What We Ought and What We Can

What We Ought and What We Can PDF Author: Alex King
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351259938
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Are we able to do everything we ought to do? According to the important but controversial Ought Implies Can principle, the answer is yes. In this book Alex King sheds some much-needed light on this principle. She argues that it is flawed because we are obligated to perform some actions that we cannot perform, and goes on to present a suggested theory for anyone who would deny the principle. She examines the traditional motivations for Ought Implies Can, and finds that they to a large degree do not support it. Using examples like gay rights, addiction, and disability, she argues that we can preserve many of the motivations that led us to the principle by thinking more about what we, as individuals or institutions, can fairly demand of ourselves and each other.

What We Ought and What We Can

What We Ought and What We Can PDF Author: Alex King
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351259938
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Are we able to do everything we ought to do? According to the important but controversial Ought Implies Can principle, the answer is yes. In this book Alex King sheds some much-needed light on this principle. She argues that it is flawed because we are obligated to perform some actions that we cannot perform, and goes on to present a suggested theory for anyone who would deny the principle. She examines the traditional motivations for Ought Implies Can, and finds that they to a large degree do not support it. Using examples like gay rights, addiction, and disability, she argues that we can preserve many of the motivations that led us to the principle by thinking more about what we, as individuals or institutions, can fairly demand of ourselves and each other.

What Ought I to Do?

What Ought I to Do? PDF Author: Catherine Chalier
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801487941
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Is it possible to apply a theoretical approach to ethics? The French philosopher Catherine Chalier addresses this question with an unusual combination of traditional ethics and continental philosophy. In a powerful argument for the necessity of moral reflection, Chalier counters the notion that morality can be derived from theoretical knowledge. Chalier analyzes the positions of two great moral philosophers, Kant and Levinas. While both are critical of an ethics founded on knowledge, their criticisms spring from distinctly different points of view. Chalier reexamines their conclusions, pitting Levinas against (and with) Kant, to interrogate the very foundations of moral philosophy and moral imperatives. She provides a clear, systematic comparison of their positions on essential ideas such as free will, happiness, freedom, and evil. Although based on a close and elegant presentation of Kant and Levinas, Chalier's book serves as a context for the development of the author's own reflections on the question "What am I supposed to do?" and its continued importance for contemporary philosophy.

The Meaning of 'ought'

The Meaning of 'ought' PDF Author: Matthew Chrisman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199363005
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This book motivates a novel inferentialist account of the meaning of a core set of normative sentences. Building on a careful truth-conditionalist semantics for 'ought' considered as a modal word, Chrisman argues that ought-sentences mean what they do neither because of how they describe reality nor because of the noncognitive attitudes they express, but because of their inferential role.

Ought Implies Kant

Ought Implies Kant PDF Author: Joel Marks
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739133527
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
Ought Implies Kant offers an original defense of the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant, and develops an extension of that theoryOs account of moral duty to include direct duties to nonhuman animals. The discussion centers on a critical examination of consequentialism, the view that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined solely by its consequences. Kantianism, by contrast, claims that the core of ethics is to treat all persons_or, in Joel MarksOs view, all living beings_as ends-in-themselves. The consequentialist criterion would seem to permit, indeed require, violating the dignity of persons (not to mention the dignity of other animals) if this would result in a better outcome. This volume treats the consequentialist challenge to Kantian ethics in several novel ways. To begin with, the utilitarian version of consequentialism is delineated and defended by means of a conceptual device dubbed by the author as the Consequentialist Continuum. Marks then provides an exhaustive and definitive exposition of the relatively neglected Epistemic Objection to utilitarianism. While acknowledging the intuitive appeal of utilitarianismOs core conviction_that we should always do what is for the best_Marks argues that this is an impossible injunction to fulfill, or even to attempt to fulfill, because all of the relevant results of our actions can never be known. Kantianism is then introduced as a viable alternative account of our ethical obligations. Marks argues that Kantianism is well within the scope of normal human competence and conforms equally well to our ethical intuitions once the theoryOs proper interpretation is appreciated. However, KantOs own version must be extended to accommodate the rightful moral consideration we owe to nonhuman animals. Finally, Marks employs the notion of a Consequentialist Illusion to explain utilitarianismOs hold on our moral intuitions, while developing a form of Consequentialist Kantianism to address them. An original and penetrating examination of a central debate in moral philosophy, this book will be of interest to philosophical ethicists, upper-level and graduate philosophy students, and the intellectual reading public.

Is-ought Question

Is-ought Question PDF Author: W.Donald Hudson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349153362
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description


We AinÕt What We Ought To Be

We AinÕt What We Ought To Be PDF Author: Stephen Tuck
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674062299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
In this exciting revisionist history, Stephen Tuck traces the black freedom struggle in all its diversity, from the first years of freedom during the Civil War to President ObamaÕs inauguration. As it moves from popular culture to high politics, from the Deep South to New England, the West Coast, and abroad, Tuck weaves gripping stories of ordinary black peopleÑas well as celebrated figuresÑinto the sweep of racial protest and social change. The drama unfolds from an armed march of longshoremen in postÐCivil War Baltimore to Booker T. WashingtonÕs founding of Tuskegee Institute; from the race riots following Jack JohnsonÕs Òfight of the centuryÓ to Rosa ParksÕ refusal to move to the back of a Montgomery bus; and from the rise of hip hop to the journey of a black Louisiana grandmother to plead with the Tokyo directors of a multinational company to stop the dumping of toxic waste near her home. We AinÕt What We Ought To Be rejects the traditional narrative that identifies the Southern non-violent civil rights movement as the focal point of the black freedom struggle. Instead, it explores the dynamic relationships between those seeking new freedoms and those looking to preserve racial hierarchies, and between grassroots activists and national leaders. As Tuck shows, strategies were ultimately contingent on the power of activists to protest amidst shifting economic and political circumstances in the U.S. and abroad. This book captures an extraordinary journey that speaks to all AmericansÑboth past and future.

What We Owe to Each Other

What We Owe to Each Other PDF Author: T. M. Scanlon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067400423X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
How do we judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? If an action is wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Why should we give such reasons priority over our other concerns and values? In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other. According to his contractualist view, thinking about right and wrong is thinking about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject. He shows how the special authority of conclusions about right and wrong arises from the value of being related to others in this way, and he shows how familiar moral ideas such as fairness and responsibility can be understood through their role in this process of mutual justification and criticism. Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong.

Kant and Applied Ethics

Kant and Applied Ethics PDF Author: Matthew C. Altman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118114132
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Kant and Applied Ethics makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new and interesting directions Clarifies Kant's legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them

The Is-Ought Problem

The Is-Ought Problem PDF Author: G. Schurz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401733759
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Can OUGHT be derived from IS? This book presents an investigation of this time-honored problem by means of alethic-deontic predicate logic. New in this study is the leitmotif of relevance: is-ought inferences indeed exist, but they are all irrelevant in a precise logical sense. New proof techniques establish this result for very broad classes of logics. A profound philosophical analysis of is-ought bridge principles supplements the logical study. The final results imply incisive limitations for the justifiability of ethics as opposed to empirical science.

The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant's Moral Philosophy

The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant's Moral Philosophy PDF Author: Stefano Bacin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107182859
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
A thorough study of why Kant developed the concept of autonomy, one of his central legacies for contemporary moral thought.