Is There a Measure on Earth?: Foundations for a Nonmetaphysical Ethics

About this book

The search for an ethics rooted in human experience is the crux of this deeply compassionate work here translated from the 1983 German edition. Distinguished philosopher Werner Marx provides a close reading critique and Weiterdenken or "further thinking " of Martin Heideggers later work on death language and poetry which has often been dismissed as both obscure and obscurantist. In it Marx seeks and perhaps finds both a measure for distinguishing between good and evil and a motive for preferring the former. The poet Hlderlin posed the question "Is there a measure on earth?" His own answer was emphatic "There is none " for he was convinced that the measure for man was to be found only in the domain of the heavenly beings. Such metaphysical assumptions as well as the attempt to found ethical conduct in the nature of man as a rational being have been rejected by many contemporary thinkers particularly Heidegger. Yet these thinkers have not been able to provide a satisfactory alternative to metaphysical foundations of the standards for responsible human conduct. Marx therefore goes beyond Heidegger in demonstrating how several of his most basic notions could be relevant to a secular morality in our age. It is death Marx claims that unsettles man and transforms his conduct toward his fellow man. the common experience of mortality nourishes ethical lifeand leads to the measures of compassion love and recognition of ones fellow human beings. "It is only on the basis of these traditional virtues " Marx writes "that we can find a motive for averting the impending dangers which have often enough been described so vividly and convincingly."