Embodied or Disembodied Ethics: Epistemological, Methodological, and Educational Implications in Education

Abstract

The term ethics itself carries two distinct meanings. Ethics in the sense of morality refers primarily to the domain of established rules, social norms, and accepted values that guide individual behavior within the framework of an existing social order. In this sense, the external and obligatory dimensions of human action occupy the center of attention. In contrast, ethics in the sense of ethics proper concerns the philosophical inquiry into the good, responsibility, and the manner of living a good human life; an inquiry that emerges from lived experience and individual reflection within real-life situations. Ethical ethics, unlike morality-based ethics, is not merely the repetition of existing rules; rather, it is an effort to understand how human beings exist in the world and to comprehend the meaning of their presence through their actions. It is through this distinction that ethics acquires meaning in its living and experiential form, transcending the level of social discipline and attaining an existential and conscious status. In addition to this semantic distinction, the history of philosophy has witnessed diverse approaches and interpretations concerning the origin and nature of ethics. Each, grounded in its own epistemological and ontological foundations, has offered a different understanding of the source of human moral experience. On one side, ethics has been reduced to the realm of the mind and individual will; on the other, it has been attributed to human biological and neural mechanisms. In contrast to both perspectives, embodied phenomenology adopts a comprehensive view, understanding ethics not as an abstract phenomenon but as an experience intertwined with the body, consciousness, and human presence in the world. Therefore, the present study examines the nature of ethics not as a collection of established norms, but as an embodied experience of conscious and responsible human presence in the world.