Abstract
As revealed in six decades of publications, the dominant interest of Herbert Spiegelberg (1904–1990) was in developing a deontological ethics grounded in phenomenology. Spiegelberg liked to call it a “phenomenology in ethics” rather than a “phenomenological ethics” because not all issues in ethics are ipso facto amenable to phenomenological analysis and grounding. Phenomenology has its limits.
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Bibliographic Overview
A bibliography of Herbert Spiegelberg’s publications from 1930 to 1989 is found in Human Studies 15 (1992): 379–84. For his intellectual biography, see “Apologia pro bibliographia mea,” in Phenomenological Perspectives: Historical and Systematic Essays in Honor of Herbert Spiegelberg, ed. Philip J. Bossert (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975); “Self-presentation,” in American Phenomenology: Origins and Development, ed. Eugene F. Kaelin and Calvin O. Schräg (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 169-79; and “Memories of my American life for my American children and children’s children,” Human Studies 15 (1992), 364-84.
The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, was first published in 1960 by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, as volumes 5/6 in the series Phaenomenologica; a second edition with Supplement was published in 1969, and yet a third edition, revised and enlarged with the collaboration of Karl Schuhmann, was published in 1982—Spiegelberg’s understanding of the ethics of Scheler, Hartmann, and Pfänder, among others, are detailed here. Collections of essays are found in Doing Phenomenology: Essays on and in Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975) and in Steppingstones Toward an Ethics for Fellow Existers: Essays 1944–1983 (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986).
Other publications mentioned are Über das Wesen der Idee. Eine ontologische Untersuchung (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1930), first published in Husserl’s Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 11; Gesetz und Sittengesetz. Strukturanalytische und historische Vorstudien zu einer gesetzesfreien Ethik (Zürich: Max Niehans, 1935); Antirelativismus. Kritik des Relativismus and Skeptizismus der Werte und des Sollens (Zürich: Max Niehans, 1935); and Sollen und Dürfen. Philosophische Grundlagen der ethischen Rechte and Pflichten, ed. Karl Schuhmann (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989)—the 1986 Preface is especially important for understanding Spiegelberg’s position vis-à-vis the most recent trends in ethics.
Uncollected essays referred to are the review of Mandelbaum’s Phenomenology of Moral Experience in Social Research (1956): 117-20; “What Makes Good Things Good: An Inquiry into the Grounds of Value,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 7 (1947): 578-611—which contains discussions of many of the British intuitionists in a phenomenological context; “Rules and Order,” in The Concept of Order: The Grinnell Symposium, ed. Paul Kuntz (Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1968), 290-308—one of his best attempts to square “phenomenology in ethics” with the then current trends in American moral philosophy; “Justice Presupposes Natural Law,” Ethics, 49 (1939): 343-48—a succinct but truncated early expression of his ideas about justice and nature law for English readers; and “Zur Ontologie des idealen Sollens,” Philosophische Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft 66(1958): 243-53—a fragment from Sollen und Dürfen.
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Kersten, F. (2002). Herbert Spiegelberg: Phenomenology in Ethics. In: Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9924-5_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9924-5_22
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