Book Description
A systematic analysis considers the objectivity of ethics, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalist worldview and its role in a person's rational lifespan.
Author : David Owen Brink
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 47,30 MB
Release : 1989-02-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521359375
A systematic analysis considers the objectivity of ethics, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalist worldview and its role in a person's rational lifespan.
Author : David Owen Brink
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 43,92 MB
Release : 1989-02-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521350808
This book is a systematic and constructive treatment of a number of traditional issues at the foundations of ethics. These issues concern the objectivity of ethics, the possibility and nature of moral knowledge, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalist world-view, the nature of moral value and obligation, and the role of morality in a person's rational lifeplan. In striking contrast to traditional and more recent work in the field, David Brink offers an integrated defense of the objectivity of ethics.
Author : John M. Rist
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 14,79 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521006088
This 2001 book is a powerful defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism.
Author : J. David Velleman
Publisher : Open Book Publishers
Page : 158 pages
File Size : 25,91 MB
Release : 2015-11-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1783740329
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 : Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 11,49 MB
Release : 1988
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780801495410
This collection of influential essays illustrates the range, depth, and importance of moral realism, the fundamental issues it raises, and the problems it faces.
Author : Anatol Lieven
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 14,81 MB
Release : 2009-03-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0307495337
America today faces a world more complicated than ever before, but our politicians have failed to envision a foreign policy that addresses our greatest threats. Ethical Realism shows how the United States can successfully combine genuine morality with tough and practical common sense. By outlining core principles and a set of concrete proposals for tackling the terrorist threat and contend with Iran, Russia, the Middle East, and China, Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman show us how to strengthen our security, pursue our national interests, and restore American leadership in the world.
Author : Russ Shafer-Landau
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 33,8 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199280209
Moral Realism is a systematic defence of the idea that there are objective moral standards. In the tradition of Plato and G. E. Moore, Russ Shafer-Landau argues that there are moral principles that are true independently of what anyone, anywhere, happens to think of them. These principles are a fundamental aspect of reality, just as much as those that govern mathematics or the natural world. They may be true regardless of our ability to grasp them, and their truth is not a matter of theirbeing ratified from any ideal standpoint, nor of being the object of actual or hypothetical consensus, nor of being an expression of our rational nature. Shafer-Landau accepts Plato's and Moore's contention that moral truths are sui generis. He rejects the currently popular efforts to conceive of ethics as a kind of science, and insists that moral truths and properties occupy a distinctive area in our ontology. Unlike scientific truths, the fundamental moral principles are knowable a priori. And unlike mathematical truths, they are essentially normative: intrinsically action-guiding, and supplying a justification for all who follow their counsel. Moral Realism is the first comprehensive treatise defending non-naturalistic moral realism in over a generation. It ranges over all of the central issues in contemporary metaethics, and will be an important source of discussion for philosophers and their students interested in issues concerning the foundations of ethics.
Author : Mark Timmons
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 19,74 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Ethics
ISBN : 019511731X
Morality Without Foundations investigates fundamental metaethical questions about the meaning, truth, and justification of moral thought and discourse. Mark Timmons maintains that all versions of descriptivism in ethics, particularly certain accounts of moral realism, fail. He argues instead that a correct metaethical theory should embrace some version of non-descriptivism. Timmons defends what he calls "assertoric non-descriptivism" which, unlike traditional non-descriptivist views, holds that moral sentences are typically used to make genuine assertions. In defending this view, he exploits contextual semantics, providing him with the semantic flexibility to develop an irrealist account of moral discourse. Timmons goes on to support a contextualist moral epistemology, completing his overall version of contextualism in ethics. Like his foundationalist rivals, Timmons recognizes that there are moral beliefs that are epistemically basic in providing a basis for the justification of non-basic moral beliefs. Yet, he agrees with the coherentist in maintaining that there are no intrinsically justified beliefs that can serve as a single foundation for a system of moral knowledge. Timmons ultimately finds that regresses of justification of moral belief end with contextually basic beliefs--moral beliefs which, in the relevant context, are responsibly held, but in other contexts might not be suitable as regress stoppers. Timmons' novel defense of morality without foundations offers provocative reading for philosophers working in the areas of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Yet, written with the student in mind, his lucid presentation of difficult ideas makes this book accessible to students and newcomers to the field of metaethics.
Author : John M. Rist
Publisher : CUA Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 23,44 MB
Release : 2012-07-31
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0813219809
Surveying many of Plato's dialogues from the early, middle, and late periods, prominent philosopher John M. Rist shows how Plato gradually came to realize the need for metaphysics to support his ethical position and that a rigorous ethics required a secure metaphysics grounded in universal values.
Author : William J. FitzPatrick
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 26,69 MB
Release : 2022-02-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1108586449
This Element examines the many facets of ethical realism and the issues at stake in metaethical debates about it—both between realism and non-realist alternatives, and between different versions of realism itself. Starting with a minimal core characterization of ethical realism focused on claims about meaning and truth, we go on to develop a narrower and more theoretically useful conception by adding further claims about objectivity and ontological commitment. Yet even this common understanding of ethical realism captures a surprisingly heterogeneous range of views. In fact, a strong case can be made for adding several more conditions in order to arrive at a proper paradigm of realism about ethics when understood in a non-deflationary way. We then develop this more robust realism, bringing out its distinctive take on ethical objectivity and normative authority, its unique ontological commitments, and both the support for it and some challenges it faces.