Evaluation in Action. A Phenomenological Reassessment of Ricœur’s Early Ethics

ABSTRACT With a phenomenological reassessment of Ricœur’s early ethics, I expound on the role played by evaluation in shaping intentions in the course of action. Ricœur’s early ethics can be considered an “extended theory of action” because it addresses human doing beyond the paradigm of well-formed intentions. Focusing on The Voluntary and the Involuntary, I will (1) consider his inquiry under the lens of his critique of early-phenomenological meta-ethics by discussing his view that evaluation isolates itself from consciousness’s constitutive tension toward action; (2) highlight the existential motives of his later hermeneutic turn which latently motivate his early philosophical project: the formation of intentions arises in a biographical and historical context, and only gradually becomes conscious from the agent’s perspective. (3) pinpoint how Ricœur identifies an entanglement with the circle of conviction in the structure of commitment, by enlarging the scope to his reading of Landsberg.