Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T09:27:15.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pseudo-Subjectivism in Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

R. E. Jennings
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University

Extract

Genuine ethical subjectivism is a kind of logical autism, uncurable by distinctions. It is, roughly put, that attitude according to which duty is discoverable by introspection. What I wish to call pseudo-subjectivism is more akin to an anxiety neurosis. It is a more common disturbance than the genuine form of the disease, but, happily, is easily cured without recourse to clinical treatment, by therapy than can be self-administered in the privacy of one's study. Every man his own analyst. Pseudo-subjectivism is an anxiety syndrome associated with the view that one ought to do what one thinks one ought to do. The cure consists in becoming reassured that this need not be genuine subjectivism at all. The purpose of this paper is to provide that reassurance.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)