Ethics

Does there exist an approach to ethics which doesn't depend upon or emphasize obligation and/or duty?

Comments

Look at some of the ancients (Homer, Plato, Aristotle) for the idea that ethics is all about becoming and being the best that you can be, leading the best possible life. They had different ideas of what this was, emphasizing different excellences. But they shared the idea that such nobility is not merely what one ought to strive for but something which, with some understanding, one wants to attain.

The duty focus of later moralities -- Christianity, Kant, utilitarianism -- is strongly criticized, partly with appeal to the ancients, by Nietzsche and Bernard Williams. See esp. the Genealogy of Morals by the former and Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (and perhaps also Shame and Necessity) by the latter.

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