This article reviews Bryan Lueck’s book Obligation and the Fact of Sense. In this quite original book, Lueck considers what he argues are the failures of various modern ethical theories to decisively identify the ground of obligation, and proposes a new account of obligation in light of those failures. The book traces the concept of obligation through its history in early modern thought up to Kant’s idea that the ground of obligation is the so-called fact of reason, that we simply find ourselves bound by the moral law. Lueck’s own account begins from this point, but he recasts Kant’s idea of the fact of reason as the fact of sense, drawing on figures such as Merleau-Ponty, Serres, and Nancy. Ultimately, however, he argues that only a very deflationary version of obligation can be defended, as the failures of the early modern ethicists prove not to be accidental, but to emerge from the very phenomenon of obligation.

本文评论了布莱恩·吕克（Bryan Lueck）的著作《义务与意识的事实》（  Obligation and the Fact of Sense）。在这本非常原始的书中，吕克认为，他认为是各种现代伦理学理论无法果断地确定义务基础的失败，并针对这些失败提出了新的义务说明。这本书追溯了义务的概念，通过其在近代早期思想中的历史，一直追溯到康德的观念，即义务的基础是所谓的理性事实，即我们只是发现自己受道德法则的束缚。吕克的论述从这一点开始，但他借鉴了诸如梅洛-庞蒂，塞尔斯和南希这样的人物，重塑了康德关于理性事实的观念，即理性事实。但是，他最终认为，只能捍卫通货紧缩的义务，因为早期现代伦理学家的失败不是偶然的，而是从义务的现象中浮现出来的。