Conclusion

Abstract

In this concluding chapter, I discuss why it is that the source of our morality—the present moment of meaningful interaction—ought to be based on compassionate moral maxims that aspire to universal justice, mediated by experience, tradition, and rationality. The present moment of the conscious and embodied self may aspire either to autonomous individuality or to universal compassion, or may regard itself simply as an embodied part of a particular collectivity with its own traditions, but I argue from a phenomenological perspective that these aspirations and conceptions of self are not mutually exclusive and may be experienced at the same time. What this means is that the ethical/moral human self is a lot more complex than it has been generally conceded in political philosophy and that it may go beyond mere individuality. I argue that the only meeting point for worldviews is the synchronic moment of interaction that takes place in the present, which ought to be based on a simultaneous mutual recognition between the self and the other. I also argue that this ought to be a critical-hermeneutical, as well as a compassionate recognition. The reason why this model is able to conjugate all of these theoretical perspectives is because it is grounded on synchronicity: the present moment of simultaneous recognition. A further argument based on this model is that the temporal essence of trust abides in the synchronic aspect of human interaction, and it is a better perspective from which to deal with it conceptually. I argue that trust generally escapes the definition of how it is produced because, when regarded from the perspective of diachrony, we can only appreciate its beneficial effects but not its source.