Wilhelm Vossenkuhl is a German philosopher who was born Dec.
11, 1945 in Engen, Germany. He is the author of many books, essays, and articles, and
has taught at many universities, including Bayreuth (1986-1993),
Halle-Wittenburg (1990-91), Freiburg, Krakow, Lodz, and Ludwig Maximilian
University of Munich (1993-2011). He is currently professor emeritus of philosophy
at LMU Munich. His writings have included Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1995), Philosophie für
die Westentasche (Philosophy for the Vest Pocket,
2004), Die Möglichkeit des Guten (The Possibility of the Good, 2006), Solipsismus und Sprachkritik (Solipsism and Language Criticism, 2009),
Philosophie: Basics (2011), and Die Grossen Denker (The Great Thinkers, with Harald Lesch, 2012). His research has centered on epistemology, ethics, the history of philosophy, action theory, and
the philosophy of language, and he has explored the work of such philosophers
as William of Ockham, Immanuel Kant, Henry Sidgwick, Rudolf Carnap, and Ludwig
Wittgenstein.
Vossenkuhl appeared with Harald Lesch, the German physicist, astronomer,
and philosopher, on the television series, Lesch
& Co. (2001-2006), and Denker des
Abendlandes (Thinkers of the Western
World, 2008-2014). Lesch is currently professor of theoretical astrophysics
at LMU Munich, and professor of natural philosophy at the Munich School of
Philosophy.
Honors that Vossenkuhl has received include the International Prize for
Philosophy from the Margrit Egnér Foundation (1998), honorary membership in the
Sokratischen Gesellschaft (Socratic Society) since 2009, and fellowship at the
Centre for the Study of Democracy (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 2004-2011).
In 2010, Asteroid no. 210174 was named “Vossenkuhl” by the International
Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris and the Minor Planet Center at Harvard
University, at the suggestion of Rolf Apitzsch (Wildberg Observatory, Wildberg,
Germany), who discovered the asteroid.1
As of 2016, Wilherlm Vossenkuhl’s major writings have not yet been
translated into English. Philosophie
für die Westentasche has been translated into Dutch, Italian, and Korean, and Die Möglichkeit des Guten has been
translated into Polish. Lexikon der Ethik
(2008, co-edited by Otfried Höffe, Maximilian Forschner, Christoph Horn, and
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl) has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Chinese.2
In Die Möglichkeit des Guten: Ethik im 21. Jahrhundert (The Possibility of the Good: Ethics in the
21st Century), Vossenkuhl describes ethics as a practical
science that seeks to answer two basic questions: how “the good” is possible,
and how the good, in the form of “the good life,” can be actualized. He says
that these two basic questions are inseparable, and that the clarification of the
possibility of the good is actually the first step toward the actualization of
the good life.3
The clarification of the possibility of the good involves both a
theoretical and a practical commitment. The theoretical
commitment to internal and external consistency in our ethical judgments must
underlie a practical commitment to coherence. We cannot find the best solutions
to ethical problems (those solutions that enable the best possible life, under
the given conditions, to be actualized for all human beings) unless our ethical
judgments are coherent. Such judgments should enable the actualization (or
contribute to the actualization) of the best possible life for all human beings,
even when moral, legal, or political conflicts between different individuals or
groups cannot be resolved. Without the theoretical commitment to consistency
and the practical commitment to coherence, our ethical judgments can make no
claim to objectivity.4
Vossenkuhl explains that in every judgment that something is good or
bad, we employ a basic standard of what is good or bad. This standard may be moral,
ethical, aesthetic, technical, or functional in nature. But within certain limits,
the good or bad may change, and thus within certain limits, our standards of
what is good or bad must also change.
The pivotal point of any
ethics, according to Vossenkuhl, is the issue of human freedom. Ethics not only
presupposes human freedom, it also offers the possibility of promoting and
ensuring it. The possibilities of the good increase or decrease with the
possibilities of human freedom.5
Two problems for ethics arise from (1) the fact that there may be a
scarcity of goods to be allocated to different individuals or groups, and (2)
the fact that it may be difficult to determine how unquantifiable normative
claims to goods are to be matched to quantifiable shares of distributable
goods. These two problems are the source of what Vossenkuhl calls “the basic
methodological problem of ethics,” i.e. the problem of how manifold and diverse
goods are to be integrated into a whole, whereby a good life becomes possible
for all members of society. He proposes a “maxim method” as the solution of
this problem, and he explains that this method provides a means of answering
both the question of how the good is possible and the question of how the good,
in the form of the good life, can be actualized.
In considering the relation between ethics and morality, Vossenkuhl says
that ethics presupposes morality, and that ethical judgments are always in some
way connected to moral presuppositions. Ethics therefore has only a limited
independence from morality, and must rely on basic moral norms in order to
justify its judgments. Such norms include “moral facts” (sittliche Tatsachen), e.g. the fact that killing human beings is
wrong, and the fact that human dignity should be respected. These facts are
basic and foundational to ethics, and they do not require further explanation.
