A danger of falling into the trap of the naturalistic fallacy seems to unambiguously exclude bodiliness from the search for moral norms . But is it really true that there is no role for the body to play when the intellect occupies itself with formulating moral norms? Undoubtedly the body constitutes – in a sense – the basis of morality, since human freedom can exist only as freedom incarnate. It would be equally difficult to deny that the body constitutes boundaries for morality. Bodiliness may significantly restrain cognitive abilities of men; but it may also reduce their capabilities to fulfill their moral obligations. A major controversy arises over the issue whether the body can influence the content of moral norms. Even if one accepts the validity of the thesis of an intransgressible boundary between the world of facts and the world of values, there is no doubt that man never experiences his body in the same way as he does other material objects. An experience of one’s own body matters significantly in ethical reflection.
In this article, the imperial idea and civilising missions in the Habsburg Monarchy, mainly of the nineteenth century, are refracted through the prism of the legacy of enlightened absolutism. The article tries to dispel mythologies about its demise around 1800, and about those who could subscribe to its programme throughout the nineteenth century. It questions templates of national history writing which too unanimously connect the Enlightenment to the origins of the various national revivals of the early nineteenth century, and discusses concrete examples of enlightened absolutism’s civilising impulses, among them law, Roman imperial patriotism, and the Catholic religion.