Eco-ethica

Volume 4, 2015

Ethics and Politics / Éthique et politique

Sang-Hwan Kim
Pages 161-171

Ethics of Shame and Ethics of Unhappy Consciousness

As is well known, Kant finds the subjective condition of morally motivated actions in the feeling of respect for duty, and defines it as an a priori affect caused only by reason, an affect to be distinguished from all psychological inclinations. In Confucian ethics, one can find such a transcendentalized affect explaining the origin of authentic moral actions. The author analyzes and compares two privileged moral feelings not only in the perspective of contemporary debates between duty ethics and virtue ethics, but also in the perspective of contemporary Korean experiences of moral crisis.