The Project
The 18ETHICS project investigates eighteenth-century ethics by putting in the foreground its fundamental aim to provide guidance about moral issues. Our working hypothesis is that the normative moral theories that make up the most substantial part of the debates on ethics in the eighteenth century revolve around the assumption that philosophers should act as experts on moral issues. In this light, eighteenth-century debates on ethics will be examined as a response to moral disagreement.
The project will thus concentrate mainly on the comprehensive doctrine of duties that comprised much of the work on ethics between Pufendorf and the early nineteenth century, with a special focus on systematic treatments of ethics by British, German and (to a smaller extent) French moral philosophers.
Looking at the above-mentioned debates in these terms, we shall investigate some crucial, yet largely unexplored areas of the philosophical discussion that were the main concern of eighteenth-century moral philosophers. More specifically, the project will explore five lines of inquiry:
- moral demands towards oneself
- moral demands towards others
- are there moral demands towards animals?
- disagreement concerning moral demands
- the methods and assumptions of practical ethics
