Ehtics and Morality in the Vienna Circle

This monograph undertakes a long-overdue revision of the prevailing view on the role and conception of ethics and morality in the Vienna Circle. This view is rejected as being too partial and undifferentiated. The study disproves the opinion that the members of the Vienna Circle were uninterested in ethics and morality. Quite the contrary, many members not only were interested in politics and morality but also engaged in these matters. Furthermore, not all members supported the standard view of logical empiricist ethics, which is held to be characterized by the acceptance of descriptive empirical research, the rejection of normative and substantial ethics as well as an extreme non-cognitivsm. The position of Rudolf Carnap is nearest to the standard view. Karl Menger`s, Otto Neurath`s and Philipp Frank`s already depart in some respects. Moritz Schlick`s, Victor Kraft`s and Herbert Feigl`s, finally, deviate the most from it. In contrast to the commonly held picture of ivory tower logicians and metaethicists, some members of the Vienna Circle practiced applied ethics. They even used this very expression. This monograph treats the ethical main topics and positions of the members of the Vienna Circle as those developed in the respective personal and cultural contexts. Besides this, it shows that all approaches share an enlightened and humanistic version of morality and ethics. Nevertheless, this common scientific humanism, which may already be found in the manifesto Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle, is pronounced distinctly. One aspect of the deviation of the standard view is a different conception of morality as a social or individual concern. On the one hand, an extreme individualism leads Carnap to an extreme non-cognitivsm, wherein he is followed by Menger. Schlick`s position, however, is ambiguous. This is due to two different conceptions of morality in his work. Kraft and Feigl, on the other hand, emphasize a conception of morality as a commonly shared form of practice. In their approach a commonly shared conception of the moral good, involving a factual component, allows for agreement in moral questions. This position is far beyond an extreme non- cognitivsm. On the basis of these findings, one may no longer ascribe to the Vienna Circle a general rejection of normative ethics or an extreme non-cognitivism. An ethics which takes morality as a social practice is in better accordance with some members of the Circle than the prevailing view might suggest. Those who think that following Carnap and being suspicious about ethics is the only option for staying close to the Vienna Circle`s tradition are mistaken. In the history of analytic philosophy, ethics has not always been as marginalized as it is in some of its branches these days and as opponents of analytic philosophy blame it for. This philosophical and historical study provides a necessary revision of an undesirable development.