Morality is a specifically human phenomenon about which everyone has intuitive preconceptions resulting from his own practical experience of life. Consequently, what is at issue in questions of morality and ethics can at first best be understood through its elementary significance for the personal and social life of man. We will begin with the determination of the moral disposition of man and its fundamental cultural-anthropological conditions (Section 1.1) and with the basic concepts of ‘morality’ and ‘ethos’ (Section 1.2). The basic concerns of modern philosophical ethics can then be elucidated from a cultural-historical perspective (Section 1.3). This is followed by an attempt to explicate the humanistic core of the universal moral principle, whose justification is the central issue of modern ethics (Section 1.4). From this vantage point it will then be possible to understand the developmental stages of moral consciousness, which every individual goes through in his progress towards becoming a (modern) person capable of moral judgement (Section 1.5).

The moral disposition as part of the conditio humana

It is one of the fundamental ‘conditions for the possibility of human existence’ and an indispensable aspect of the conditio humana that man – and that means in principle every single person – is a being whose behaviour, in contrast to that of other life forms, is not determined by the laws of nature. To a substantial degree it takes the form of deliberate action.