Originary ethics: a reflection beyond theory and practice

Abstract

This paper aims to justify that the idea of an originary ethics, as developed by Heidegger, combined with the importance that Gadamer attaches to private experience, may provide a relevant contribution to philosophical reflection on issues concearning ethics, as an attempt to overcome the traditional way of conceiving ethics as such. The way whereby metaphysical tradition has historically addressed ethics enhaces the distinction between theory and practice, and the search of principles or rules universally applicable has shown insufficient to clarify what makes moral experience possible. The generalist conceptual language, as well, has shown inappropriate to address the subject, once it tends to bring ethics close to technique related to science, ignoring the relevance that private experience may bring to ethical debate. In this perspective, originary ethics provides elements to establish a meaning for ethics able to reach the singularity of existence, overcoming the distinction between theory and pratice, and putting in evidence a prior instance, that remained concealed due the limits of metaphysics itself.