What Will I Do? Toward an Existential Ethics for First Person Action Research Practice

Abstract

Abstract

How first person practice engages with the process of valuing has not received much attention in action research. This article takes the question, ‘what will I do?’ as the foundation for first person ethical inquiry. It explores the process of how we are able to experience, to understand and to make value judgements about what is ‘worthwhile’ or ‘truly good’, and so to make choices and to take action. The article marks a move away from a focus on ethics as a set of coherent concepts and definitions, to a focus on interiority where ethics are considered in terms of appropriating the activities of valuing, a move from a system based on logic to a system grounded in method, from ethics imposed from outside to personal authenticity

Keywords: action research ethics, first person practice, authenticity, Bernard Lonergan