ABSTRACT
In dealing with post-modern challenges to ethics, De Wachter argued that morality is in need not only of an anchoring in the warmth of my nest, and acceptance of what is, but also of a minimum tension between ‘is’ and ‘ought’: “An ethos is only ethical if it refers to more than its own body of symbols, if it also is modeled by its own uncertainty, if it abandons the nostalgia for its own code, if it is conscious of more than its own consensus. The good then is both the object of experience and transcendence” (1994, p. 85). Accordingly, he claims that a narrative is ethically interesting when others can learn from it, when it refers to experiences that can be shared, and when it contains a promise of universality, but reminds us at the same time that only a story that is deeply embedded in the contextuality of authentic experience can be morally instructive. Of course, the poststructural critique of language and adoption of the law of difference do not preclude the existence of the subject. A reading of poststructuralism need only imply that the self is not autonomous, not wholly self-creating or single minded and coherent. Even if there is no single description of the human condition, taking the law of difference as our guiding principle and treating contingency as an absolute does not leave us impotent or speechless. The law of difference can allow that any narrative constructions or stories we tell about ourselves, the world and others are always open to re-description, so the self is never bound within a single, or even necessarily coherent, narrative. If one accepts this, it has to be made clear however how the subject herself has to be conceived in order for it to be possible that she plays that role within the intersubjective context. Starting from Margolis’ work on moral theories the question will be asked in what way a historicized understanding of morality can be complemented so that it can orientate the individual in her search for the ‘good’. Both Frankfurt’s position on personal identity and Taylor’s on authenticity will be outlined and scrutinized. Following Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, Altieri’s expressivist ethics will be developed as it offers an interesting perspective for dealing with this issue. What this comes down to in a particular ethical context will finally be illustrated in the area of education and child rearing.
