What Can Philosophy Contribute To Ethics?

What Can Philosophy Contribute To Ethics? PDF Author: James Griffin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191065447
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Ethics appears early in the life of a culture. It is not the creation of philosophers. Many philosophers today think that their job is to take the ethics of their society in hand, analyse it into parts, purge the bad ideas, and organize the good into a systematic moral theory. The philosophers' ethics that results is likely to be very different from the culture's raw ethics and, they think, being better, should replace it. But few of us, even among philosophers, settle real-life moral questions by consulting the Categorical Imperative or the Principle of Utility, largely because, if we do, we often do not trust the outcome or cannot even reliably enough decide what it is. By contrast, James Griffin explores the question what philosophers can reasonably expect to contribute to normative ethics or to the ethics of a culture. Griffin argues that moral philosophers must tailor their work to what ordinary humans' motivational capabilities, and he offers a new account of moral deliberation.

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy PDF Author: Christina Hendricks
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781989014189
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
We often make judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. Philosophical ethics is the critical examination of these and other concepts central to how we evaluate our own and each others' behavior and choices. This text examines some of the main threads of discussion on these topics that have developed over the last couple of millenia, mostly within the Western cultural tradition.The book is designed to be used alone or alongside a reader of historical and contemporary original sources, and is freely available in web and digital formats at https: //press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/. If you are adopting or adapting this book for a course, please let us know on our adoption form for the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series: https: //docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdwf2E7bRGvWefjhNZ07kgpgnNFxVxxp-iidPE5gfDBQNGBGg/viewform?usp=sf_link. Cover art by Heather Salazar; cover design by Jonathan Lashley. One of nine books in the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook serie

What Can Philosophy Contribute To Ethics?

What Can Philosophy Contribute To Ethics? PDF Author: James Griffin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191065439
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Ethics appears early in the life of a culture. It is not the creation of philosophers. Many philosophers today think that their job is to take the ethics of their society in hand, analyse it into parts, purge the bad ideas, and organize the good into a systematic moral theory. The philosophers' ethics that results is likely to be very different from the culture's raw ethics and, they think, being better, should replace it. But few of us, even among philosophers, settle real-life moral questions by consulting the Categorical Imperative or the Principle of Utility, largely because, if we do, we often do not trust the outcome or cannot even reliably enough decide what it is. By contrast, James Griffin explores the question what philosophers can reasonably expect to contribute to normative ethics or to the ethics of a culture. Griffin argues that moral philosophers must tailor their work to what ordinary humans' motivational capabilities, and he offers a new account of moral deliberation.

Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics PDF Author: Aristotle
Publisher: SDE Classics
ISBN: 9781951570279
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description


The Evil Within

The Evil Within PDF Author: Diane Jeske
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190685395
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Thomas Jefferson and Edward Coles were men of similar backgrounds, yet they diverged on the central moral wrong of this country's history: the former remained a self-justified slave-holder, while the latter emancipated his slaves. What led these men of the same era to choose such different paths? They represent one of numerous examples in this work wherein examining the ways in which people who perform wrong and even evil actions attempt to justify those actions both to others and to themselves illuminates the mistakes that we ourselves make in moral reasoning. How do we justify moral wrongdoing to ourselves? Do we even notice when we are doing so? The Evil Within demonstrates that the study of moral philosophy can help us to identify and correct for such mistakes. In applying the tools of moral philosophy to case studies of Nazi death camp commandants, American slave-holders, and a psychopathic serial killer, Diane Jeske shows how we can become wiser moral deliberators. A series of case studies serve as extended real-life thought experiments of moral deliberation gone awry, and show us how four impediments to effective moral deliberation -- cultural norms and pressures, the complexity of the consequences of our actions, emotions, and self-deception -- can be identified and overcome by the study and application of moral philosophy. Jeske unsparingly examines the uncomfortable parellels between the moral deliberations of those who are transparently evil (e.g. psychopaths, Nazis), and our own moral justifications. The Evil Within ultimately argues for incorporating moral philosophy into moral education, so that its tools can become common currency in moral deliberation, discussion, and debate.

Moral Imagination

Moral Imagination PDF Author: Mark Johnson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622323X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection.

Honor in Political and Moral Philosophy

Honor in Political and Moral Philosophy PDF Author: Peter Olsthoorn
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438455488
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In this history of the development of ideas of honor in Western philosophy, Peter Olsthoorn examines what honor is, how its meaning has changed, and whether it can still be of use. Political and moral philosophers from Cicero to John Stuart Mill thought that a sense of honor and concern for our reputation could help us to determine the proper thing to do, and just as important, provide us with the much-needed motive to do it. Today, outside of the military and some other pockets of resistance, the notion of honor has become seriously out of date, while the term itself has almost disappeared from our moral language. Most of us think that people ought to do what is right based on a love for jus-tice rather than from a concern with how we are perceived by others. Wide-ranging and accessible, the book explores the role of honor in not only philosophy but also literature and war to make the case that honor can still play an important role in contemporary life.

Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy

Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy PDF Author: Shyam Ranganathan
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120831933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy, by Shyam Ranganathan, presents a compelling, systematic explication of the moral philosophical content of history of Indian philosophy in contrast to the received wisdom in Indology and comparative philosophy that Indian philosophers were scarcely interested in ethics. Unlike most works on the topic, this book makes a case for the positive place of ethics in the history of Indian philosophy by drawing upon recent work in metaethics and metamorality, and by providing a through analysis of the meaning of moral concepts and PHILOSOPHY itself- in addition to explicating the texts of Indian authors. In Ranganathan`s account, Indian philosophy shines with distinct options in ethics that find their likeness in the writings of the Ancient in the West, such as Plato and the Neo-Platonists, and not in the anthropocentric or positivistic options that have dominated the recent Western tradition.

Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy PDF Author: Bernard Williams
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 113680725X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is widely held to be his most important book and is a classic of contemporary philosophy It is assigned on many reading lists on courses on moral philosophy and ethics Ranks alongside Routledge Classics such as Alasdair MacIntyre’s Short History of Ethics and Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good. Our edition includes a very useful commentary by Adrian Moore at the end of the book New foreword by Jonathan Lear

Moral Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Moral Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain PDF Author: Colin Heydt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421091
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
A new account of a vital period in the history of ethics, focusing on the content of morality.