Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

240 MARTIN MCKEEVER
a. The modernist project of making progress by regulating human
conduct through the use of instrumental reason has
been discredited
b. Spontaneous moral impulse is the only source of morality
c. The moral self is constituted by its responsibility for the
Other
Without for the moment offering any critique of Bauman’s
position, we may summarize his thought by offering a gloss on
each of these tenets in turn.
The modernist project of making progress by regulating
human conduct through instrumental reason has been unmasked
and discredited
It is important to notice that this tenet is actually a very
short story. It expresses in telegraphic form a narrative of
modernity and postmodernity which is recounted in the opening
chapters of Postmodern Ethics. Perhaps the best way of introducing
Bauman’s understanding of morality is to retell the story
he recounts in these chapters in an abbreviated form.
Modernity, according to Bauman, began with the dawning
of Renaissance humanism, when western society cast off the
shackles of an oppressive feudal, monarchical and ecclesiastical
hegemony (22, 23). In the name of critical reason, the spurious
authority of such institutions as the Church and the feudal system
was challenged by the philosophes (25). Having emancipated
themselves from clerical and monarchical domination, the
thinkers of the Enlightenment set out to construct a new system
of ethical and political authority based on their understanding
of human nature (25). This newfound freedom was not, however,
enjoyed by all: a “great schism” (23) opened between the enlightened
élite and the uneducated and turbulent masses (23). In
the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, teachers
and legislators were assigned the task of formulating and promulgating
the new codes which were to replace those of feudalism
(27). In the absence of clerical authority, these codes and
practices were to be based on the authority of reason itself.
From then on, people would be good because they would see