Introduction These essays have been written over a period of about ten years and have already been published separately in various places. ...

Frank Palmer, Richard Eldridge, and Martha Nussbaum explore the contributions that imaginative literature can make to ethics. From three different moral philosophical perspectives, they argue that reading literature can help persons to achieve greater moral understanding. This essay examines how each author conceives of moral understanding, particularly in its emotional dimension, and how each thinks that reading literature can promote moral understanding. The essay also considers some implications of this work for religious ethics.

Virtue ethics is standardly taught and discussed as a distinctive approach to the major questions of ethics, a third major position alongside Utilitarian and Kantian ethics. I argue that this taxonomy is a confusion. Both Utilitarianism and Kantianism contain treatments of virtue, so virtue ethics cannot possibly be a separate approach contrasted with those approaches. There are, to be sure, quite a few contemporary philosophical writers about virtue who are neither Utilitarians nor Kantians; many of these find inspiration in ancient (...) Greek theories of virtue. But even here there is little unity. Although certain concerns do unite this disparate group (a concern for the role of motives and passions in good choice, a concern for character, and a concern for the whole course of an agent''s life), there are equally profound disagreements, especially concerning the role that reason should play in ethics. One group of modern virtue-theorists, I argue, are primarily anti-Utilitarians, concerned with the plurality of value and the susceptibility of passions to social cultivation. These theorists want to enlarge the place of reason in ethics. They hold that reason can deliberate about ends as well as means, and that reason can modify the passions themselves. Another group of virtue theorists are primarily anti-Kantians. They believe that reason plays too dominant a role in most philosophical accounts of ethics, and that a larger place should be given to sentiments and passions -- which they typically construe in a less reason-based way than does the first group. The paper investigates these differences, concluding that it is not helpful to speak of virtue ethics, and that we would be better off characterizing the substantive views of each thinker -- and then figuring out what we ourselves want to say. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

'Foot stands out among contemporary ethical theorists because of her conviction that virtues and vices are more central ethical notions than rights, duties, justice, or consequences - the primary focus of most other contemporary theorists. This volume brings together a dozen essays published between 1957 and 1977, and includes two new ones as well. In the first, Foot argues explicitly for an ethic of virtue, and in the next five discusses abortion, euthanasia, free will/determination, and the ethics of Hume and (...) Nietzsche. The final eight essays chart her growing disenchantment with emotivism and prescriptivism and their account of moral arguments. All the essays embody to some extent her commitment to an ethics of virtue... Foot's style is straightforward and readable, her arguments subtle, ingenious, and some of them important.' Choice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Practical Wisdom and Moral Imagination in Sense and SensibilityKaren StohrThere is no single virtue more important to Aristotle's ethical theory than the intellectual virtue of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Yet for all its importance, it is not easy to make sense of this virtue, either in Aristotle's own writings or in virtue ethics more generally. Insofar as Aristotle defines it, he does so opaquely, saying it is "a state (...) grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being." 1Practical wisdom is a form of knowledge aimed fundamentally at acting well. It requires both a general understanding of what is worthwhile in human life and the ability to act in ways that reflect that understanding. 2 My goal in this paper is to explore the latter aspect of practical wisdom in its application to ordinary social behavior. The circumstances that will interest me here are often thought to be the domain of manners or decorum, rather than morals proper. Although no one who takes Hume seriously can deny the moral significance of manners, the relationship between one's inner state of character and how that character is expressed in seemingly mundane behavior has received insufficient attention from moral philosophers. 3 In such a task, there can be few better places to begin than with Jane Austen, whose novels reveal the intricacies of ordinary moral behavior with extraordinary acumen.I shall use Austen's Sense and Sensibility to examine the skill associated with knowing how to behave rightly in the sense we associate with propriety or decorum. This skill is essential to pleasant social life, and hence, on the Aristotelian view, to human flourishing. Yet it is often lacking, even among those who have sound moral principles and good hearts. Well-meaning people frequently say or do what is inappropriate. [End Page 378] Consider, for instance, how common it is for kindly disposed people to say to bereaved friends things like, "it's all for the best" or "be thankful for your other healthy children" or "you're young, you'll marry again." The intricacies of offering sympathy are hard to get right, and otherwise good people can unwittingly leave behind disasters in their wakes.The skill of acting well in complex social situations has interesting links to the capacity for moral imagination. Engaging in imaginative identification with others is essential to empathy. 4 Without suggesting that empathy is at the root of all fluid social interactions, I shall argue that certain characteristic failures to act well in that sphere are imaginative failures. In other words, insofar as the exercise of practical wisdom is present in the realm of manners, it requires moral imagination.Failures of moral imagination, however, can take different forms and have different social effects. I shall use two of Austen's characters in Sense and Sensibility—Marianne Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings—to illustrate different ways in which inadequate imaginative capacity can impede the exercise of practical wisdom. The contrast I shall draw is with Elinor Dashwood, to whom I ascribe practical wisdom in full. 5 This contrast is especially interesting because it is not always very sharp: all three characters have fundamentally good moral principles and warm hearts. Yet unlike Elinor, Mrs. Jennings and Marianne routinely fail to act well, and in characteristic ways. Despite the differences in their characters, they have in common an inability to use moral imagination appropriately. The moral errors of Marianne and Mrs. Jennings occur in relatively insignificant circumstances, but the errors themselves point to something deeper about how the virtue of practical wisdom functions in ordinary moral practice.In exploring the link between moral imagination and moral practice, it will help to remember Aristotle's emphasis on the reciprocity between practical wisdom and the moral virtues. Aristotle held that that practical wisdom is necessary for the exercise of the moral virtues and that conversely, the moral virtues are necessary for the exercise of practical wisdom. 6 The justification for the first of these two claims is clearest in the context of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Since what counts as a virtuous action depends on features... (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive virtue ethics that breaks from the tradition of eudaimonistic virtue ethics. In developing a pluralistic view, it shows how different ’modes of moral response’ such as love, respect, appreciation, and creativity are all central to the virtuous response and thereby to ethics. It offers virtue ethical accounts of the good life, objectivity, rightness, demandingness, and moral epistemology.

