The shape of a postmodern morality : philosophical ethics after Nietzsche and Heidegger

The present study is an attempt to represent a post-metaphysical thinking that Nietzsche ushered in as a reconstructive ethics. The argument presented here is that the key to such a formulation of ethics resides in Heidegger's 'fundamental ontology' as 'original ethics' ('Letter on Humanism'). Such a formulation that is grounded in an ontology deconstructs that subjectivity and rationality which has been posited by traditional ethics or moral reasoning. The outcome of such a restructuring of reason in Western thinking ushers in an historical essence that problematizes thinking in terms of an issue that Heidegger raised regarding ground in reason and thinking itself. The vantage point of viewing such a development in ethics is that of a transcendence ('transcendental world' [Will to Power]) in conventional Western thinking, as destroyed by Nietzsche's metaphysics and thematized in Heidegger's ontology. Chapter One establishes the framework of thematizing ethics in a post-metaphysical era where subjectivity and rationality have become problematic in terms of an existential selfhood and an ontology of reason. Chapter Two establishes the framework of constructing a metaphysical ethics as that which is grounded in a deconstructed 'moral' self in ethics as moral reasoning. Chapter Three focuses on history as that essence and ground in thinking where the problem of truths is thematized as that which deconstructs subjectivity and reason. Chapter Four focuses on thinking as an ontological thematic in Heidegger which surpasses Nietzsche's metaphysics. The outcome of such a thinking is an ethics of existence, as that which problematizes conventional ethics as moral reasoning. The issue presented here is that of ground, and hence ontology and existence, in a metaphysical ethics. Chapter Five concludes by pointing out that such metaphysical thinking which has been presented in this study represents a reconstruction of Western thinking as ethics. The existential and ontological thematic of ground in thinking establishes existence as that essence of thinking and ethics which has been lost in conventional Western philosophical thinking