This discussion question is a little peculiar. It is about what philosophers call “meta-ethics,” which means, loosely, the sorts of things you have to think about before you can think about ethics; and it concerns what different philosophers refer to as either “fundamental conditions” or “necessary conditions” or “transcendental conditions” of possibility, which means, loosely, what must be the case in order for something to be possible at all.

This discussion question is a little peculiar. It is about what philosophers call “meta-ethics,” which means, loosely, the sorts of things you have to think about before you can think about ethics; and it concerns what different philosophers refer to as either “fundamental conditions” or “necessary conditions” or “transcendental conditions” of possibility, which means, loosely, what must be the case in order for something to be possible at all. Immanuel Kant is perhaps most famous for his original way of asking and answering these sorts of transcendental and meta-ethical questions. So, our meta-ethical question is, what sorts of things do you have to think about before you can think about ethics? Our “transcendental” question is, what are the conditions for the possibility of ethics? In other words, what must be the case for ethics to exist? In order to systematically study moral reasoning, conduct, and experience (remember our working definition of ethics), it would help to think about what makes morality possible, about what makes ethics a viable thing to study in the first place. I warned you, these are unusual questions. They are also very important questions, philosophically. And asking them is not so strange or complicated as it at first seems. Let’s try it with a simpler example: What are the conditions for the possibility of a cup of hot lemony tea? In other words, what has to exist in order for you to make a cup of hot lemony tea? It sounds simple enough, right? Maybe it even sounds silly. So be it. Try to answer the question anyway. All you have to do is write a list. “The conditions for the possibility of a cup of hot lemony tea are A, B, C, D, etc…” Write your list. Think carefully. Make sure your list is complete. Make sure it includes everything that is necessary, everything that must exist and be available, to make a cup of hot lemony tea. Make sure it includes only what is necessary for there to be a cup of hot lemony tea. Don’t leave anything out, and don’t add anything extra. The way to be sure you’ve done this is, that you’ve included everything necessary and not added anything unnecessary, is to imagine removing any one of the things from the list, and see if you could still make a cup of hot lemony tea. If you can do it without that thing, then it is extra, an add-on. For example, honey or sugar, which you might like but don’t need to make a cup of hot lemony tea. Try this with each of the items on your list. Once you are satisfied with your list, you can move on to the next step. Okay, here it gets a bit more complicated. You might have a cup of tea, however you like it, while thinking about this part. Read slowly and pay attention. It’s an unusual question. I’m going to try to pose it in several different ways, in the hope that you really get a sense of what you are being asked. Here it is: In the same way that there are conditions for the possibility of a cup of hot lemony tea, philosophers (some of them, at least) speak of the conditions for the possibility of things like truth and knowledge, meaning and beauty; and, as you have probably guessed, some moral philosophers wonder about the conditions for the possibility of morality. In other words, there must be some things that must exist in order for morality to exist. (Note: I am using “things” in its abstract and generic sense, so don’t think only of material things, things made of physical stuff.) In order for ethics to exist, let along to be worth talking about, certain basic things must exist, certain basic conditions must be met. There must be some X, Y, Z, etc. that make morality and ethics possible in the first place. So much so that if you take one of them away, there can be no morality or immorality or even amorality; and if there can’t be any of these, there certainly can’t an organized field of study called ethics. If any of these “things” are missing, if any of these most basic and necessary conditions for the possibility of ethics don’t exist, there can be no ethics at all. Without these things, this class would have no object. It would be like studying astronomy if galaxies, stars, and planets didn’t exist; or like studying biology if microbes and animals and plants and fungi didn’t exist; or like studying to be a chef if food didn’t exist. Get it? So, what is your list? What do you think must be the case, what must exist, for morality to exist at all? What makes moral reasoning, moral conduct, and moral experience possible in the first place? In short, what is your list of conditions for the possibility of ethics? Once you have posted your list, look at the lists posted by your classmates and make a few comments.https://youtu.be/-ml-cXguTnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIME_XWmUKo (video to watch.