Groundwork to a Phenomenological Ethics in Edmund Husserl and Duns Scotus

This dissertation seeks to provide a systematic elucidation of the ethical writings of Edmund Husserl with the aim of developing the groundwork to a phenomenological approach to the problems of ethics. My contention is that Edmund Husserl's largely fragmentary ethical considerations, which focus on the themes of renewal, value, vocation, faith, salvation, and the 'absolute ought', represent a robust, if still incomplete, ethical vision from which contemporary philosophy can learn a great deal. I attempt to supplement Husserl's ethical theories with those of the medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus, whose ethics, I argue already make use of a 'phenomenological' method of their own. Using important insights from Scotus, particularly the Scotist notion of the affectio commodi and affectio justitiae as well as his notion of haecceitas, and working with the body of Husserlian thought, I attempt to provide a robust ethical picture which can take account of the sources of ethical motivation in value, the normative and essential relations of value, the ethical importance of individuality in the form of personal 'vocation', and finally the relationship of ethical normativity to the essentially religious moments of human existence.