FROM FORMAL ETHICS TO EXISTENTIAL ETHICS

Formalism in ethics may be considered the culmination of the Enlightenment. It can be interpreted as an attempt to find concrete criteria of human reason, by which humans as 'rational animals' - can govern their choices and actions. Formal ethics distinguishes itself from the dogmatically interpreted ethics that prescribes concrete goods and determines what humans are supposed to strive for a while at the same time telling them how exactly they should act. Referring to the theological concept of God, Lotze turns his attention to consciousness wherein the process of attribution meaning to individual things takes place. Kierkegaard, like Lotze, sees the meaningfulness of one's choices and moral judgments because these stem from one's subjective faith in God. The culmination of the process of objectification of values and their being filled with meaning is the Scheler's effort to create a material ethics of values. From a theological perspective, however, both formal ethics as well as material ethics of values result in a mediated relationship to God and, ultimately, to an inauthentic experience of one's own existence.