In this engaging study, the authors put casuistry into its historical context, tracing the origin of moral reasoning in antiquity, its peak during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and its subsequent fall into disrepute from the mid-seventeenth century.

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy (...) and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a new commentary on the text by A.W.Moore and a foreword by Jonathan Lear. (shrink)

Discusses contemporary notions of the self, and examines their origins, development, and effects.

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek (...) thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy.

_Postures of the Mind _was first published in 1985. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Annette Baier develops, in these essays, a posture in philosophy of mind and in ethics that grows out of her reading of Hume and the later Wittgenstein, and that challenges several Kantian or analytic articles of faith. She questions the assumption that intellect has authority over all (...) human feelings and traditions; that to recognize order we must recognize universal laws—descriptive or prescriptive; that the essential mental activity is representing; and that mental acts can be analyzed into discrete basic elements, combined according to statable rules of synthesis. In the first group of essays—"Varieties of Mental Postures"—Baier evaluates the positions taken by philosophers ranging from Descartes to Dennett and Davidson. Among her topics are remembering, intending, realizing, caring, representing, changing one's mind, justifying one's actions and feelings, and having conflicting reasons for them. The second group of essays—"Varieties of Moral Postures" - explores the sort of morality we get when all of these capacities become reflective and self-corrective. Some deal with particular moral issues—our treatment of animals, our policies regarding risk to human life, our contractual obligations; others, with more general questions on the role of moral philosophers and the place of moral theory. These essays respond to the theories of Hobbes, Kant, Rawls, and MacIntyre, but Baier's most positive reaction is to David Hume; _Postures of the Mind _ affirms and cultivates his version of a moral reflection that employs feeling and tradition as well as reason. (shrink)

In this engaging study, the authors put casuistry into its historical context, tracing the origin of moral reasoning in antiquity, its peak during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and its subsequent fall into disrepute from the mid-seventeenth century.

The food we choose to eat tells a good deal about who we are and how we stand in relation to nonhuman animals and nature as a whole. Though most people are concerned about the state of the world and about their own health, they tend not to reflect very much, if at all, on what results from their dietary choices, and therefore see nothing wrong in eating meat. I question this attitude. Specifically, I argue that, for the same reasons (...) we should care about pain, suffering, well-being, and death in humans, so should we care about the fate of animals we traditionally designate as sources of meat. Caring is supplemented in my argument by considerations of justice, and I contend that for reasons of caring and justice, we should be vegetarians, consistent with the aim of minimizing the harm we cause by our lifestyle choices. Finally, I examine what it means to take responsibility for our diets and challenge meat eaters to come to terms with the wrongdoing that is inherent in the livestock industry today. (shrink)

In this much-anticipated book, Jonathan Dancy offers the only available full-scale treatment of particularism in ethics, a view with which he has been associated for twenty years. Dancy now presents particularism as the view that the possibility of moral thought and judgement does not in any way depend on an adequate supply of principles. He grounds this claim on a form of reasons-holism, holding that what is a reason in one case need not be any reason in another, and maintaining (...) that moral reasons are no different in this respect from others. Ethics Without Principles offers detailed treatment and criticism of opposing positions of all sorts, with useful summaries. It also contains three chapters on the nature of what Dancy calls 'contributory' reasons, which, though the topic of much interest at the moment, are not often discussed in anything like the detail given here. And it offers a distinctive form of value-holism to go with the holism of reasons. As Dancy's definitive statement on particularism, the book will be required reading for all those working on moral philosophy and ethical theory. (shrink)

Recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in the concept of virtue, and with it a reassessment of the role of virtue in the work of Aristotle and Kant. This book brings that reassessment to a new level of sophistication. Nancy Sherman argues that Kant preserves a notion of virtue in his moral theory that bears recognizable traces of the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions, and that his complex anthropology of morals brings him into surprising alliance with Aristotle. She (...) develops her argument through close readings of major texts by both Aristotle and Kant, illustrating points of congruence and contrast. (shrink)

Ancient ethical theories, based on the notions of virtue and happiness, have struck many as an attractive alternative to modern theories. But we cannot find out whether this is true until we understand ancient ethics--and to do this we need to examine the basic structure of ancient ethical theory, not just the details of one or two theories. In this book, Annas brings together the results of a wide-ranging study of ancient ethical philosophy and presents it in a way that (...) is easily accessible to anyone with an interest in ancient or modern ethics. She examines the fundamental notions of happiness and virtue, the role of nature in ethical justification and the relation between concern for self and concern for others. Her careful examination of the ancient debates and arguments shows that many widespread assumptions about ancient ethics are quite mistaken. Ancient ethical theories are not egoistic, and do not depend for their acceptance on metaphysical theories of a teleological kind. Most centrally, they are recognizably theories of morality, and the ancient disputes about the place of virtue in happiness can be seen as akin to modern disputes about the demands of morality. (shrink)

'Most of us are still groping for answers about what makes life worth living, or what confers meaning on individual lives', writes Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self. 'This is an essentially modern predicament.' Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis, analysing the writings of such thinkers as Augustine, Descartes, Montaigne, Luther, and many others. This then serves as a starting point for a renewed understanding of modernity. Taylor argues that modern (...) subjectivity has its roots in ideas of human good, and is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and attain the good. The modern turn inwards is far from being a disastrous rejection of rationality, as its critics contend, but has at its heart what Taylor calls the affirmation of ordinary life. He concludes that the modern identity, and its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, is far richer in moral sources that its detractors allow. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defence of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics. (shrink)

This book is the first to offer a detailed analysis of Aristotelian and Kantian ethics together, in a way that remains faithful to the texts and responsive to debates in contemporary ethics. Recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in the concept of virtue, and with it a reassessment of the role of virtue in the work of Aristotle and Kant. This book brings that re-assessment to a new level of sophistication. Nancy Sherman argues that Kant preserves a (...) notion of virtue in his moral theory that bears recognisable traces of the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions, and that his complex anthropology of morals brings him into surprising alliance with Aristotle. She develops her argument through close readings of major texts by both Aristotle and Kant, illustrating points of congruence and contrast. (shrink)

Moral character is explored in all its dimensions: virtues, vices, attitudes, emotions, commitments, and personal relationships, in addition to right and wrong conduct. The aim is to stimulate personal reflection and group dialogue, rather than to offer solutions. It seeks to sharpen ideas which we use as tools in coping responsibly with our daily lives.

Publisher's description: The realistic spirit, a nonmetaphysical approach to philosophical thought concerned with the character of philosophy itself, informs all of the discussions in these essays by philosopher Cora Diamond. Diamond explains Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive later writings, explores the background to his thought in the work of Frege, and discusses ethics in a way that reflects his influence. Diamond's new reading of Wittgenstein challenges currently accepted interpretations and shows what it means to look without mythology at the coherence, commitments, and (...) connections that are distinctive of the mind. (shrink)

This book contains essays, written between 1965 and 1990, which focus on the need to explore such issues as the nature of moral endeavor, the request for a justification of moral endeavor; the appeal to human flourishing; the nature of the ...

A new volume of philosophical essays by Bernard Williams. The book is a successor to Problems of the Self, but whereas that volume dealt mainly with questions of personal identity, Moral Luck centres on questions of moral philosophy and the theory of rational action. That whole area has of course been strikingly reinvigorated over the last deacde, and philosophers have both broadened and deepened their concerns in a way that now makes much earlier moral and political philosophy look sterile and (...) trivial. Moral Luck contains a number of essays that have contributed influentially to this development. Among the recurring themes are the moral and philosophical limitations of utilitarianism, the notion of integrity, relativism, and problems of moral conflict and rational choice. The work presented here is marked by a high degree of imagination and acuity, and also conveys a strong sense of psychological reality. The volume will be a stimulating source of ideas and arguments for all philosophers and a wide range of other readers. (shrink)

A collection of the author's most influential essays and short works includes her critique of existentialism, her two dialogues on art and religion, key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, the concept of love, and more.

Virtue ethics is perhaps the most important development within late twentieth-century moral philosophy. Rosalind Hursthouse, who has made notable contributions to this development, here presents a full exposition and defense of her neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics. She shows how virtue ethics can provide guidance for action, illuminate moral dilemmas, and bring out the moral significance of the emotions.