Moral Philosophers and the Novel

Moral Philosophers and the Novel PDF Author: P. Johnson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230503373
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
In this fascinating study, Peter Johnson makes explicit the issues involved in using the novel as a source in moral philosophy. The book pays close attention to questions of method, aesthetic accounts of the novel and the nature of ethical knowledge. The views of leading philosophers are examined and criticised in the light of the book's distinctive contribution to the current debate.

Moral Philosophers and the Novel

Moral Philosophers and the Novel PDF Author: P. Johnson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230503373
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
In this fascinating study, Peter Johnson makes explicit the issues involved in using the novel as a source in moral philosophy. The book pays close attention to questions of method, aesthetic accounts of the novel and the nature of ethical knowledge. The views of leading philosophers are examined and criticised in the light of the book's distinctive contribution to the current debate.

Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint

Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint PDF Author: Catherine Wilson
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint addresses in a novel format the major topics and themes of contemporary metaethics, the study of the analysis of moral thought and judgement. Metathetics is less concerned with what practices are right or wrong than with what we mean by ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Looking at a wide spectrum of topics including moral language, realism and anti-realism, reasons and motives, relativism, and moral progress, this book engages students and general readers in order to enhance their understanding of morality and moral discourse as cultural practices. Catherine Wilson innovatively employs a first-person narrator to report step-by-step an individual’s reflections, beginning from a position of radical scepticism, on the possibility of objective moral knowledge. The reader is invited to follow along with this reasoning, and to challenge or agree with each major point. Incrementally, the narrator is led to certain definite conclusions about ‘oughts’ and norms in connection with self-interest, prudence, social norms, and finally morality. Scepticism is overcome, and the narrator arrives at a good understanding of how moral knowledge and moral progress are possible, though frequently long in coming. Accessibly written, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint presupposes no prior training in philosophy and is a must-read for philosophers, students and general readers interested in gaining a better understanding of morality as a personal philosophical quest.

On Moral Personhood

On Moral Personhood PDF Author: Richard Eldridge
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226203164
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In this remarkable blend of sophisticated philosophical analysis and close reading of literary texts, Richard Eldridge presents a convincing argument that literature is the most important and richest source of insights in favor of a historicized Kantian moral philosophy. He effectively demonstrates that only through the interpretation of narratives can we test our capacities as persons for acknowledging the moral laws as a formula of value and for acting according to it. Eldridge presents an extensive new interpretation of Kantian ethics that is deeply informed by Kant's aesthetics. He defends a revised version of Kantian universalism and a Kantian conception of the content of morality. Eldridge then turns to literature armed not with any a priori theory but with an interpretive stance inspired by Hegel's phenomenology of self-understanding, more or less naturalized, and by Wittgenstein's work on self-understanding as ongoing narrative-interpretive activity, a stance that yields Kantian results about the universal demands our nature places on itself. Eldridge goes on to present readings of novels by Conrad and Austen and poetry by Wordsworth and Coleridge. In each text protagonists are seen to be struggling with moral conflicts and for self-understanding as moral persons. The route toward partial resolution of their conflicts is seen to involve multiple and ongoing activities of reading and interpreting. The result of this kind of interpretation is that such literature—literature that portrays protagonists as themselves readers and interpreters of human capacities for morality—is a primary source for the development of morally significant self-understanding. We see in the careers of these protagonists that there can be genuine and fruitful moral deliberation and valuable action, while also seeing how situated and partial any understanding and achievement of value must remain. On Moral Personhood at once delineates the moral nature of persons; shows various conditions of the ongoing, contextualized, partial acknowledgment of that nature and of the exercise of the capacities that define it; and enacts an important way of reading literature in relation to moral problems. Eldridge's work will be important reading for moral philosophers (especially those concerned with Kant, Hegel, and issues dividing moral particularists from moral universalists), literary theorists (especially those concerned with the value of literature and its relation to philosophy and to moral problems), and readers and critics of Conrad, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Austen.

Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Moral Acts

Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Moral Acts PDF Author: Dana Dragunoiu
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810144018
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Winner, 2022 Brian Boyd Prize for Best Second Book on Nabokov This book shows how ethics and aesthetics interact in the works of one of the most celebrated literary stylists of the twentieth century: the Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Dana Dragunoiu reads Nabokov’s fictional worlds as battlegrounds between an autonomous will and heteronomous passions, demonstrating Nabokov’s insistence that genuinely moral acts occur when the will triumphs over the passions by answering the call of duty. Dragunoiu puts Nabokov’s novels into dialogue with the work of writers such as Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, and Marcel Proust; with Kantian moral philosophy; with the institution of the modern duel of honor; and with the European traditions of chivalric literature that Nabokov studied as an undergraduate at Cambridge University. This configuration of literary influences and philosophical contexts allows Dragunoiu to advance an original and provocative argument about the formation, career, and legacies of an author who viewed moral activity as an art, and for whom artistic and moral acts served as testaments to the freedom of the will.

