Under the guidance of Professor Veatch, Aristotle stands forth again as the philosopher who, above all, speaks simply and directly to the common sense of all ...

This book critiques contemporary trends in ethical theory, including the deontological tradition dating back to Kant, the teleological tradition of the utilitarians, the analytic movement, and the existentialist-phenomenologist movement. In refuting these trends, Veatch argues that moral and ethical distinctions cannot be rightly or adequately understood if they are regarded simply as matters of linguistic use but are grounded in the very being and nature of things.

This modern interpretation of Aristotelian ethics is ideally suited for undergraduate philosophy courses. It is also an engaging work for the expert and the beginner alike, offering a middle ground between existential and analytic ethics. Veatch argues for the existence of ethical knowledge, and he reasons that this knowledge is grounded in human nature. Yet he contends that the moral life is not merely one of following rules or recipes, nor is human well being something simple. Rather, the moral (...) life, which Veatch calls 'rational or intelligent living', is the life of practical wisdom where individual judgement of the particular and the contingent is paramount. Veatch's Rational Man offers a pluralistic understanding of human well being without lapsing into moral relativism. For those interested in morality and liberty, Rational Man offers fertile ground for developing an account of free and responsible persons. It has profoundly influenced the work of Den Uyl, Campbell, Machan, Miller, Mack, and many others. (shrink)

This book is a consideration of the differences between Aristotelian and symbolic logic and the consequences these have for how we view the world. What Veatch propose is to try to exhibit with respect to several of the key logical tools and devices propositions, inductive and deductive arguments, scientific and historical explanations, definitions, etc. how these several instruments are differently conceived, both as to their natures and their functions, in each of these respective logics.

This book is a consideration of the differences between Aristotelian and symbolic logic (and the metaphysical assumptions they come packaged with) and the consequences these have for how we view the world. What Veatch propose is to try to exhibit with respect to several of the key logical tools and devices – propositions, inductive and deductive arguments, scientific and historical explanations, definitions, etc. – how these several instruments are differently conceived, both as to their natures and their functions, in (...) each of these respective logics. (shrink)

A collection of essays presented at a two-day symposium on ethics sponsored by Georgetown University to honor Henry Babcock Veatch on the occasion of his retirement from active teaching. Represents both a festschrift for Veatch as well as a tribute to Georgetown University's specialization in ethics at the graduate level and moral education throughout all its curricula.

WHO IN TODAY'S WORLD OF PHILOSOPHY has not been made acutely aware of a singular and even felicitous phenomenon that has arisen in recent moral philosophy from within the natural law tradition? This is the phenomenon of three philosophers of whom it might be said that not only do they have "hearts that beat as one," but even their minds would appear to think as one as well: Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and Joseph Boyle. What could be more appropriate for (...) economy of reference in our critical study than if we simply refer to them henceforth as "the Grifinnboyle"? (shrink)

‘Apologetics’ is hardly a word to be used without apology in the present dispensation. And to speak of anything like a neglected avenue or opportunity in religious apologetics might almost seem as if one were speaking of an opportunity in just such an enterprise as no self-respecting philosopher would nowadays wish even to be associated with. For all of their avoidance of the term, however, the thing designated by the term is something with which not a few philosophers of recent (...) years have been not above dabbling in, albeit usually under other names and other labels. After all, religious language has now come to be recognized as not just a legitimate, but even a fashionable object of philosophic attention. And a concern with religious language has often brought with it a concern with religious attitudes, religious behaviour, religious argumentation — yes, even to the point of occasionally becoming a concern with the very religious realities themselves that religious language, religious attitudes, religious behaviour, and religious argument are presumably all about. True, religious realities in this sense are to today's garden of philosophy pretty much what the tree of knowledge once was to the garden of Eden. In fact, one even suspects that there could be a serpent about somewhere, for cases have been reported of an occasional philosopher Adam or philosopher Eve having yielded to temptation: a consideration of God-talk has been known to lead to cautious admissions that such talk might be cognitively meaningful; a consideration of God-experiences to the admission that such experiences under certain circumstances could be veridical; or, even more rarely, a consideration of proofs for God's existence to the gingerly admission that at least some of these proofs might just possibly be valid. Needless to say, though, such a yielding to temptation on the part of some few contemporary philosophers, while it may not have led to any manifest sewing together of fig-leaves, has certainly brought with it the danger, if not always the reality, of a supercilious expulsion from the glorious Eden of contemporary professional philosophy. (shrink)

“Modern ethics,” so-called, has only in the most recent years come under some very sharp and telling, not to say even devastating, criticism. And what is it that one should understand by this term, “modern ethics”? Well, it is a term used largely by very recent critics to designate that whole tradition in ethics, in part utilitarian and in part Kantian in character, that has quite dominated the study of ethics, at least in Anglo-American philosophy, for upwards of three-quarters of (...) a century and more now. (shrink)

Taking metaphysics in its aristotelian sense to mean the investigation of being qua being, The author contends that its "matrix" (its place of origin, Field of operations, And continuing and ultimate point of reference) is everyday life, Characterized by its practical or existential inescapability. He then examines the charge that the truths of metaphysics illegitimately claim to be both necessary and factual, And argues in response that the objection rests upon a confusion of the character of one's intentional instrument (the (...) sentence or proposition) with that of the object intended. (staff). (shrink)

It is with these words that Alan Gewirth opened his 1972 Lindley Lecture at the University of Kansas. And he immediately followed up his opening words with a more or less blanket indictment of almost the entire group of contemporary writers on meta-ethics, who, he would aver, while claiming to be "rationalists" in the matter of the rational justification of moral principles, and while making much of how far they have distanced themselves from the old-line emotivists in this very regard, (...) have nevertheless just not brought it off, so far as their own provision for any such rational justification is concerned. Thus while the emotivists had tended to hold that such reasons as a person might give in support of moral principles could not really function as reasons, but only as causes that might impel or compel acceptance of such principles, the latter-day "rationalists," as Gewirth calls them, insist that good reasons are always in order and logically relevant, so far as any moral or even evaluative judgment is concerned. Indeed, merely to call a thing good, or to judge an action right or wrong, already implies that such a judgment is put forward as one that is universalizable and for which good reasons can be given. Unfortunately, however,—Gewirth goes on to insist—reasons and justifications of this sort turn out, even on the admission of the rationalists themselves, to be valid only on the prior assumption of what might be called "the moral point of view.". (shrink)

It is fashionable now-a-days to regard Aristotle’s logic as being the skeleton in the closet of Aristotelian philosophy. As Miss Anscombe has acidly remarked, “Aristotle himself … misconceived the importance of the categorical syllogism, supposing that the theory of it gave him the key to the nature of scientific knowledge. He expresses this view in what I find his worst book: Book I of the Posterior Analytics.”.