THE PLACE OF MORALSPHERE THEORY IN INTERSUBJECTIVITY OF HILARY KANE

Abstract

When an individual, as a being has a good relationship with the other, life is maintained and harmonious living orchestrated. Robert Kane’s inter-subjectivity emphasis among other things good inter-personal relationship. Kane further treats “moral rightness” in the Moral Sphere Theory. He argues that it resides in striving to lead a good life that is objectively worthy of being lived and striving thereby to realize goods by virtue of the living of such a life that are objectively worthy of being realized. Endeavouring to live such a life, in other words, moral rightness entails fundamentally, not treating others as mere means (not breaking the moral sphere) and then doing what one can to maintain (restore and preserve) the moral sphere when it has broken down, while moral wrongness is doing otherwise. Consequently, an attitude of “openness” or tolerance toward other points of view is vital. Openness to other points of view, he sustains, would thus become a way of reaching that point of commonality. The problem then that warrants this study is that although Kane’s idea of Openness appears to be a solution to sustain commonality and objectivity, he creates back the problem which he set out to resolve by not giving a stand on the truth; hence, the intersubjectivity of subjectivism. The main objective of this research is to explore an exhaustive idea of Robert Kane’s discourse on intersubjectivity based on openness and to evaluate the claims therein. This research adopted a qualitative design. Materials were sourced from books, journals, periodicals, conference papers and dissertations. This research thus sustains that Kane’s idea of Openness appears to be a solution to sustain commonality of living; however, he creates back the problem which he set out to resolve by not giving a stand on ‘the truth’; hence, the intersubjectivity of subjectivism.