The Ethical

The Ethical is a collection of readings on ethics and the nature of morality by some of the most important contemporary philosophers in the continental tradition. Recent attention to ethics in continental thought - often taken to be antithetical to Anglo-American moral philosophy - demonstrates how much these two traditions have in common.

The essays in this volume indicate the rich history and contemporary vitality of ethics in continental philosophy. They reflect a variety of currents in continental thought, including phenomenology, genealogy, deconstruction, and discourse ethics. Topics addressed include the status of the moral agent and its constitution or formation, the priority to be assigned to the other in relation to the self, the critique of rigid models of moral reasoning, and the limits of the moral.

This is the first anthology of its kind devoted to emphasizing continental ethical philosophy as an important area of study in its own right. Review: Wyschogrod and McKenny have assembled a splendid collection of essays by the leading theorists of the day in Continentalist ethical thought. Singly, and as a group, these essays make it plain that contemporary Continental philosophy not only has an ethical dimension but that ethics is one of the points in which its full force can really be felt.

Justice and alterity are in an important sense what Continental philosophy is all about. The collection will be of enormous help to everyone from students to professors and it will fast become a basic resource for everyone working in this field. John D. Caputo, Villanova University These essays revisit our most basic categories and traditions of ethical reflection, and they signal quite powerfully the many ways in which ethical life does not end but indeed begins when we suspend the search for foundations and exceed the lawful calculation of duty.

Readers will find here a timely and varied challenge to reconsider the role of ethics in postmodern thought. Thomas A. Carlson, University of California, Santa Barbara