Ethics Without Morals

Ethics Without Morals PDF Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041563556X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this volume, Marks offers a defense of amorality as both philosophically justified and practicably livable. In so doing, the book marks a radical departure from both the new atheism and the mainstream of modern ethical philosophy. While in synch with their underlying aim of grounding human existence in a naturalistic metaphysics, the book takes both to task for maintaining a complacent embrace of morality. Marks advocates wiping the slate clean of outdated connotations by replacing the language of morality with a language of desire. The book begins with an analysis of what morality is and then argues that the concept is not instantiated in reality. Following this, the question of belief in morality is addressed: How would human life be affected if we accepted that morality does not exist? Marks argues that at the very least, a moralist would have little to complain about in an amoral world, and at best we might hope for a world that was more to our liking overall. An extended look at the human encounter with nonhuman animals serves as an illustration of amorality's potential to make both theoretical and practical headway in resolving heretofore intractable ethical problems.

Ethics Without Morals

Ethics Without Morals PDF Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041563556X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this volume, Marks offers a defense of amorality as both philosophically justified and practicably livable. In so doing, the book marks a radical departure from both the new atheism and the mainstream of modern ethical philosophy. While in synch with their underlying aim of grounding human existence in a naturalistic metaphysics, the book takes both to task for maintaining a complacent embrace of morality. Marks advocates wiping the slate clean of outdated connotations by replacing the language of morality with a language of desire. The book begins with an analysis of what morality is and then argues that the concept is not instantiated in reality. Following this, the question of belief in morality is addressed: How would human life be affected if we accepted that morality does not exist? Marks argues that at the very least, a moralist would have little to complain about in an amoral world, and at best we might hope for a world that was more to our liking overall. An extended look at the human encounter with nonhuman animals serves as an illustration of amorality's potential to make both theoretical and practical headway in resolving heretofore intractable ethical problems.

Ethics Without Principles

Ethics Without Principles PDF Author: Jonathan Dancy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199270023
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jonathan Dancy presents a long-awaited exposition and defence of particularism in ethics, a view with which he has been associated for twenty years. He argues that the traditional link between morality and principles, or between being moral and having principles, is little more than a mistake. The possibility of moral thought and judgement does not in any way depend on an adequate supply of principles. Dancy grounds this claim on a form of reasons-holism, holding that what is a reason in one case need not be any reason in another, and maintaining that moral reasons are no different in this respect from others. He puts forward a distinctive form of value-holism to go with the holism of reasons, and he gives a detailed discussion, much needed, of the currently popular topic of 'contributory' reasons. Opposing positions of all sorts are summarized and criticized. Ethics Without Principles is the definitive statement of particularist ethical theory, and will be required reading for all those working on moral philosophy and ethical theory.

Morality Without God?

Morality Without God? PDF Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195337638
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
A common refrain against atheism and secular humanism is that without belief in God, "everything is permitted." Walter Sinnott-Armstrong dismantles this argument and argues instead that God is not only not essential to morality, but that our moral behavior should be seen as utterly independent of religion. This short, accessible book is on a major aspect of the arguments against atheism and will interest those intrigued by the "new atheism" (Harris, Dawkins, etc).

Ethics Without God

Ethics Without God PDF Author: Kai Nielsen
Publisher: London : Pemberton Books ; Buffalo : Prometheus Books
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contrary to the claim of many defenders of religion, the author argues that morality cannot be based on religion. If anything, the opposite is partly true, for nothing can be God unless he or it is worthy of worship, and it is our own moral judgment which decided such worth. Men can and do have purposes in a godless world. What we need to ask is whether there is any good sociological or psychological evidence to show that people will despair, lose their sense of identity and purpose, if they are not followers of Christ.

The Moral Landscape

The Moral Landscape PDF Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire

Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire PDF Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319437992
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book challenges the widespread assumption that the ethical life and society must be moral in any objective sense. In his previous works, Marks has rejected both the existence of such a morality and the need to maintain verbal, attitudinal, practical, and institutional remnants of belief in it. This book develops these ideas further, with emphasis on constructing a positive alternative. Calling it “desirism”, Marks illustrates what life and the world would be like if we lived in accordance with our rational desires rather than the dictates of any actual or pretend morality, neither overlaying our desires with moral sanction nor attempting to override them with moral strictures. Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire also argues that atheism thereby becomes more plausible than the so-called New Atheism that attempts to give up God and yet retain morality.

Do Morals Matter?

Do Morals Matter? PDF Author: Joseph S. Nye
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190935960
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is the role of ethics in American foreign policy? The Trump Administration has elevated this from a theoretical question to front-page news. Should ethics even play a role, or should we only focus on defending our material interests? In Do Morals Matter? Joseph S. Nye provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of how modern American presidents have-and have not-incorporated ethics into their foreign policy. Nye examines each presidency during theAmerican era post-1945 and scores them on the success they achieved in implementing an ethical foreign policy. Alongside this, he evaluates their leadership qualities, explaining which approaches work and which ones do not.

The Second-Person Standpoint

The Second-Person Standpoint PDF Author: Stephen Darwall
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674034627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why should we avoid doing moral wrong? The inability of philosophy to answer this question in a compelling manner—along with the moral skepticism and ethical confusion that ensue—result, Stephen Darwall argues, from our failure to appreciate the essentially interpersonal character of moral obligation. After showing how attempts to vindicate morality have tended to change the subject—falling back on non-moral values or practical, first-person considerations—Darwall elaborates the interpersonal nature of moral obligations: their inherent link to our responsibilities to one another as members of the moral community. As Darwall defines it, the concept of moral obligation has an irreducibly second-person aspect; it presupposes our authority to make claims and demands on one another. And so too do many other central notions, including those of rights, the dignity of and respect for persons, and the very concept of person itself. The result is nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of moral theory that enables it at last to account for morality’s supreme authority—an account that Darwall carries from the realm of theory to the practical world of second-person attitudes, emotions, and actions.

Morals from Motives

Morals from Motives PDF Author: Michael Slote
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190207930
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Morals from Motives develops a virtue ethics inspired more by Hume and Hutcheson's moral sentimentalism than by recently-influential Aristotelianism. It argues that a reconfigured and expanded "morality of caring" can offer a general account of right and wrong action as well as social justice. Expanding the frontiers of ethics, it goes on to show how a motive-based "pure" virtue theory can also help us to understand the nature of human well-being and practical reason.

Morality, Normativity, and Society

Morality, Normativity, and Society PDF Author: David Copp
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195144017
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
Offering new perspectives on reason and rational choice, Copp's approach to morality and normativity raises a number of important issues in moral theory, as well as in metaphysics and the philosophy of language.