Albert Borgmann, in Moral Cosmology: On Being in the World Fully and Well (2024), justifies the “moral” not through traditional theological or utilitarian frameworks, but through a deeply reflective synthesis of cosmic awareness, focal presence, and lived practices. His justification is existential, cosmological, and phenomenological—anchored in the felt experience of being human in an ordered, yet fragile, universe.
Here are the core dimensions of how he justifies the “moral”:
1.
Cosmic Orientation Grounds Moral Attunement
Borgmann argues that a basic understanding of the universe—its vastness, laws, and our fleeting place within it—humbles and orients us. The awareness of:
- Quantum indeterminacy
- Relativity and temporal finitude
- The delicate emergence of life and consciousness
…leads not to nihilism, but to an ethic of attunement: a sense that to live well is to live in accordance with the structure and grace of reality.
The moral is not imposed—it is disclosed by the nature of the world itself.
2.
Focal Practices as Moral Anchors
Central to Borgmann’s philosophy (since Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life) is the concept of focal things and practices—those activities and objects that draw us into the world meaningfully: sharing a meal, playing music, walking in nature.
In Moral Cosmology, he argues that:
- These practices reveal moral truths through their embeddedness, relationality, and enduring value.
- They are not “just lifestyle choices”—they are existential enactments of the good.
Thus, morality is not abstract rule-following but dwelling well, practicing care, attention, and gratitude.
3.
Against the Device Paradigm: Moral Resistance
Borgmann critiques the “device paradigm” of modern technology, where the world is reduced to efficient, consumable services, abstracted from meaningful contexts. He sees this as a moral deformation: a loss of depth, relationship, and responsibility.
- The moral life, in contrast, is a resistance to this flattening.
- It entails a recovery of presence, where the world is not merely a resource but a gift to be encountered, respected, and shared.
4.
Interpersonal Ethics: Compassion and Responsibility
Borgmann extends this cosmological ethic into the interpersonal:
- Living “fully and well” includes kindness, responsibility, and responsiveness to others.
- His moral cosmology is thus not solitary but communal—informed by shared vulnerability, fragility, and joy.
This resonates with stranger’s kindness, Levinasian responsibility, and even Kohutian empathy.
5.
Secular Sacrality: A Moral Universe Without God
Crucially, Borgmann does not ground morality in divine command. Instead, he speaks of a secular sacrality—a reverence for the world and life itself as worthy of moral commitment.
- He draws from the deep order of the cosmos, not to deduce moral laws, but to invite moral comportment.
- The moral, then, is what preserves, honors, and deepens our embeddedness in the world and with each other.
Summary
Albert Borgmann justifies the “moral” in Moral Cosmology through:
- A cosmic humility grounded in scientific insight,
- A phenomenology of presence rooted in focal practices,
- A resistance to technological reductionism,
- And an ethic of care and reverence, humanistic and embedded.
His moral cosmology asks not “What rules should I follow?” but “How shall I dwell?”, and in doing so, he joins hands with Heidegger’s Gelassenheit, Levinas’s face of the Other, and your own 車行哲學.
Would you like a side-by-side table comparing Borgmann’s “moral cosmology” with Heidegger’s dwelling, Levinas’s ethics, and Kohut’s selfobject attunement?
