Reclaiming the subject matter as a guide to mutual understanding: Effectiveness and ethics in interpersonal interaction

Personal identity and mutual understanding are primary products of interpersonal interaction. Descriptive accounts of interpersonal relationships need to be augmented by consideration of the ethical issues raised by the nature of identity formation and mutual understanding. Ethical ideals developed in the enlightenment tradition fail to account for the ethical concern with social systems and the manners by which personal identity and meaning are formed. This essay presents Gadamer's ontology of understanding as a developmental foundation for interpersonal system ethics. Interaction is conceptualized in terms of the demand that the subject matter places on openly formed mutual understanding and unethical interaction is shown as practices which prohibit this development. Several examples are given of the processes by which understanding is blocked. The essay concludes with descriptions of ways of overcoming these blocks.