The World as Will and Idea

The World as Will and Idea
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 584
Release :
ISBN-10 : HARVARD:AH5QUQ
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (UQ Downloads)

Synopsis The World as Will and Idea by : Arthur Schopenhauer

The Basis of Morality

The Basis of Morality
Author :
Publisher : London : S. Sonnenschein
Total Pages : 318
Release :
ISBN-10 : SRLF:A0006758791
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (91 Downloads)

Synopsis The Basis of Morality by : Arthur Schopenhauer

On the Basis of Morality

On the Basis of Morality
Author :
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Total Pages : 272
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781624668494
ISBN-13 : 1624668496
Rating : 4/5 (94 Downloads)

Synopsis On the Basis of Morality by : Arthur Schopenhauer

This edition originally published by Berghahn Books. Schopenhauer's treatise on ethics is presented here in E. F. J. Payne’s definitive translation, based on the Hubscher edition (Wiesbaden, 1946-1950). This edition includes an Introduction by David Cartwright, a translator’s preface, biographical note, selected bibliography, and an index. For convenient reference to passages in Kant's work discussed by Schopenhauer, Academy edition numbers have been added.

Morality from Compassion

Morality from Compassion
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 154
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780192660312
ISBN-13 : 0192660314
Rating : 4/5 (12 Downloads)

Synopsis Morality from Compassion by : Ingmar Persson

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, compassion is the basis of morality. He sees concern for justice as a negative form of compassion, directed at not harming anyone, as opposed to the more far-reaching, positive form of benefiting. He thinks a higher degree of compassion involves realizing that the spatio-temporal separation of individuals is illusory and that in reality they are all identical. Such compassion is impartial and all-encompassing. Compassion is suited to be the centre of morality because its object are negative feelings, and only these are real. Contrary to these Schopenhauerian claims, it is here argued that compassion must be supplemented with attitudes like sympathy and benevolence because positive feelings exist alongside negative feelings; that a concern for justice, though morally essential, is independent of these attitudes which are based on empathy; that these attitudes involve not identifying oneself with others, but taking personal identity as insignificant in empathically imagining how others feel. Schopenhauer is however right that, though these attitudes are spontaneously partial, this can be corrected. His morality is also interesting in raising the question rarely discussed in philosophical ethics of how moral virtue relates to ascetic self-renunciation. Both of these ideals are highly demanding, but the book ends by arguing that this is no objection to their validity.

The Evolution of Morality

The Evolution of Morality
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 285
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780262263252
ISBN-13 : 0262263254
Rating : 4/5 (52 Downloads)

Synopsis The Evolution of Morality by : Richard Joyce

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.

The Moral Point of View

The Moral Point of View
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 326
Release :
ISBN-10 : OCLC:246065767
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (67 Downloads)

Synopsis The Moral Point of View by : Kurt Baier

What Ought I to Do?

What Ought I to Do?
Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Total Pages : 212
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0801487943
ISBN-13 : 9780801487941
Rating : 4/5 (43 Downloads)

Synopsis What Ought I to Do? by : Catherine Chalier

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.

Science and the Good

Science and the Good
Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
Total Pages : 307
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780300196283
ISBN-13 : 0300196288
Rating : 4/5 (83 Downloads)

Synopsis Science and the Good by : James Davison Hunter

Why efforts to create a scientific basis of morality are neither scientific nor moral In this illuminating book, James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky trace the origins and development of the centuries-long, passionate, but ultimately failed quest to discover a scientific foundation for morality. The "new moral science" led by such figures as E. O. Wilson, Patricia Churchland, Sam Harris, Jonathan Haidt, and Joshua Greene is only the newest manifestation of that quest. Though claims for its accomplishments are often wildly exaggerated, this new iteration has been no more successful than its predecessors. But rather than giving up in the face of this failure, the new moral science has taken a surprising turn. Whereas earlier efforts sought to demonstrate what is right and wrong, the new moral scientists have concluded, ironically, that right and wrong don't actually exist. Their (perhaps unwitting) moral nihilism turns the science of morality into a social engineering project. If there is nothing moral for science to discover, the science of morality becomes, at best, a feeble program to achieve arbitrary societal goals. Concise and rigorously argued, Science and the Good is a definitive critique of a would-be science that has gained extraordinary influence in public discourse today and an exposé of that project's darker turn.