What can we say about an ethics grounded in hermeneutics? Most fundamentally, hermeneutics is concerned with the problems of interpretation and understanding. Historically, hermeneutics was concerned with theories for correctly interpreting and understanding texts. Philosophical hermeneutics is the study of the assumptions and pre-judgments (the fore-structures of understanding) undergirding what we take to be the case about the world, about ourselves, and about others. That is, philosophical hermeneutics is a form of meta-philosophy. Hermeneutic ethics captures the tension often thought to exist between the idea that ethical questions are best answered on a case-by-case basis and the idea that some sort of universal moral truths do indeed exist (and, accordingly should be heeded). From a hermeneutical point of view, ethical questions (like all questions) are situated (that is, bound by the context from which they arise), but at the same time – and to the extent that we are all intimately connected not only with each other but with the world(s) we inhabit in dynamic and irrevocable ways — an ethics grounded in hermeneutics entails a profound commitment to the welfare of others as well as a way to assess the relative value of different ethical decisions.
In this issue, papers are invited on the topic of an ethics grounded in hermeneutics, broadly construed. Possible questions and issues to be addressed are (1) whether an ethics grounded in hermeneutics is possible, (2) the relationship between what ethics is and what hermeneutics is, (3) how the ethics of key hermeneuticists or hermeneutic philosophers might be compared and contrasted, (4) an exploration of the concept of Mitsein (or Being-with), (5) the role of community in an ethics grounded in hermeneutics, (6) the extent to which hermeneutics, ethics, and philosophy itself are coextensive, (7) the role of intersubjectivity in ethics, (8) the role of tradition in ethics, (9) ethics and hermeneutic dialogue, (10) hermeneutics and the other, (11) the relationship between power dynamics and the possibility of (productive) hermeneutic dialogue, (12) the possibility of hermeneutically correcting for the power dynamics in human dialogue, (13) what a hermeneutically legitimate ethical decision-making process might look like, and (14) any other related topic.
To make a submission, please go to the following link and click on “Submit to Special Issue” in the top right-hand corner by June 30, 2019: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies/special_issues/Hermeneutic_Ethics