Ethics, on the other hand, seeks to explain why actions are right or
wrong, good or bad, and thus it attempts to achieve objective validity for its
judgments. Criteria for the objective validity of ethical judgments include
truth, understandability, verifiability, relevance, and revisability in light
of new facts or knowledge. These five criteria of objectivity are not proposed as
absolute or final, but they indicate how ethical validity (ethische Geltung) may be distinguished from
moral justification (sittliche Rechtfertigung).
At the same time, the scientific authority of ethics presupposes the
natural authority of morality. Ethics, on the one hand, can have scientific authority only
if its foundations are independent of morality, but on the other hand, it would
have no scientific authority if it were not rooted in morality.6 Ethics
can therefore criticize morality only by deriving its truth claims from
morality. This kind of critique is possible only if moral facts can change or
be replaced by new moral facts.
Vossenkuhl explains that conventional morality is usually recognized and
accepted as long as it fulfills its customary functions and is supported by
regular social practices. It becomes problematic only when it gives
good reasons to mistrust regular social practices, and when it puts
its own validity into question on ethical grounds.7
Kant claimed that subjective principles of volition can become objective
principles of reason if they comply with the "categorical imperative," which is to act only in such a way that the principle according to which an action is
performed can be taken as a universal law of morality. Universal moral commands, such as “keep your promises,” “tell the truth,” “have
compassion for others,” and “help the needy as much as you can” correspond to
what Kant would describe as objectively valid principles of morality.
Vossenkuhl, however, questions whether universality is a meaningful
methodological requirement in ethics, and he argues for a situational ethics
whose requirements are objectively founded for determinate problems under
determinate conditions. He says that every ethics is in some way situational, because
it contains elements that characterize the particular individual and collective
context of action.8
Vossenkuhl also describes “ethical normality” (ethishe Normalität) as a conflict-free condition in
which there is, for a given moral problem, only one rule that must be followed in
order to solve it. Other criteria for ethical normality include: the rule to be
followed in a situation must be morally valid, and there are no other rules or
obligations that conflict with the rule. If the criteria for ethical normality
are not all fulfilled, then there are at least three kinds of problems that may
occur: (1) there may be moral conflict when more than one rule or obligation
holds in a situation and only one can be fulfilled, (2) there may be moral
disagreement over the interpretation of moral facts or the application of ethical principles to particular situations, and (3) there may be "normative overloading"(normative Überforderung) if multiple moral duties or norms cannot all be complied with simultaneously. In the case
of (1), two kinds of moral conflicts may occur: those that can be resolved, and
those that cannot (moral dilemmas).9
The limits of ethical normality, according to Vossenkuhl, are not the same as
the limits of ethics. If there is no single rule that can be used to resolve a
moral conflict, then there are still right and wrong responses to that
conflict.10 Moreover, the resolution of moral conflict does not
necessarily mean the restoration of ethical normality. In cases of normative
overloading, for example, we may be limited to achieving some degree of normative
unloading. Such cases of unfulfilled moral duties or obligations cannot simply be resolved like pain is resolved after
ingestion of a painkiller. We cannot merely address the symptoms of moral conflict
or normative overloading; we must also address the causes of those symptoms.11
The goal of ethics is the clarification of the question of how the good,
in the form of the good life, is possible.12 Among the
presuppositions under which the goal of ethics is achievable are that human
beings are capable of acting freely, and that they are capable of accepting moral responsibility
for their actions. These presuppositions, however, are not purely moral in character,
insofar as the nature of human freedom may be partly determined by political,
legal, economic, and social conditions.13
Vossenkuhl says that ethics has presuppositions in a wider, and in a
narrower sense. Presuppositions in a wider sense include the importance of
respect for human life, the importance of respect for human rights, and the importance of respect for human
dignity, and these presuppositions belong to morality. Presuppositions in a
narrower sense include the existence of legal jurisprudence,
legal protection of civil rights, and legal guarantees of basic human freedoms,
and these presuppositions denote the conditions without which ethics could not
claim to be a practical science and thus argue independently of morality.
