Problems of Moral Philosophy

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), one of the leading social thinkers of the 20th century, long concerned himself with the problems of moral philosophy, or "whether the good life is a genuine possibility in the present." Consisting of a course of lectures (captured by tape recorder), the book presents a more accessible Adorno than in his published works. In the course of the lectures, Adorno addresses a wide range of topics, including: theory and practice, ethics as bad conscience, the repressive character, the problem of freedom, dialectics in Kant and Hegel, the nature of reason, the moral law as a given, psychoanalysis, the element of the Absurd, freedom and law, the Protestant tradition of morality, Hamlet

, self-determination, phenomenology, the concept of the will, the idea of humanity, The Wild Duck

, and Nietzsche's critique of morality.