Gewirth and Adams on the Foundation of Morality

Abstract

In his book, "reason and morality", gewirth has defended the principle of generic consistency as logically and materially necessary: "act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as of yourself". this paper argues that gewirth can make a good response to the evaluation of adams that gewirth gives "no conceptual analysis of 'x is a necessary good' and 'x is a right' that reveals an entailment". the paper also argues that gewirth has not shown that one who would claim superior rights because of superior intelligence necessarily involves himself in a logical self-contradiction. finally, the paper considers how the positions of gewirth and adams could be used to provide an existentialist, assertoric foundation of morality and suggests how gewirth would evaluate such a foundation.