Prolegomenon to the Philosophical Definition of an Act

Abstract

The article represents an attempt to think of a possible concept list of moral philosophy, aris­ing from the decision to build it on the basis of the concept of an act and to determine which ideas and ways of thought should be abandoned in this case. We are talking about the specif­ically philosophical nature of this concept, which is the basis of the first philosophy: its con­tent is revealed through a “bunch” of conceptual identities: act – being – actor (subject, be­ginning) – decision – non-differentiation – timelessness – self-sufficiency – asymmetry – centrality – oneness – responsibility. This “list” is both completed and open. Revealing the specifics of the moral philosophy of the act, it also determines the ideas that should be aban­doned, taking the challenge of Auschwitz with all seriousness, as a challenge to moral think­ing. So, it names the rejection of various kinds of differentiations due to the unity, oneness and completeness of the act (including the substantial differentiation of the act, and the ac­tor, and the decision), and in general from the idea of plurality (act, subject); rejection of the juxtaposition of morality to value-regulatory forms: law, science, art, etc.; the refusal from localization (limitation) of responsibility, from the concepts of behavior and personality; from understanding an act as a result of choice and rational discourse, knowledge; and in general from the secondary nature of the act in relation to moral ideas, norms, command­ments as a result of the recognition of the priority of the act as a given one and morality as based on the initial act of non-killing.