Ethics, hermeneutics, and lessons from jazz

Ethics is often reserved for ‘serious’ situations, where people’s lives and/or livelihoods are at risk. But is ethics that selective? Perhaps we obscure part of what is at issue when we pick and choose what constitutes being worthy of ethical consideration. In this article it is argued that ethics is a ubiquitous character of life, and that insofar as we attend and respond to the world, we necessarily engage in ethics. Jazz improvisation is taken to offer insight into how we might live in accord with ‘hermeneutical ethics’ or what Heidegger refers to as a ‘dwelling life’.