Implementation of ethical norms

Abstract

Ethical theory has attempted to be both moral and factual but has had difficulty in being both. I believe an analysis of attempts to strike a balance between the two will show where progress has been made and where we might expect more progress in the future. After establishing a meaaure by which to analyze the balancing of the moral and the factual, that measure will be used on traditional ethical theory. It will be found that difficulties with the factual are most bothersome, so we will turn to the fields which are concerned with the facts of human action, the social sciences. Having learned more about the factual, we will turn to Max Scheler's ethical theory because his phenomenological approach to ethics renders some unique and fruitful solutions not offered by other extant ethical theories to difficulties with the factual. Even Scheler's solutions to those difficulties do not enable a balance to be struck between the moral and the factual, however, so I conclude that finding a balance may well be too difficult even though progress is made in the attempt. [TRUNCATED]