Utopias of the Enlightenment between moral sense theory and practical aesthetics

该项目的目的是研究开明的乌托邦话语对道德意识理论以及感官知觉理论的生产性和批判性参考。因此，这些参考文献有望阐明道德感理论与美学之间的关系。虽然研究已经详细地分析了启蒙思想中理性与感性之间的关系，但却很少关注对感性的进一步区分，即灵魂较低部分彼此之间的关系。特别是在实践哲学问题上，道德感理论家和美学家之间存在着一种竞争：前者将道德感定义为一种欲望，它保证了道德行为，而不需要任何反思行为；后者也将道德判断定位在灵魂的较低部分，然而将其定义为一种反思的努力。这两种范式都追求完善人类和社会的道德状态的目标——这是完全相同的目标，其质量和成就受到乌托邦主义者的争议。特别是18世纪的乌托邦不仅是对理想道德的静态描述，而且是对道德化过程的描述。在此过程中，他们既涉及道德欲望的概念，也涉及感性道德判断的概念。因此，本项目不仅试图对被忽视的开明乌托邦的努力提供更深入的见解，除此之外，它还试图阐明一种哲学争议，其基本问题是由乌托邦来评论的。

The aim of the project is to examine the productive and critical references of the enlightened utopian discourse to theories of moral sense as well to those of sensuous perception. Thereby, those references promise to elucidate the relation between moral sense theories and aesthetics. Though research has analysed the relation between reason and sensuality in enlightened thought in detail, it gave only little attention to any further differentiation of sensuality, i.e. to the relation of the lower parts of the soul to each other. Particularly concerning questions of practical philosophy, there is a rivalry between moral sense theorists and aestheticians: the former define moral sense as an appetite, which guarantees moral action and conduct without any act of reflection; the latter also locate moral judgement in the lower parts of the soul and nevertheless define it as an effort of reflection. Both paradigms pursued the goal to perfect the moral state of man and community – that is the exact same goal, whose quality and achievement are disputed by utopias. Especially 18th century utopias are not only static descriptions of ideal morality, but also describe the process of moralization. In doing so, they refer both to conceptions of moral appetites and to those of sensuous moral judgement. Hence, the proposed project does not only try to provide deeper insights into disregarded efforts of enlightened utopias, which are, apart from that, elaborately explored, but it also intends to elucidate a philosophical controversy, whose fundamental problems are commented namely by utopias.