Ethics in Context: The Art of Dealing with Serious Questions

by Gernot Böhme, Edmund Jephcott (Translator)

In this clear and accessible book, Gernot Böhme places philosophical ethics in the context of our individual and social lives. Arguing against the conception of ethics as a body of knowledge, Böhme defines morality as a matter of ‘serious questions'. In the case of an individual, a serious question is one that determines that person's mode of living. In the case of society, a serious question is one that shapes our social norms.
In Ethics in Context , Böhme explores the key areas of moral living and moral discourse. He examines some of the urgent issues affecting society today, such as the moral implications of reproductive technology, man's mastery over nature and the right of citizenship.
This book is a lucid and engaging guide to ethics, which will be of great interest to students of philosophy and, indeed, to all those interested in the subject.

Genres: Philosophy

200 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2001

About the author

Gernot Böhme (born 3 January 1937, in Dessau) is a German philosopher and author, contributing to the philosophy of science, theory of time, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. He is the main pioneer of German ecocriticism, the study of the relationship between culture and the environment. He has been the director of the Institute for Practical Philosophy in Darmstadt since 2005. Despite being one of Germany's most acclaimed public intellectuals, very little of his work has so far been translated into English.
German

1995 Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik. Frankfurt am Main
1999 Theorie des Bildes. Fink, München
2001 Aisthetik. Vorlesungen über Ästhetik als allgemeine Wahrnehmungslehre, Fink
2002 Die Natur vor uns. Naturphilosophie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Kusterdingen
2003 Der Typ Sokrates, Suhrkamp
2005 Goethes Faust als philosophischer Text. Die Graue Edition, Kusterdingen
2006 Architektur und Atmosphäre. München
2008 Invasive Technisierung. Technikphilosophie und Technikkritik. Kusterdingen
2008 Ethik leiblicher Existenz. Über unseren moralischen Umgang mit der eigenen Natur. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main

English translations

2001 Ethics in Context: The Art of Dealing with Serious Questions, Polity
2012 Invasive Technification: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Technology, Continuum
2017 Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces, Bloomsbury
2017 Critique of Aesthetic Capitalism, Mimesis