On the Decline of the Genteel Virtues

On the Decline of the Genteel Virtues PDF Author: Jeff Mitchell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030203549
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This innovative book proposes that what we think of as “moral conscience” is essentially the exercise of reflective judgment on the goods and ends arising in interpersonal relations, and that such judgment constitutes a form of taste. Through an historical survey Mitchell shows that the constant pendant to taste was an educational and cultural ideal, namely, that of the gentleman, whether he was an ancient Greek citizen-soldier, Roman magistrate, Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, Renaissance courtier, or Victorian grandee. Mitchell argues that it was neither an ethical doctrine nor methodology that provided the high cultures with moral and political leadership, but rather an elite social order. While the gentry in the traditional sense no longer exists, it nevertheless made significant historical contributions, and insofar as we are concerned to understand the present state of human affairs, we need to grasp the nature and import of said contributions.

Sharp and Dangerous Virtues

Sharp and Dangerous Virtues PDF Author: Martha Moody
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0804040516
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
It’s 2047 in Dayton, Ohio. In response to food and water shortages, the U.S. government has developed an enormous, and powerfully successful, agricultural area—the “Heartland Grid”—just north of the city. In the meantime, in the wake of declining American power a multinational force has established itself in Cleveland. Behind these quickly shifting alliances lies a troubling yet tantalizing question: what will the American future look like? Sharp and Dangerous Virtues is the story of ordinary people caught in situations they had never planned for or even imagined. There are Chad and Sharis, a married couple with two sons, holding out for normal life in their decaying suburb; Tuuro, a black church custodian whose false confession of murder is used for political purposes; Lila, Dayton’s aging, lonely Commissioner of Water, who dreams of being part of the “pure” existence of the Grid residents; and Charles and Diana, idealistic lovers trying desperately to preserve the nature center that has become their refuge. What will these people do? What choices are left for them, and what choices have been taken away? Whom and what can they trust? Novelist Moody—known for her vivid portrayals of complicated characters and relationships in novels such as Best Friends and Sometimes Mine—weaves together cataclysmic events and the most intimate of human emotions to create a future that seems achingly real. Sharp and Dangerous Virtues will change the way you think and feel.

On the Decline of the Genteel Virtues

On the Decline of the Genteel Virtues PDF Author: Jeff Mitchell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030203549
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
This innovative book proposes that what we think of as “moral conscience” is essentially the exercise of reflective judgment on the goods and ends arising in interpersonal relations, and that such judgment constitutes a form of taste. Through an historical survey Mitchell shows that the constant pendant to taste was an educational and cultural ideal, namely, that of the gentleman, whether he was an ancient Greek citizen-soldier, Roman magistrate, Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, Renaissance courtier, or Victorian grandee. Mitchell argues that it was neither an ethical doctrine nor methodology that provided the high cultures with moral and political leadership, but rather an elite social order. While the gentry in the traditional sense no longer exists, it nevertheless made significant historical contributions, and insofar as we are concerned to understand the present state of human affairs, we need to grasp the nature and import of said contributions.

Deadly Virtues

Deadly Virtues PDF Author: Jo Bannister
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1447236505
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
In this fast-paced thriller, Deadly Virtues, acclaimed writer Jo Bannister proves once again why she is considered "one of the genre's best" (Booklist) The town of Norbold, England is famous for its low crime rate, thanks to the zero-tolerance policy of Chief Superintendent John Fountain. And Norbold’s newest police recruit, Hazel Best, is happy to help keep it that way. But numbers never tell the whole story, do they? Jerome Cardy knew he was going to die. He also knew that it would be made to appear like an accident. He might not be able to prevent it, but Jerome was determined to make sure that someone knew what was going to happen—even if that someone was a man with a concussion lying with his dog in a jail cell next to him. After Jerome is found beaten to death by a fellow inmate in another cell, Ash is unable to forget Jerome’s last awkward words to him: “I had a dog once. Othello. That was its name. Othello.” Certain there is a hidden message in these words, Ash is determined to discover the truth. But it won't be easy—no one believes his account of that night. And Hazel Best must decide whether pursuing the truth is worth her career.

The Bourgeois Virtues

The Bourgeois Virtues PDF Author: Deirdre Nansen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226556670
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 637

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Book Description
For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned the bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues, a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us. McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. High Noon, Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. The Bourgeois Virtues is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.

The Office of Desire

The Office of Desire PDF Author: Martha Moody
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110121760X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
From the nationally bestselling author of the novel Best Friends: a touching novel about five very different people navigating work—and life. Alicia, Brice, and Caroline are the ABCs—three close friends who have been brought together while working at the cozy medical practice of Drs. Markowitz and Strub in Midburg, Ohio. But when Alicia and Dr. Strub begin an affair, a dramatic chain of events ensues that gradually but drastically changes the office environment—ultimately requiring all five coworkers to redefine their relationships to one another. Finally, a questionable business venture precipitates a tragedy that will either tear them apart or bring them closer together. Touching and insightful, The Office of Desire an office novel that will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced the unlikely alliances that develop at work, and seen what happens when those relationships are altered.

