On emergent ethics, becoming authentic, and finding common ground

Abstract

Lowney develops a Polanyian picture of how real ethical standards emerge and demonstrates how this structure and process can support Taylor’s notion of authenticity as a personal moral ideal. The process of discovery in science generates amended or new interpretive frameworks that allow us to better understand reality. Lowney suggests that this process applies to existential as well as scientific problems and that the solutions can be new moral ways of being in the world. Just as a heuristic satisfaction can validate a scientific discovery, it might validate a moral way of being and precipitate a search for verification or falsification. An authentic moral standard is seen as a personal self-set standard that is discovered both in action and in dialogue with a wider moral community-the background that Taylor calls a “horizon of significance.” As well as forming a ground for Taylor’s notion of authenticity, Lowney also shows how exploring Polanyi’s post-critical standards of warrant allows for better communication between several modern character types: the scientific humanist, the expressive individualist, and the Aristotelian traditionalist.