. If such a universal ethic is possible, then there is scope for moral education which can speak with confidence, while fully respecting cultural traditions. It would be helpful, I hope, to summarise some of my earlier conclusions. Ethical life takes place within a metaphysical context. Much modern debate about ethics has tried to eschew any metaphysical assumptions, and to talk only about the language of morals. This seems to me a fundamental error, not least because living morally presupposes a world in which we experience, live and act. To think about anything, as Husserl often remarked, is always to talk about something. That there is something is presupposed. The twentieth-century philosopher has tended to avoid anything which can be called metaphysical since the onslaught of logical positivism and the linguistic concerns of Wittgenstein and his followers.
