The Analysis Of Explanations For Charles Taylor's Moral Philosophy

There are three main explanations for Taylor's moral philosophy.The first is moral realism explanation,which holds that Taylor acknowledges the existence of objective moral values independent of experience and the existence of an objective moral world.The second is moral subjectivism,which holds that Taylor does not recognize moral facts that exist without subject experience,the so-called objective existence of moral facts stems from people's false beliefs.The third is hermeneutic explanation,which holds that it is the self-interpretation of the subject that creates the moral framework,and the basis of self-interpretation is pre-understanding.Taylor's moral philosophy theory is closely related to his analysis of modernity,therefore,whether it can respond to his analysis of modernity is an important criterion to verify the rationality of the explanation for his moral philosophy theory.Taylor summed up modernity as three malaise.Taylor focuses on the first malaise:the mediocrity and narrowness of life under individualism.Based on the criterion of refuting the individualism,this paper analyzes and criticizes three kinds of explanations.The basis of moral realism explain is that,Taylor put forward a concept of"meaning world" as a source of moral emotion in his "import" theory,but the"meaning world",which has been interpreted as an objective existence,is unable to cope with individualism's argument,and do not tally with the emphasis on experience by Taylor.The explanation of moral subjectivism is based on Taylor's special emphasis on the concept of "strong evaluation",but this explanation also can not cope with the refutation of individualism.So these two kind of explanations can not fit in with Taylor's analysis of modernity.Combining the theories of Herder and Heidegger,this paper points out the hermeneutic thought embodied in Taylor's moral philosophy.Only by explaining Taylor's moral philosophy theory from the perspective of hermeneutics can the problems encountered by the other two explanations be solved.