The Conferences of John Cassian

The Conferences of John Cassian PDF Author: John Cassian
Publisher: Aeterna Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
THE obligation, which was promised to the blessed Pope Castor in the preface to those volumes which with God's help I composed in twelve books on the Institutes of the Coenobia, and the remedies for the eight principal faults, has now been, as far as my feeble ability permitted, satisfied. I should certainly like to see what was the opinion fairly arrived at on this work both by his judgment and yours, whether, on a matter so profound and so lofty, and one which has never yet been made the subject of a treatise, we have produced anything worthy of your notice, and of the eager desire of all the holy brethren. But now as the aforesaid Bishop has left us and departed to Christ, meanwhile these ten Conferences of the grandest of the Fathers, viz., the Anchorites who dwelt in the desert of Scete, which he, fired with an incomparable desire for saintliness, had bidden me write for him in the same style (not considering in the greatness of his affection, what a burden he placed on shoulders too weak to bear it)--these Conferences I have thought good to dedicate to you in particular, O blessed Pope, Leontius, and holy brother Helladius. Aeterna Press

The Book of Virtues

The Book of Virtues PDF Author: William J. Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126259
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 2005

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Book Description
Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history. William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in The Book of Virtues, an instructive and inspiring anthology that will help children understand and develop character -- and help adults teach them. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions -- the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, The Book of Virtues is a book the whole family can read and enjoy -- and learn from -- together.

Xenophon’s Virtues

Xenophon’s Virtues PDF Author: Gabriel Danzig
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111313573
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
While Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of virtue have received extensive scholarly attention, less work has been done on Xenophon’s portraits of virtue and on his attitude towards the theoretical issues connected with it. And yet, Xenophon offers one of the best sources we have for thinking about virtue in ancient Greece, because he combines the analytical interests of a Socratic with a historian’s interest in real life. Until recently, scholars of Xenophon tended to focus either on the historiographical writings or on the philosophical writings (chiefly Memorabilia, with some attention to the other Socratic writings and Hiero). Cyropaedia was treated as a separate entity, and Xenophon’s short and more technical treatises were generally studied only by those with particular interest in their specialized topics (such as horsemanship, hunting, and Athenian finances). But recent work by Vincent Azoulay and by Vivienne Gray have shown the essential unity of his writings. This volume continues this pan-Xenophontic trend by studying the virtues across Xenophon’s oeuvre and connecting them with a wide range of Greek literature, from Homer and the tragedians to Herodotus and Thucydides, the orators, Plato, and Aristotle.

The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing

The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing PDF Author: Mark Kurlansky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635573084
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
National Outdoor Book Award Winner for Outdoor Literature From the award-winning, bestselling author of Cod-the irresistible story of the science, history, art, and culture of the least efficient way to catch a fish. Fly fishing, historian Mark Kurlansky has found, is a battle of wits, fly fisher vs. fish-and the fly fisher does not always (or often) win. The targets-salmon, trout, and char; and for some, bass, tarpon, tuna, bonefish, and even marlin-are highly intelligent, athletic animals. The allure, Kurlansky learns, is that fly fishing makes catching a fish as difficult as possible. The flies can be beautiful and intricate, some made with over two dozen pieces of feather and fur; the cast is a matter of grace and rhythm, with different casts and rods yielding varying results. Kurlansky is known for his deep dives into specific subjects, from cod to oysters to salt. But he spent his boyhood days on the shore of a shallow pond. Here, where tiny fish weaved under a rocky waterfall, he first tied string to a branch, dangled a worm into the water, and unleashed his passion for fishing. Since then, his love of the sport has led him around the world's countries, coasts, and rivers-from the wilds of Alaska to Basque country, from Ireland and Norway to Russia and Japan. And, in true Kurlansky fashion, he absorbed every fact, detail, and anecdote along the way. The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing marries Kurlansky's signature wide-ranging reach with a subject that has captivated him for a lifetime-combining history, craft, and personal memoir to show readers, devotees of the sport or not, the necessity of experiencing nature's balm first-hand.

Values and Virtues

Values and Virtues PDF Author: Timothy Chappell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199291454
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
After 25 centuries, Aristotle's influence on our society's moral thinking remains profound even when subterranean. Typical members of our society can often be made to see that their moral thought and action are, in crucial ways, unwittingly Aristotelian. No one in contemporary philosophical ethics can afford to ignore Aristotle. Much of the finest work in recent moral philosophy has been overtly and professedly Aristotelian in inspiration. And many writers who would officiallydistance themselves from Aristotle and his contemporary followers are nonetheless indebted to him, sometimes in ways that they do not realise.Values and Virtues provides a platform for some notable writers in the area to present and discuss their new ideas about Aristotelian ethics in a way that will advance the academic debate and engage the interest of a broad range of philosophical readers.