If the clarification of how the good life is possible is the goal of
ethics, and the good life is not of a purely moral nature, then the question of
how the good life is possible cannot be answered merely by producing a list of virtues that must be fulfilled or duties that must be complied
with.14 It’s always possible for individual actions to be morally
good even though the person who performs them has not always acted morally and
does not live in a society that makes the good life possible for all. The
morally good is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the good life of
an individual person or whole society.15
Morally good actions form the “cement” of the individual and collective
good life, and they hold together other elements that are necessary for such a
life. Morally bad actions do the opposite; they disrupt the good life.16
We assume that the good life is possible if a variety of conditions are
met, such as when human rights are respected, when no one lives in poverty, when no one is discriminated against, when everyone has equal opportunity for employment, when everyone has access to
health care, when everyone can live in peace and security, and when everyone
fulfills their duties to one another. Since it seems unlikely that all these
ideal conditions will ever simultaneously be fulfilled, we learn to understand
the good life as basically incomplete. The good life as a whole is never
actually achieved beyond the stage of the possible; its modality is that of a
possible actuality.17
The basic methodological problem of ethics arises from the fact that the
goods we need in order to live a good life are often scarce, and from the fact
that these goods frequently have an unquantifiable as well as a quantifiable
quality. The successful integration of these quantifiable and unquantifiable
goods into a whole is one of the conditions of a good life, and successful integration
is possible if we can solve the basic methodological problem of ethics, that
is, the problem of how material and nonmaterial, normative and non-normative
claims are to be recognized as independent from, but at the same time intertwined with, one another.18
The problem of determining how scarce goods can be distributed in the
best possible way in order for the good life to be achieved by all members of
society is a problem of moral economy.19 Regional and global
markets, with their respective operating mechanisms, do not necessarily guarantee a fair and
equitable distribution of goods to everyone. The basic methodological problem
of ethics, i.e. the problem of determining how indivisible, incommensurable, and
indispensable goods are to be connected to divisible, commensurable, and
dispensable goods in order to form a social whole, presupposes that in
constitutionally governed, democratic societies there are collectively
generated goods that serve the welfare of all members and that can accordingly
be justly and fairly distributed. However, the basic methodological problem is
only solvable if not only gains in, but also losses of goods are fairly
distributed.20
Vossenkuhl proposes two maxims that can be used to solve the basic methodological
problem. The first maxim is: a normative claim is changed when it leads to a
distribution of goods that cannot be accepted. The second maxim is: a
quantitative distribution of goods is changed when it infringes on normative
claims. The first maxim is called the “maxim of scarcity,” and the second maxim is called the
“maxim of norms.” The second maxim is an essential correlative to the first,
because if the first maxim alone were applied, normative claims would, over the long
run, be radically relativized, and would become meaningless whenever conflicts
of distribution arise. On the other hand, the second maxim may be difficult to
satisfy, because no normative claim contains a clear criterion of its own
material infringement.21 Both maxims must be simultaneously applied
in order for the basic methodological problem to be solved.
Because inequalities in the distribution of material goods can be
arbitrated but not abolished by the two maxims, they must be supplemented by a
third maxim, the “maxim of integration.” This can be stated as follows:
normative claims and distributions of goods can only be changed when neither
absolutely indispensable goods nor the value structure of goods as a whole are
thereby compromised.
Vossenkuhl explains that a good life in a social whole is only possible
if the goals of processes of distribution are cooperatively determined. The
maxim of integration therefore has political consequences, because it requires
that the claims of individuals and groups to indispensable goods be
protected against infringement. The maxim of integration also corrects any morally
unacceptable restrictions of normative claims and distributions of goods.22
The maxim method of solving
the methodological problem of ethics may not always make possible the good
life; even if the method is correctly applied, the possibility of the good life
is neither guaranteed nor exhausted.23 One reason that the maxim method
may sometimes be ineffective is that the integration of goods into a social whole is a necessary
condition for the good life, but not a sufficient one. Without a just
distribution of goods and burdens, the good life is not possible, Conflicts
between various group interests and political ideologies regarding the meaning
of “the good life” may underlie failure to achieve just distributions of goods
and burdens. Thus, pluralism, political compromise, and social cooperation are necessary.
FOOTNOTES
1Prof. Em. Dr. Wilhelm Vossenkuhl: Offizielle
Homepage, online at http://www.wilhelm-vossenkuhl.de/vita/
2Ibid.,
at http://www.wilhelm-vossenkuhl.de/publikationen/.
3Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, Die
Möglichkeit des Guten: Ethik im 21. Jahrhundert (München, C.H. Beck, 2006), p. 16.
4Ibid.,
p. 21.
5Ibid.,
p. 30.
6Ibid.,
p. 49.
7Ibid., pp.
66-67.
8Ibid., p. 84.
9Ibid., p. 121.
10Ibid., p. 132.
11Ibid., p. 140.
12Ibid.,
p. 236.
13Ibid.,
p. 236.
14Ibid.,
p. 240.
15Ibid.,
p 244.
16Ibid.,
p. 250.
17Ibid.,
pp. 251-252.
18Ibid.,
p. 296.
19Ibid.,
p. 346.
20Ibid.,
p. 347.
21Ibid., p. 352.
22Ibid.,
p. 377.
23Ibid.,
p. 417.
