Early Ethical Writings of Aurel Kolnai

This text details the early ethical philosophies and writings of Aurel Kolani. It decribes why his point of view was so critically acclaimed directly after its publication and explains his views and writings, with particular regard to his views on reality and morality. Kolnai explains his ideas on gradation and limitation, the idea that no conduct can be morally acceptable simply because it is the exercise or pursuit of moral or other morally significant value before discussing in more detail his idea of "reality". Reality is represented both by the nature of the external situtation in which the action, or reform, is to take place and also psychological facts about the agent or agents concerned. His dissertation examines the gradation of ethical value emphases, taking as a basis the concept of the "white lie" and the occasions when telling an untruth is justified as the "lesser of two evils" with the variation determined by reality. The same values may be morally relevant to two or more cases, but their moral title to determine conduct will vary because of facts about the situation or the agents concerned. The text then concentrates on the various modes of practical emphasis. The ideas of permeation, limitation and gradation of emphasis are raised by Kolani to the status of semi-technical terms in this work because of his concentration on the reality theme. His work takes the two spheres of morality as in practice inseperable, and is equally commited to moral phenomena, unifying the different aspects of "the moral" without any distortion.