RESEARCH ARTICLE

Dialectics of Individual Life and Moral Law: On Adorno’s Non-Identical Moral Philosophy

  • LUO Songtao
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  • School of Philosophy, Research Center for Value and Culture, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Published date: 15 Sep 2019

Copyright

2019 Higher Education Press and Brill

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the theme of Adorno’s non-identical moral philosophy, particularly the primacy of individual life over moral laws, as based mainly on his key works like Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, On Subject and Object, Problems of Moral Philosophy, and Negative Dialectics. The claim here is that the primacy of individual life is made through negative dialectics (“non-idealist dialectics”) dealing with the antithesis between object and subject, particular and universal, individual and society under the theoretical horizon of non-identical philosophy. Meanwhile, as a private ethics, this non-identical moral philosophy based on individual life stands as a kind of negativism, which is focused on negative guidance towards the possibility of right life.

Cite this article

LUO Songtao . Dialectics of Individual Life and Moral Law: On Adorno’s Non-Identical Moral Philosophy[J]. Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2019 , 14(3) : 406 -422 . DOI: 10.3868/s030-008-019-0024-1

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