Husserl's Critique of Kant's Ethics

This paper introduces Husserl's ethics by examining his critique of Kant's ethics. It presents Husserl's lectures on ethics in which he offers his own ethical theory in a historical context. The phenomenological ethics seeks to combine the advantages of both the traditional empiricism and rationalism. Husserl's ethics takes into account that emotions play an essential role in the constitution of values and morals. Contrariwise, Husserl fights against relativism in ethics and praises Kant for the discovery of an absolute moral imperative. He considers Kant's ethics as a rationalistic position that is too formal and that does not take into account that every will must be motivated by some concrete material good that is evaluated in our feelings or emotions.