The Sources of Solidarity. Is Ethics without Assumptions Irrational?

Abstract

The article is concerned with the foundations of ethics. The author takes into consideration rationalistic and universalistic conceptions of the foundations of ethics represented by Ch. Taylor and J. Habermas on the one hand, and ones based on intuition and direct moral experience on the other. In the latter current he includes the conceptions created under the influence of E. Levinas' (J. Derrida's) philosophy. At the same time he analyses the opposition between ethics established on reference to an actual, individual man and ethics based on universal rules. In his further considerations he also takes into account M. Bachtin's views as well as those of the American pragmatists: J. Dewey and G. H. Mead.