Will And Ought-Studies On Husserl’s Phenomenology Of The Ethical Will

Contrasting to Husserl’s thoughts on epistemology, little attention has been paid to his practical philosophy by Chinese scholars. Grounding on Husserl’s published works and unpublished manuscripts, the dissertation tries to, centering on the question of will, fully show his thoughts on practical philosophy, i.e. his phenomenology of ethical will.Basing on the theory of intentionality, which is the most fundamental discovery Husserl has made, He made analyses on the phenomenon of willing. He pointed out that willing is an act of practical intentionality, and what it intentionally pointed to is an ought-to-be object. The essence of will is a creative practical ought. Different from wish, intention, drive and desire etc.,will is an active practical act. One of its essential features is a "practical I-can".Husserl tried to built a formal praxis on his descriptions and analysis of the phenomenon of willing. This formal praxis was the embodiment of Husserl’s idea that there was a parallel between ethics and logic. The aim of this paralleling was endeavoring for the evidence in ethical realm just as the evidence in the logical realm, and for an ethics a prior to resist psychologism and empiricism in the ethics.In his formal praxis, Husserl critically inherited the rule of formal imperative and formal axiology of Brentano, which for Husserl meant that the general rule of will choice was "Do the best you can attain." The highest goal of will is getting the evidence of the highest good. Therefore he criticized Kant’s doctrines of categorical imperative.Along with the introducing of genetic phenomenology and the pressing of the time crisis, Husserl almost broke off his researches on formal praxis and formal axiology. He was no longer content with the formal ethics founded only on the formal reason. In fact, He thought that the formal praxis and axiology was merely elementary phase of his phenomenology of ethics. And what’s more important and fundamental was the ethics of material value, which nevertheless he did not develop systemically. He then began to pay attention to the personal self and motive as the spiritual causality, and developed a personalist ethics and a personalist axiology. In his opinion, as far as the key problem of ethics, i.e. what should I do, was concerned, what the most fundamental was "how I can become an ethical Person", that is, how can I built my whole life into a life with an ethical person. Because only the person can form an ethical will, which can change the life as a whole and give it a new form and aim. The formation of this ethical will required above all the self-shape, self-determination and self-realization of the ethical person. Therefore, the foundation of this ethical will was not the imperative in reason form, but the cultivation of ethical personality.In his thoughts about the ethical person, Husserl developed his ideas of formal imperative sprang from his formal praxis.He combined will’s choice of the highest good with the self-realization of the ethical person. He pointed that the will must take the whole life-horizon of personal self in the entire realm of willing, and by way of the inner intuition of the whole life to get the insight of the possible best life. The truth of will embodied the determination of personal self on this choice. It is obvious that Husserl’s researches of will-intentionality were no longer limited to the choice and realization of particular practical aims and value objects, but returned to the willing subject and its choice of the aim and the way of the whole life.By means of the perception and insights of the self-life, I can choose the best possible life, which can realize the ideal of my whole life.The absolute ought choice of will concerned not only the realization and self-responsibility of personal self, but concerned the absolute ought duty and love to the others.Because the absolute ought was directed toward the realization of the absolute value of person. Husserl considered that the personal values should be absolute, and were equal with one another. Confronting with the conflict between objective values and personal values, people should absolutely choose the personal values, since they were unconditional and uncomparativeOn the problem of the absolute ought, Husserl reflected and criticized the general principle of formal axiology and praxis that values determinate the will.He stated that value itself barely determinate the ethical actions and values is not ethics. The core idea of ethics was the duty of absolute ought. To do the most valuable things isn’t to do what one ought to do, and a valuable man isn’t either a man with ethical person. To convert to ethical actions, values must be founded on the motives origin from the sense of duty of me. This motive, which is the self-awareness and self-regulation motive, arise from the "I" as the center of actions and emotions.Surely, Husserl didn’t ignore the essential role values played in the ethical will. In fact, he pointed out in The Lectures on Axiology and Ethics 1908-1914 that value was one of the motives of will, and this was the law a priori of motive. As the ought-being, values were the goals of will.In his Introduction of Ethics 1920/24, Husserl devoted a lot of space to discuss this value as the essence and motive of willing. Hence he criticized the modern hedonism and utilitarianism, since what they were after were merely the interest, the passive sensory experience, but not the value itself. Still, he thought that Hume hadn’t been aware of the nature of emotional intentionality, i.e. values a priori,and Hume’s ethics were founded on the associationism psychology and experiential anthropology. Meanwhile, he criticized Kant for his ignorance of emotions and values in his considerations about the origin of the will.He thought that Kant didn’t see the primary phenomenon of will.According to above-mentioned analysis, we can maintain that, on the problem of the motive of will, Husserl adhered to two basic points, the one was the sense of duty of self-regulation, and the other was value. And both duty origins from the self-consciousness and the values out of emotional intentionality are all dependent on a center, which is this self and self-consciousness.That is to say, as far as the problem of the ethical wills is concerned, Husserl considered not only the values and the duty of absolute ought, but the ethical person. Both values and duty originate from person and strive for person. This ethical person is not only the rational will with self-determination, but the will with love. The volitional motive of absolute ought arise from the voices of the innermost self, that is, the call of absolute ought love, "you ought to, you must".It is on hearing the call of this absolute love, aware we of "who one is", that is, our personality. Therefore, the foundation of the deep-rooted being and identity of the person lies not in reason and rational endeavor, but in the embrace of love. The loved duty out of the absolute ought isn’t an empty form of reason, but a will equipped with the values of absolute person.Seen from Husserl’s numerous ethical manuscripts on love, there was clearly a transition from reason to love as the absolute ought in his discussion of ethical will. This love belongs not only to the self-regulations of ethical person, but also to the regulations of the social person. The ethical person is not only the individual person, but also the social person of community standing for a higher order. The true ethical will is shaped in the ethical community. And the fundamental factor of an ethical community is love, which is the associative power between persons.Husserl’s discussions of love basing on the ethical community enrich and expand his phenomenology on ethical will and motives. The love of absolute ought gets its final meanings from the endeavoring for a perfect transcendental phenomenology and the rational belief in God.