Natural Ethical Facts

Natural Ethical Facts PDF Author: William D. Casebeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Connectionism
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Naturalizing ethics has been a problematic philosophic enterprise. The author attempts a synoptic reconciliation of the sciences with a naturalized conception of morality, beginning with a Quinean refutation of the "naturalistic fallacy" and the "open question argument." We can improve our understanding of the nature of moral theory and its place in moral judgment by treating morality as a natural phenomenon subject to constraints from and ultimately reduced to the cognitive and biological sciences. Treating morality as a mafter of proper biological function, partially fixed by our evolutionary history, and with an emphasis on skillful action in the world ("know how"), sheds light on the underlying native connectionist architecture of moral cognition. The author discusses practical implications, regarding the nature and form of our collective character development institutions and our methods for moral reasoning, that arise from this approach, reaffirming Deweyian and Aristotelian points about the importance of sociability, friendship, and liberal democratic forms of social organization for human flourishing.

Natural Ethical Facts

Natural Ethical Facts PDF Author: William D. Casebeer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Connectionism
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Naturalizing ethics has been a problematic philosophic enterprise. The author attempts a synoptic reconciliation of the sciences with a naturalized conception of morality, beginning with a Quinean refutation of the "naturalistic fallacy" and the "open question argument." We can improve our understanding of the nature of moral theory and its place in moral judgment by treating morality as a natural phenomenon subject to constraints from and ultimately reduced to the cognitive and biological sciences. Treating morality as a mafter of proper biological function, partially fixed by our evolutionary history, and with an emphasis on skillful action in the world ("know how"), sheds light on the underlying native connectionist architecture of moral cognition. The author discusses practical implications, regarding the nature and form of our collective character development institutions and our methods for moral reasoning, that arise from this approach, reaffirming Deweyian and Aristotelian points about the importance of sociability, friendship, and liberal democratic forms of social organization for human flourishing.

Natural Ethical Facts

Natural Ethical Facts PDF Author: William D. Casebeer
Publisher: Bradford Books
ISBN: 9780262532785
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An original and comprehensive theory of a naturalized ethic using conceptual tools from cognitive science and evolutionary biology.

Moral Virtue and Nature

Moral Virtue and Nature PDF Author: Stephen R. Brown
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441146474
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
What make someone a good human being? Is there an objective answer to this question, an answer that can be given in naturalistic terms? For ages philosophers have attempted to develop some sort of naturalistic ethics. Against ethical naturalism, however, notable philosophers have contended that such projects are impossible, due to the existence of some sort of 'gap' between facts and values. Others have suggested that teleology, upon which many forms of ethical naturalism depend, is an outdated metaphysical concept. This book argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. Thus, the answer to the question of what makes a good human being is given in terms both objective and naturalistic. The author shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics. This work is a much needed contribution to the ongoing debate about ethical theory and ethical virtue.

Respect for Nature

Respect for Nature PDF Author: Paul W. Taylor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400838533
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
What rational justification is there for conceiving of all living things as possessing inherent worth? In Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor draws on biology, moral philosophy, and environmental science to defend a biocentric environmental ethic in which all life has value. Without making claims for the moral rights of plants and animals, he offers a reasoned alternative to the prevailing anthropocentric view--that the natural environment and its wildlife are valued only as objects for human use or enjoyment. Respect for Nature provides both a full account of the biological conditions for life--human or otherwise--and a comprehensive view of the complex relationship between human beings and the whole of nature. This classic book remains a valuable resource for philosophers, biologists, and environmentalists alike--along with all those who care about the future of life on Earth. A new foreword by Dale Jamieson looks at how the original 1986 edition of Respect for Nature has shaped the study of environmental ethics, and shows why the work remains relevant to debates today.

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics PDF Author: Tom Angier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422632
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
How do ethical norms relate to human nature? This comprehensive and interdisciplinary volume surveys the latest thinking on natural law.

Facts and Values

Facts and Values PDF Author: Giancarlo Marchetti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354672
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. Facts and Values will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law.

Ethics and Moral Science

Ethics and Moral Science PDF Author: Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
Publisher: London, Constable
ISBN:
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Ethical Naturalism

Ethical Naturalism PDF Author: Susana Nuccetelli
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503898
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Ethical naturalism is narrowly construed as the doctrine that there are moral properties and facts, at least some of which are natural properties and facts. Perhaps owing to its having faced, early on, intuitively forceful objections by eliminativists and non-naturalists, ethical naturalism has only recently become a central player in the debates about the status of moral properties and facts which have occupied philosophers over the last century. It has now become a driving force in those debates, one with sufficient resources to challenge not only eliminativism, especially in its various non-cognitivist forms, but also the most sophisticated versions of non-naturalism. This volume brings together twelve new essays which make it clear that, in light of recent developments in analytic philosophy and the social sciences, there are novel grounds for reassessing the doctrines at stake in these debates.

Moral Discourse and Moral Facts

Moral Discourse and Moral Facts PDF Author: Cornell Horn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593301255
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
Many people, to include those in government, believe that what they deem is ethical is based on natural or physical facts. Any greater power may assume justifiability when making moral judgements against another on the presumption that the opposing other missed observing natural facts. Since moral disagreement is far more obvious, real, and apparently a natural aspect of the world, the nature of moral discourse and moral facts had to be examined against ethical naturalism. I only hope that I have shed some light for why dialectical reasoning and ridding chauvinism is so important. - Cornell Horn

Ethics

Ethics PDF Author: Wilhelm Wundt
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1596055030
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The sacrificial meal... has assumed the most varied forms, largely as a result of the secularisation of its ends. We have it, e.g., in the 'celebration' dinner held in joyful remembrance of important family occurrences, or of important public events. We have it, again, in a form peculiar to modern civilization, in the public banquet, where it serves as the material basis for the prosecution of municipal, political or professional interests. -from "The Individual Forms of Life: Food" One of the founding fathers of the modern-day disciplines of experimental and cognitive psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, in this extraordinary work, examines the concept of ethics as a cornerstone of metaphysics, as the basis for an understanding of the universe as a whole. Translated from the second German edition of 1892, here we see all aspects of human behavior and culture-from how we eat to how, and who, we worship-as an interconnected whole, including: . "good" and "bad" . the immoral elements of myth . the gods as moral ideals . the anthropomorphic nature-myth . moral laws as religious commands . the relation of custom to law and morality . polite manners and personal deportment . the family and the tribal union . the feeling of community in nation and state . the invention of tools . the idea of civilization . and much more. OF INTEREST TO: students of psychology, readers of comparative mythology AUTHOR BIO: German psychologist WILHELM MAXIMILIAN WUNDT (1832-1920) was professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. He wrote numerous articles and books in the field of psychology, including the foundational Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874).