[PDF] Taking Morality Seriously eBook

Author : David Enoch
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 25,45 MB
Release : 2011-07-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 019161856X

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In Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity more broadly. This view—according to which there are perfectly objective, universal, moral and other normative truths that are not in any way reducible to other, natural truths—is familiar, but this book is the first in-detail development of the positive motivations for the view into reasonably precise arguments. And when the book turns defensive—defending Robust Realism against traditional objections—it mobilizes the original positive arguments for the view to help with fending off the objections. The main underlying motivation for Robust Realism developed in the book is that no other metaethical view can vindicate our taking morality seriously. The positive arguments developed here—the argument from the deliberative indispensability of normative truths, and the argument from the moral implications of metaethical objectivity (or its absence)—are thus arguments for Robust Realism that are sensitive to the underlying, pre-theoretical motivations for the view.

Author : David Enoch
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 47,43 MB
Release : 2011-07-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199579962

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David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends Robust Realism--a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity, according to which there are perfectly universal and objective moral truths. He offers elaborate positive arguments for the view, and asserts that no other metaethical position can vindicate our taking morality seriously.

Author : Richard Joyce
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 22,50 MB
Release : 2018-12-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1351122142

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According to the moral error theorist, all moral judgments are mistaken. The world just doesn’t contain the properties and relations necessary for these judgments to be true. But what should we actually do if we decided that we are in this radical and unsettling predicament—that morality is just a widespread and heartfelt illusion? One suggestion is to eliminate all talk and thought of morality (abolitionism). Another is to carry on believing it anyway (conservationism). And yet another is to treat morality as a kind of convenient fiction (fictionalism). We tend to think of moral thinking as valuable and useful (e.g., for motivating cooperative behavior), but we can also recognize that it can be harmful (e.g., hindering compromise) and even disastrous (e.g., inspiring support for militaristic propaganda). Would we be better off or worse off if we stopped basing decisions on moral considerations? This is a collection of twelve brand new chapters focused on a critical examination of the options available to the moral error theorist. After a general introduction outlining the topic, explaining key terminology, and offering suggestions for further reading, the chapters address questions like: • Is it true that the more that people are motivated by moral concerns, the more likely it is that society will be elitist, authoritarian, and dishonest? • Is an appeal to moral values a useful tool for helping resolve conflicts, or does it actually exacerbate conflicts? • Would it even be possible to abolish morality from our thinking? • If we were to accept a moral error theory, would it be feasible to carry on believing in morality in everyday contexts? • Might moral discourse be usefully modeled on familiar metaphorical language, where we can convey useful and important truths by uttering falsehoods? • Does moral thinking support or undermine a commitment to feminist goals? • What role do moral judgments play in addressing important decisions affecting climate change? The End of Morality: Taking Moral Abolitionism Seriously is the first book to thoroughly address these and other questions, systematically investigating the harms and benefits of moral thought, and considering what the world might be like without morality.

Author : Ronald Dworkin
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 457 pages
File Size : 36,41 MB
Release : 2013-10-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1780938330

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A landmark work of political and legal philosophy, Ronald Dworkin's Taking Rights Seriously was acclaimed as a major work on its first publication in 1977 and remains profoundly influential in the 21st century. A forceful statement of liberal principles - championing the legal, moral and political rights of the individual against the state - Dworkin demolishes prevailing utilitarian and legal-positivist approaches to jurisprudence. Developing his own theory of adjudication, he applies this to controversial public issues, from civil disobedience to positive discrimination. Elegantly written and cuttingly insightful, Taking Rights Seriously is one of the most important works of public thought of the last fifty years.

Author : S. Pihlström
Publisher : Springer
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 38,51 MB
Release : 2014-07-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1137412666

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While moral philosophy has traditionally been understood as an examination of the good life, this book argues that ethical inquiry should, rather, begin from an examination of evil and other 'negative' moral concepts, such as guilt and suffering.

Author : Russ Shafer-Landau
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 45,44 MB
Release : 2003-06-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199259755

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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 their being 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 : Ross Poole
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 32,67 MB
Release : 2012-11-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1134959664

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Ross Poole displays the social content of the various conceptions of morality at work in contemporary society, and casts a strikingly fresh light on such fundamental problems as the place of reason in ethics, moral objectivity and the distinction between duty and virtue. The book provides a critical account of the moral theories of a number of major philosophers, including Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Habermas, Rawls, Gewirth and MacIntyre. It also presents a systematic critique of three of the most significant responses to modernity: liberalism, nationalism and nihilism. It takes seriously the suggestion that men and women are subject to different conceptions of morality, and places the issue of gender at the centre of moral philosophy. Poole has written a valuable addition to the Ideas series.

Author : Richard Joyce
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 41,38 MB
Release : 2007-08-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0262263254

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Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.

Author : Christopher B. Kulp
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 49,20 MB
Release : 2017-05-09
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1498547036

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This is a book on metaethics and moral epistemology. It asks two fundamental questions: (i) Is there any such thing as (non-relative) moral truth?; and (ii) If there is such truth, how do we come into epistemic contact with it? Roughly the first half of the book is aimed at answering the first question. Its animating idea is that we should take our ordinary, tutored moral judgments seriously—judgments typified by our conviction that it is clearly true that some acts, policies, social norms et al. are morally right or wrong, permissible or impermissible, praiseworthy or condemnable, etc., no matter when, where, or by whom they are performed. In order to provide a firm conceptual basis for such judgments, the book develops a theory of moral truth, based on a theory of moral facts. The account of moral truth and moral facts is further grounded on a theory of moral properties. In short, the book develops a theory of moral realism, roughly, the view that there are indeed non-relative, first-order moral truths. The second half of the book is aimed at answering the second question above. Building squarely on the metaethical theories developed earlier, the book argues for a non-empiricist theory of justified moral belief and knowledge. Pivotal to this project is a careful analysis of various forms of moral skepticism, by which I mean any conception of morality substantially at odds with the general contours of our ordinary moral thinking. All such skepticisms are rejected, and in their place a broadly intuitionist, epistemically fallibilist theory of moral knowledge is advanced. The conclusion reached is that we have very strong reason to believe that our ordinary moral thinking, although certainly liable to error, is fundamentally sound. Moral knowledge is ubiquitous.

Author : David DeGrazia
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 49,23 MB
Release : 1996-07-13
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780521567602

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This book distinguishes itself from much of the polemical literature on these issues by offering the most judicious and well-balanced account yet available of animals' moral standing, and related questions concerning their minds and welfare. Transcending jejune debates focused on utilitarianism versus rights, the book offers a fresh methodological approach with specific and constructive conclusions about our treatment of animals. David DeGrazia provides the most thorough discussion yet of whether equal consideration should be extended to animals' interests, and examines the issues of animal minds and animal well-being with an unparalleled combination of philosophical rigor and empirical documentation. His book is an important contribution to the field of animal ethics and will be read with special interest by all philosophers teaching such courses, as well as biologists, those professionally involved with animals, and general readers concerned about animal welfare.