Lectures on Moral Philosophy

Lectures on Moral Philosophy PDF Author: John Witherspoon
Publisher: Applewood Books
ISBN: 1429019700
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
With our American Philosophy and Religion series, Applewood reissues many primary sources published throughout American history. Through these books, scholars, interpreters, students, and non-academics alike can see the thoughts and beliefs of Americans who came before us.

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction PDF Author: Daniel R. DeNicola
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1460406605
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction is a compact yet comprehensive book offering an explication and critique of the major theories that have shaped philosophical ethics. Engaging with both historical and contemporary figures, this book explores the scope, limits, and requirements of morality. DeNicola traces our various attempts to ground morality: in nature, in religion, in culture, in social contracts, and in aspects of the human person such as reason, emotions, caring, and intuition.

The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck

The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck PDF Author: Stephen K. George
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810854413
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
More than any other author of the Modern period of American literature, John Steinbeck evidenced a serious interest and background in moral philosophy. His personal reading collection included works ranging from Kant and Spinoza to Taoism and the Bible. Critics also consistently identify Steinbeck as an author whose work promotes serious moral reflection and whose characters undergo profound moral growth. Yet to date there has been no sustained examination of either John Steinbeck's personal moral philosophy or the ethical features and content of his major works. This critical neglect is remedied by a collection of highly readable essays exploring the philosophy and work of one of America's few Nobel Prize winning authors. These thirteen essays, written by experts both within philosophy and Steinbeck studies, examine almost all of Steinbeck's major works. Included in the compilation are five general essays examining Steinbeck's own moral philosophy and eight specific essays analyzing the ethics of various major works.

To Love the Good

To Love the Good PDF Author: Patricia J. O'Connor
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Iris Murdoch is a philosopher, as well as a prominent and prolific novelist. Although she has not provided a systematic account of her moral philosophy, Murdoch's ideas have nevertheless influenced certain practitioners of feminist philosophy, including Marilyn Frye and Sara Ruddick. Murdoch's ideas also have appeared in the writings of Lawrence Blum and Charles Taylor, among others. This volume gives a developed account of Murdoch's position, making it more accessible by fitting ideas from her lesser-known works into a systematic picture of her moral philosophy as a whole. The book also argues for a connection between Murdoch's novels and her philosophy, seeing in both her deep concern with attention, love, and the Good. Readers of Murdoch's fiction and those intrigued by her philosphy will find much of interest here.

Fundamentals of Ethics

Fundamentals of Ethics PDF Author: Russ Shafer-Landau
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780197697498
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This book is divided into three parts-one on the Good Life, another on Doing the Right Thing, and the last on the Status of Morality. You can read these parts in any order. Many will want to begin at the end, for instance, with a discussion of whether morality is a human invention, or is in some way objective. Some will prefer to start in the middle, asking about the supreme principle of morality (and whether there is any such thing). And others may want to begin at the beginning, by thinking about human well-being and the quality of life. Each part can be understood independently of the others, though there are of course many points of connection across the three main branches of moral philosophy. No matter where you begin, there are footnotes in most chapters that provide cross-references to relevant discussions elsewhere in the book. When beginning a new area of study, you're bound to encounter some unfamiliar jargon. I've tried to keep this to a minimum, and I suppose that you can be thankful that we're doing ethics here, rather than physics or anatomy. I define each technical term when I first use it, and have also put together a glossary, which appears at the end of the book. Each specialized term that appears in boldface has an entry there. You may be interested enough in what you read here that you'll want to continue your studies in moral philosophy. There is a natural place to begin-the companion volume to this book, The Ethical Life, described later in this preface. I have also compiled a list of Suggestions for Further Reading for each chapter or pair of chapters. This list appears at the end of the book, just before the glossary. I have selected the readings with an eye to what might be accessible and interesting to those just beginning their study of moral philosophy"--

The Moral Philosophers

The Moral Philosophers PDF Author: Richard J. Norman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198752164
Category : Ethicists
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
A history of moral philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche.