"Most modern philosophers attempt to solve the problem of morality from within the epistemological assumptions that define the dominant cultural perspective of our age. Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality is a major work in this ongoing enterprise. Gewirth develops, with patience and skill, what he calls a 'modified naturalism' in which morality is derived by logic alone from the concept of action.... I think that the publication of Reason and Morality is a major event in the history of moral philosophy. (...) It develops with great power a new and exciting position in ethical naturalism. No one, regardless of philosophical stance, can read this work without an enlargement of mind. It illuminates morality and agency for all."—E. M. Adams, The Review of Metaphysics "This is a fascinating study of an apparently intractable problem. Gewirth has provided plenty of material for further discussion, and his theory deserves serious consideration. He is always aware of possible rejoinders and argues in a rigorous manner, showing a firm grasp of the current state of moral and political philosophy."—Mind. (shrink)

Introduction: Morality in Modern and Postmodern Perspective Shattered beings are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke As signalled in its ...

In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising vocabulary, interpreting (...) texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique. (shrink)

This thesis examines the relation between two contrasting approaches to justice: the constructive and reconstructive projects of Rawls and Habermas on the one hand, and the deconstructive projects of Levinas and Derrida on the other. First, I identify the central difference between the two projects, reconstructing each account of justice as it develops in relation to Kant’s practical philosophy. I then argue that the two projects are complementary. [New Paragraph] Whilst Rawls and Habermas emphasise the possibility of objectively realising Kant’s (...) idea of an impartial standpoint among autonomous persons, Levinas and Derrida defend the impossibility of determining the content of justice. Rawls and Habermas subscribe to the “art of the possible”, rendering Kant’s impartial standpoint by means of the “original position” or the “procedures of discourse ethics”. By contrast, Levinas argues for justice’s failure, discovering, in Kant’s moral law, a principle of responsibility for the particular other which conflicts with impartiality. Distinguishing himself from both the reconstructive tradition and Levinas, Derrida affirms, in part through his readings of Kant, the “undecidability” of the critical function of justice. Committed to the possibility of justice, Derrida also acknowledges its impossibility: no local determination can reconcile responsibility before the other with impartiality among all. [New Paragraph] Having identified the central difference between the two traditions, I then defend their complementarity. “Reasonable faith” in the possibility of justice must be supplemented by the acknowledgment of its impossibility. Conversely, attesting to justice’s failure is unsatisfactory without commitment to the possibility of constructing just social forms. Distancing myself from the liberal critique whereby deconstruction withdraws from the political, I instead add my voice to a dissenting group which affirms that deconstruction can productively engage with the constructive tradition. Deconstruction is at home in Rawls’ view that “the ideal of a just constitution is always something to be worked toward”. (shrink)