Author: David B Wong
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199724849
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
In this book, David B. Wong defends an ambitious and important new version of moral relativism. He does not espouse the type of relativism that says anything goes, but he does start with a relativist stance against alternative theories such that there need not be only one universal truth. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities existing across different traditions and cultures, all with one core human question as to how we can all live together.
Author: Vanessa Lemm
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823262898
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 422
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Book Description
Throughout his writing career Nietzsche advocated the affirmation of earthly life as a way to counteract nihilism and asceticism. This volume takes stock of the complexities and wide-ranging perspectives that Nietzsche brings to bear on the problem of life’s becoming on Earth by engaging various interpretative paradigms reaching from existentialist to Darwinist readings of Nietzsche. In an age in which the biological sciences claim to have unlocked the deepest secrets and codes of life, the essays in this volume propose a more skeptical view. Life is both what is closest and what is furthest from us, because life experiments through us as much as we experiment with it, because life keeps our thinking and our habits always moving, in a state of recurring nomadism. Nietzsche’s philosophy is perhaps the clearest expression of the antinomy contained in the idea of “studying” life and in the Socratic ideal of an “examined” life and remains a deep source of wisdom about living.
Author: David Hume
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM) is a book by Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume. In it, Hume argues (among other things) that the foundations of morals lie with sentiment, not reason. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals is the enquiry subsequent to the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (EHU). Thus, it is often referred to as "the second Enquiry". It was originally published in 1751, three years after the first Enquiry. Hume first discusses ethics in A Treatise of Human Nature (in Book 3 - "Of Morals"). He later extracted and expounded upon the ideas he proposed there in his second Enquiry. In his short autobiographical work, My Own Life (1776), Hume states that his second Enquiry is "of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best."
Author: Jordan Howard Sobel
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118030591
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 430
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Book Description
This unique book provides a modern discussion of David Hume's work in ethical theory and moral judgment Widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers in Western thinking, David Hume contributed significant works that profoundly influenced the study of ethics and morality. Now, in Walls and Vaults, internationally renowned author Jordan Howard Sobel blends Hume's moral theory with his own groundbreaking observations and employs mathematical thought to explore timeless questions about the grounds of morality, the organization of moral principles, and the rationale for being moral. Blending a modern treatment with a classical perspective, this book presents an illuminating account of Hume's philosophy and the contemporary problems that exist in the metaphysics, language, and logic of morals. Two of Hume's eminent works, A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, are used as the cornerstone for the discussion of major topics in the study of morality such as virtue theory, cooperation and coordination, error theory, the prisoner's dilemma, and 'Glaucon's Problem', "Why be moral? Why in particular be just?" Concepts from game theory, logic of conditionals, and decision-making are used to illuminate Hume's ideas. The Bayesian methodology of Hume's science of moral ethics is also underscored throughout the text. Detailed appendices located at the end of selected chapters include technical elaborations, and an extensive bibliography directs readers to additional literature on Hume's works. Extensively class-tested and complete with thought-provoking detail, Walls and Vaults is ideal as a supplementary text in philosophy, economics, law, and political science courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as a valuable reference for scholars specializing in ethics, game theory, and the works of David Hume.
Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190212179
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
The Geography of Morals is a work of extraordinary ambition: an indictment of the parochialism of Western philosophy, a comprehensive dialogue between anthropology, empirical moral psychology, behavioral economics, and cross-cultural philosophy, and a deep exploration of the opportunities for self, social, and political improvement provided by world philosophy. We live in multicultural, cosmopolitan worlds. These worlds are distinctive moral ecologies in which people enact and embody different lived philosophies and conceive of mind, morals, and the meaning of life differently from the typical WEIRD -- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic -- person. This is not a predicament; it is an opportunity. Many think that cross cultural understanding is useful for developing a modus vivendi where people from different worlds are not at each other's throats and tolerate each other. Flanagan presses the much more exciting possibility that cross-cultural philosophy provides opportunities for exploring the varieties of moral possibility, learning from other traditions, and for self, social, and political improvement. There are ways of worldmaking in other living traditions -- Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Amerindian, and African -- that citizens in Western countries can benefit from. Cross-cultural learning is protection against what Alasdair MacIntyre refers to as being "imprisoned by one's upbringing." Flanagan takes up perennial topics of whether there is anything to the idea of a common human nature, psychobiological sources of human morality, the nature of the self, the role of moral excellence in a good human life, and whether and how empirical inquiry into morality can contribute to normative ethics. The Geography of Morals exemplifies how one can respectfully conceive of multiculturalism and global interaction as providing not only opportunities for business and commerce, but also opportunities for socio-moral and political improvement on all sides. This is a book that aims to change how normative ethics and moral psychology are done.
Author: Owen J. Flanagan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190212152
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
Variations -- On being imprisoned by one's upbringing -- Moral psychologies and moral ecologies -- Bibliographical essay -- First nature -- Classical Chinese sprouts -- Modern moral psychology -- Beyond moral modularity -- Destructive emotions -- Bibliographic essay -- Collisions -- When values collide -- Moral geographies of anger -- Weird anger -- For love's and justice's sake -- Bibliographical essay -- Anthropologies -- Self-variations: philosophical archaeologies -- The content of character.
Author: Jesse Prinz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019928301X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347
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Book Description
Jesse Prinz presents a bravura argument for highly controversial claims about morality, which go to the heart of our understanding of ourselves. He argues that moral values are based on emotional responses, and that these are inculcated by culture, not hard-wired through natural selection. These two claims support a form of moral relativism.
Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041563556X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 147
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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.
Author: J. David Velleman
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783740329
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
In this new edition of Foundations for Moral Relativism a distinguished moral philosopher tames a bugbear of current debate about cultural difference. J. David Velleman shows that different communities can indeed be subject to incompatible moralities, because their local mores are rationally binding. At the same time, he explains why the mores of different communities, even when incompatible, are still variations on the same moral themes. The book thus maps out a universe of many moral worlds without, as Velleman puts it, "moral black holes”. The six self-standing chapters discuss such diverse topics as online avatars and virtual worlds, lying in Russian and truth-telling in Quechua, the pleasure of solitude and the fear of absurdity. Accessibly written, this book presupposes no prior training in philosophy.
Author: Paul Martens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567694704
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
This volume draws together leading theologians and Christian ethicists from across the globe to critically engage with and reflect upon Gerald McKenny, widely acknowledged as one of the most original and important Christian ethicists working today. The essays highlight the significance of McKenny's interventions with a range of important debates in contemporary theological ethics, ranging from analyses of the Protestant conception of grace to bioethics and medicine. The Ethics of Grace is the first volume to facilitate critical engagements with a number of key themes in McKenny's work, not in the least his interpretation of Karl Barth. Among the contributions, Jennifer Herdt discusses McKenny's Barthian interest in the relationship between nature and grace; Angela Carpenter uses his Barthian understanding of grace and human action as a framework to discuss Jonathan Edwards; Stanley Hauerwas pushes McKenny's theology beyond Barth. Economic, political, and technological themes are also discussed in depth, for instance in Robert Song's chapter on the phenomenology of biotechnological enhancement. Reaching far beyond the work of Gerald McKenny, this multifaceted volume is a high-level resource for students and scholars of theological and philosophical ethics.
