The Ethics of Subjectivity Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity

The condition into which humans entered since the dawn of modernity altered and led to the disenchantment of traditional (pre-modern) ways of thinking and theorizing in the different spheres of being and discourse mainly due to an emphasis on reason, freedom and the autonomy of the subject. Ethics in particular has continued to experience since modernity a shift from preoccupation with fixated, absolutist systems of ethics such as those built on notions of God and nature to a preoccupation with the formal, individualistic, fallible or subjective ethical systems that ensue from free and autonomous subjects. The Ethics of Subjectivity presents an examination and analysis of the theorization of this subject-based ethics particularly as presented in the works of key ethicists and philosopher since modernity. These key figures include Kant, Hegel, Bradley, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Popper, Feyerabend, Habermas, Lacan and Levinas. The volume also examines the implications of the shift to the subject as the focal point of modern ethics for the ever-evolving field of ethics.

Elvis Imafidon, Ph. D, is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He is the editor of Ontologized Ethics: New Essays in African Meta-ethics. He is also the author of The Question of Rationality in African Traditional Thought: An Introduction, and founding editor of the quarterly journal, Critical Essays: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry.

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Modernity, Ethics and the Subject
1. From Chaos to Order: The Role of the Self in Hobbes' Moralism; Francis Offor
2. Kant's Contribution to Moral Evolution: Form Modernism to Postmodernism; Joseph Osei
3. The Moral Agent: Bradley's Critique of Hegel's Evolutionary Ethics; Anthony O. Echekwube
4. Reflections on Kierkegaard's Inwardness and Ethics of Subjectivity; Blessing O. Agidigbi
5. Nietzsche's Sovereign Individual and the Ethics of Subjectivity; Sharli Anne Paphitis
6. A Case for Foucault's Reversal of Opinion on the Autonomy of the Subject; Bob Robinson
7. The Ethics and Politics of Self-Creation in Foucault; Benda Hofmeyr
8. Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of Hospitality; Gerasimos Kakoliris
9. Karl Popper's Contribution to Postmodern Ethics; Joseph Osei
10. Open Standard, Open Judgement and Value Revision in Karl Popper's Moral Philosophy; Peter A. Ikhane
11. Navigating Feyerabend's Moral Philosophy: From Boundaries without Values to Values without Boundaries; Isaac E. Ukpokolo
12. Outlines of Jacques Lacan's Ethics of Subjectivity; Gregory B. Sadler
13. Ayn Rand's Ethics of Rational Selfishness; Precious O. Ighoroje
14. Habermas' Ethics of Intersubjectivity; Elvis Imafidon
15. Levinas Meets the Postcolonial: Re-thinking the Ethics of the Other; Benda Hofmeyr
16. Rorty's Contribution to Postmodern Ethics; Amaechi Udefi
17. Human Conversation and the Evolution of Ethics in Kitcher's Pragmatic Naturalism; Farinola Augustine Akintunde
Selected Bibliography
Index