The Problem of Normativity of Consciousness without a Subject

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the normative nature of mental acts that prohibit, allow or dictate intellectual activity of some kind. These acts precede all cognitive processes and provide all sorts of rational activity. The decision to fulfill an act A is founded on the information about its significance, represented by deontic modalities. According to the European thinkers, pure Self exists undoubtedly and founds the rational relation between any type of objects including the moral laws. Kant considered awareness of the rational law as a special mental fact which is not an inference from any previous mental data. Husserl’s phenomenology investigates mental acts without (abstracting from) empirical information about existing of some things in the external world. Particularly, one must not assume the premise that other people exist really. The relevant information about obligations, norms and mental laws is information which is represented by their pure forms. It strictly determines the will, forces us to follow the rules and represents the objective circumstances in the ideal sphere. From our point of view, the fact of normative mental activity implies the thesis that the mind is not alone. But it does not imply neither obligatory existence of Self, nor obligatory existence of other minds. Hence the possibility of non-existence of pure Self is consistent and compatible with the normative nature of consciousness. Buddhist philosophy does not assert the existence of pure Self. An intentional system fulfils norms accordingly to the rules of a higher order. The results of mental studies achieved by Buddhism help us to develop and unite the transcendental and phenomenological approaches to the normative
analysis.