抄録
The theory of life form, which is mainly proposed by Phillipa Foot and Michael
Thompson, claims that each individual human being is evaluated according
to natural historical knowledge of human life form. If the claim is true, we can
make a moral judgment objectively, but there is a big problem about its normativity:
because of the gap between human goods and rationality in general and
those of individual persons, theory of life form has to explain that there are
necessary reasons for everyone to obey or act in concordance with human life
form.
In order to tackle the problem, this paper proposes three suggestions. First, if
we think of the theory of human life form sincerely, we should regard moral
judgments or moral evaluation as a part of a proceeding moral activity; a pure
moral judgment completely independent of other activities cannot be meaningful
in human life. Second, moral judgment is made by a historical person, which is
not a merely abstract concept of an agent but was born in a preceding social
normative system. Third, when a historical person makes a set of moral activity,
she does it in accordance with natural historical knowledge on the personal level
of human life form, that means, a life form fully understands and acted on by
oneself. On this level of life form, every person seems to obtain a reason for action
for oneself in each situation, not just understanding it. Here, we can see a
solution about the problem of normativity in the theory of life form, and the
theory can get more compelling.
